141–150 of 193 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The quote would be so much better if the subject were submarines instead of carriers.
Perhaps... but the non-modular software equivalents of aircraft carriers routinely do launch metaphorical nuclear missiles despite not being intended to ever have that functionality.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the elevator guys cut my phone line 3 times I would be a little concerned about the safety of that elevator.
Hard to tell. The phone line may have been wired incorrectly or poorly which required the tech to do that
It seems like a lot of commenters don't understand the problem. The issue is not about whether that copper wire can be useful. It's not about whether there exist alternatives to provide in places where the copper is too expensive to maintain. The point is that regulations previously required the telco provide an alternative service that works just as well as the existing copper before they are allowed to stop maintai…
Reading the article I dreamed of a community system were every flat / house was a wireless peer in a mesh grid.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Texas/@32.4826637,-98.4527...
It seems like a lot of commenters don't understand the problem. The issue is not about whether that copper wire can be useful. It's not about whether there exist alternatives to provide in places where the copper is too expensive to maintain. The point is that regulations previously required the telco provide an alternative service that works just as well as the existing copper before they are allowed to stop maintai…
It's one step closer to a Mad Max world.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is likely that someone did realize this, did the math on the labor costs to pull all the wire up across the country, and realized it wouldn't actually be profitable. There are guys that track individual ships across the ocean to decide what/when to trade, I doubt everyone missed the value of ATT's physical assets.
What's your take on Nickel, Cobalt, etc metal market that goes into modern batteries?
Pardon the possibly ignorant question, but what do the telecom companies have to gain by destroying their own infrastructure? I feel like I'm missing something about the US telecom market here. Aren't these companies making a profit on this infrastructure? Are they selling more profitable services and they want users to switch over? Are the maintenance fees that high?
You can put tens of thousands of copper lines communications in just a single optical cable. An optical cable is extremely small, in fact, most of the cable is just mechanical reinforcement. Tens of thousands of copper fibers does not only means lots of cables with lots of devices that could fail, with lots of interference. It means that if something goes wrong, it it very hard to identify the problem or even to have…
I'm in an apartment building in NYC. While a new service elevator was being installed, the elevator guys cut my phone line 3 times, and 3 times Verizon came out to fix it, at no cost to me. However after the third time, the building management refused to allow copper wire service to continue in the building. It turns out I was 1 of only 2 apartments which hadn't already moved to a cable/internet/phone package from on…
> the elevator guys cut my phone line 3 times I would be a little concerned about the safety of that elevator.
Highly relevant quote: At one time, 80% of AT&T's capital value was the copper in the local loops. AT&T was then, in effect, the world's largest copper mine. Fortunately, this fact was not widely known in the investment community. Had it been known, some corporate raider might have bought AT&T, terminated all telephone service in the United States, ripped out all the wire, and sole the wire to a copper refiner to get…
I live in a small community an hours drive from San Francisco. There is only ATT DSL. (no cable, only a couple cell services and none at all for some - including myself - due to the hills and valleys)
I am lucky and have DSL (5Mbps, and most of the time really 2Mbps, barely any upstream and it slows the downstream to a crawl when using it - example: watching youtube on 240p setting freezes when checking your email).
Many in my town have been without home internet for years. And even if you have cell coverage, the 10G of tethered data per month (that is what Verizon "unlimited" is) - can be eaten away in a day by a person not realizing their computer is updating or watching netflix on 720p.
There was once a healthy ecosystem of local ISPs. the big players killed them and now those healthy ecosystems will need to grow back. But it will be painful for those who have to go through networking withdraw.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can put tens of thousands of copper lines communications in just a single optical cable. An optical cable is extremely small, in fact, most of the cable is just mechanical reinforcement. Tens of thousands of copper fibers does not only means lots of cables with lots of devices that could fail, with lots of interference. It means that if something goes wrong, it it very hard to identify the problem or even to have…
Yes, there's some advantages however some services don't work(alarms, etc) on fiber.