“Dig once” bill could bring fiber Internet to much of the US • Hacker News Board

Re: “Dig once” bill could bring fiber Internet to much of the US

#71

Post by ragix » Thu, Mar 23, 2017, 9:42 PM UTC

DiabloD3 wrote: post #4

rayiner wrote: post #2

This is a great bill. It creates a slight public subsidy for broadband, but the total amount of subsidy is minimized by tying it to digging that's already going to be done. This should be extended to power line and water pipe construction. No reason you can't put in some dark fiber while you've got someone up there hanging new power line (which I imagine is way more expensive). Most importantly, it minimizes market d…

More importantly: we already did this. Remember when they overhauled the highway system in a lot of areas back in the late 80s and through the 90s? While they were digging, they dropped a lot of fiber. Almost all of the major routes we use today for teleco/internet routing were laid or substantially upgraded then. Almost all the dark fiber laid was laid then. The hilarious part? Most of the fiber laid could do at lea…

I agree with you here. However some of the 10gbit iom/mdas for the Nokia 77x0 bins are $100,000s.

Re: “Dig once” bill could bring fiber Internet to much of the US

#72

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Mar 23, 2017, 9:46 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #59

rayiner wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm asking about the economic benefits to GDP of rolling out broadband to the places that don't yet have it, considering that they can get satellite.

There are a lot of things you can't do on satellite internet right now. VOIP is the most obvious example.

[deleted]

Re: “Dig once” bill could bring fiber Internet to much of the US

#73

Post by HillaryBriss » Thu, Mar 23, 2017, 10:25 PM UTC

this makes so much sense they'll never do it

Re: “Dig once” bill could bring fiber Internet to much of the US

#74

Post by maerF0x0 » Thu, Mar 23, 2017, 10:40 PM UTC

Honest question. Is there something better/faster than fibre that they should be laying instead? Seems like fiber is just enough to catch up, but we'd rather get ahead.

Re: “Dig once” bill could bring fiber Internet to much of the US

#75

Post by smnscu » Thu, Mar 23, 2017, 10:43 PM UTC

maerF0x0 wrote: post #74

Honest question. Is there something better/faster than fibre that they should be laying instead? Seems like fiber is just enough to catch up, but we'd rather get ahead.

I would also like to know. Google gave me this: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/02/11/scientists-...

Re: “Dig once” bill could bring fiber Internet to much of the US

#76

Post by ubernostrum » Thu, Mar 23, 2017, 10:46 PM UTC

tomschlick wrote: post #26

eldavido wrote: post #19

Isn't all the trouble we have due to last-mile shenanigans? Until we can address that problem, this seems a bit moot. Perhaps what we need is something like this, but at the state/local level.

I believe the idea is that if you can reduce the costs to the major lines, it frees up more money to work on the last mile.

That hasn't worked in the past. Why are we still trying it?

Re: “Dig once” bill could bring fiber Internet to much of the US

#77

Post by Animats » Thu, Mar 23, 2017, 11:03 PM UTC

This has already been done on many long-haul routes. Fiber to the home is tougher. You can lay a tube past all the houses, but connecting to it means putting in an access box, a tube to the house, and somewhere nearby, a concentrator.

Re: “Dig once” bill could bring fiber Internet to much of the US

#78

Post by beezle » Thu, Mar 23, 2017, 11:10 PM UTC

It is a shame that this is just being discussed for use by fiber. If they are going to dig up the roads, you need to put in multiple types of conduit for use by telecom, electric, water, etc.

Re: “Dig once” bill could bring fiber Internet to much of the US

#79

Post by reddytowns » Thu, Mar 23, 2017, 11:16 PM UTC

matt_wulfeck wrote: post #62

phkahler wrote: post #35

There is a down side to this. It would use government money to create a new finite resource and there will be battles over it just like spectrum. From TFA: "Dig once requirements are often opposed by deep pocketed incumbent telephone and cable companies, who build their own infrastructure and would prefer that smaller competitors not have access to cheap and freely available conduit," I suspect the big incumbents wou…

I think the government here is taking a good approach by putting down at least empty pipes , which can be filled by anyone who wants to run fiber through them. This is a reasonable compromise in my opinion. Personally I'd rather they put the fiber in themselves and lease it out, while also giving others the ability to pull their own lines through the pipes.

Our footprint is big enough without us burying plastic pipes underground. We really shouldn't be expanding the amount of artifacts humankind will leave in this world for those in the future to find and click their tongues at.

Re: “Dig once” bill could bring fiber Internet to much of the US

#80

Post by wongarsu » Thu, Mar 23, 2017, 11:17 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #42

DiabloD3 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FTTH is a type of last mile, FTTH is not the only consumer of last mile fiber. The future of America is not, and never will be, FTTH. The future of America is FTTF/FTTDP (fiber to the frontage/distribution point) to a street/basement cabinet that houses current generation micro-headends and micro-DSLAMs that are setup to handle the last 500-1000 feet, speaking G.fast and DOCIS 3.x as very small greenfield installatio…

> There is literally no reason why, today, we don't have at least 50/10 to every goddamned home in America. Every goddamned home, no matter how far you are out in the sticks. Because the country is huge, and building adequate backhaul to sparsely populated areas is very expensive. > This is a drain on our economy every second we aren't working towards this actually rather easy to achieve goal. I find this sort of arg…

Every home is probably overkill. But every home that is also connected to a road, electricity, water and sewage should also have decent internet. Laying fiber for 50/10 everywhere is expensive, but so is building roads everywhere.