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Boom, Bubble, Bust: The Fiber Optic Mania [pdf]

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Re: Boom, Bubble, Bust: The Fiber Optic Mania [pdf]

#31

Post by HPsquared »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #22
sandworm101 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But in other areas most residential bandwidth increasingly comes from wireless techs. Even in homes with wired service, nearly everyone uses wifi rather than wires, let alone fiber to end machines. The last mile is generally not fiber, nor is it a literal mile.

Indeed many people, including myself are now in the weird backwards world where the WAN is far faster than the LAN. I have a 3gbps fiber link straight to my house. The only machines in the house that can use anything close to it are the ones that hook up to my USB-C docking station which has a 2.5gbps ethernet port. Everything else is WiFi speeds. EDIT: This was a sudden change. I live rural and for the last 10 years…

This also applies for wireless technology. My phone generally gets a faster connection via 4G, than via WiFi inside my house (the cable connection is fast, but the WiFi is slow). I think because the 4G connection can always see a tower through a window opening, while the WiFi has to go through multiple walls. (No interest in setting up a mesh network as the 4G is plenty fast enough)

Re: Boom, Bubble, Bust: The Fiber Optic Mania [pdf]

#32

Post by HPsquared »

iamacyborg wrote: post #19
martinald wrote: post #16

FWIW this is happening again in the UK right now with FTTH deployments. There are about 10-20 companies of fairly sizeable scale, with hundreds of millions of billons of GBP of funding laying fibre. I think this is a good thing for the country (it has forced Openreach & Virgin Media to massively accelerate their FTTP plans); but it is going to be cataclysmic for the investors. Firstly, the build cost is astronomical…

I suppose this is what happens when infrastructure stops being funded by the government. I’ve got 3 current FTTH providers at my flat in London, I wasn’t even aware other companies were about and also offering the service. I guess this’ll be good for consumer costs in the short term before it inevitably implodes.

Nothing new: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_Mania

Re: Boom, Bubble, Bust: The Fiber Optic Mania [pdf]

#33

Post by TacticalCoder »

sandworm101 wrote: post #14
mangeld wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on the country, where I live it's pretty common to have fiber to the home. Everything runs on that, internet, cable tv and phone calls.

But in other areas most residential bandwidth increasingly comes from wireless techs. Even in homes with wired service, nearly everyone uses wifi rather than wires, let alone fiber to end machines. The last mile is generally not fiber, nor is it a literal mile.

> nor is it a literal mile.

The cost problem of the last mile is not for the 2 meters between the fiber router in the home and the living room. The issue with the "last mile" is that it used to be excessively expensive to lay fiber everywhere on the, literally, last mile outside people's home.

I could plug a network card with an SFP port and have actual "fiber to the desktop" for the last three meters at my place but I don't. I'm not sure that these three meters where I run ethernet are called a "last mile" (off by a factor of 530x calling 3 meters compared to a mile) ad mean I don't have FTTH or that the last mile ain't fiber.

> ... most residential bandwidth increasingly comes from wireless techs.

What good does it make to laptops and phones using WiFi if the router is doing 40 Mbps max over DSL? It's once you bump that DSL link to FTTH that suddenly all these wireless devices can enjoy much faster speeds. In all the countries I've lived in people at home used WiFi, even from their phone, instead of 4G because 4G means lots of $$$ / EUR.

I think you're underestimating the gigantic speed boost many people are enjoying thanks to fiber (and not thanks to 4G) now that they're having FTTH.

Re: Boom, Bubble, Bust: The Fiber Optic Mania [pdf]

#36

Post by dale_glass »

hammock wrote: post #24
sandworm101 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But in other areas most residential bandwidth increasingly comes from wireless techs. Even in homes with wired service, nearly everyone uses wifi rather than wires, let alone fiber to end machines. The last mile is generally not fiber, nor is it a literal mile.

This. Only a few years ago Hacker News commenters were crying out for new laws and regulations to subsidize the construction of Google Fiber to every home in America. “It’s a basic human right” they would say. On the sideline there were a much, much smaller minority who looked at those comments in horror, with the context of knowing that wireless was a serious alternative that wasn’t that far away and was being broad…

I don't see the problem? I have FTTH. I can get 10 Gbps. I don't want wireless, it's an unreliable last resort. If I have the option I'm absolutely going with fiber.

It's also the better long term tech. Fiber has enormous capacity, while wireless is a shared medium impeded by things like walls, and those problems get worse with the increased frequencies needed for more bandwidth.

Re: Boom, Bubble, Bust: The Fiber Optic Mania [pdf]

#37

Post by scoopdewoop »

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #26
hammock wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. Only a few years ago Hacker News commenters were crying out for new laws and regulations to subsidize the construction of Google Fiber to every home in America. “It’s a basic human right” they would say. On the sideline there were a much, much smaller minority who looked at those comments in horror, with the context of knowing that wireless was a serious alternative that wasn’t that far away and was being broad…

The network neutrality discussion belongs in the same bucket. People thought it would be the end of the open internet if there wasn’t a dedicated regulation.

There was dedicated regulation, it was just taken up by states instead of the FCC https://www.techdirt.com/2023/06/12/telecom-industry-ass-kis...

Re: Boom, Bubble, Bust: The Fiber Optic Mania [pdf]

#38

Post by sandworm101 »

hammock wrote: post #24
sandworm101 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But in other areas most residential bandwidth increasingly comes from wireless techs. Even in homes with wired service, nearly everyone uses wifi rather than wires, let alone fiber to end machines. The last mile is generally not fiber, nor is it a literal mile.

This. Only a few years ago Hacker News commenters were crying out for new laws and regulations to subsidize the construction of Google Fiber to every home in America. “It’s a basic human right” they would say. On the sideline there were a much, much smaller minority who looked at those comments in horror, with the context of knowing that wireless was a serious alternative that wasn’t that far away and was being broad…

>> wireless was a serious alternative that wasn’t that far away

But it really isn't. There are hard physics limits on how much data can be transmitted within a given frequency band. Fiber total theoretical bandwidth is is essentially infinite in comparison. All the traffic of the entire internet could probably flow through a single fiber bundle perhaps less than a meter wide. For things like streaming 4k/8k/12k (real 4/8/12k) to multiple devices, wifi will never compete with fixed lines.

Re: Boom, Bubble, Bust: The Fiber Optic Mania [pdf]

#39

Post by xedrac »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #33
sandworm101 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But in other areas most residential bandwidth increasingly comes from wireless techs. Even in homes with wired service, nearly everyone uses wifi rather than wires, let alone fiber to end machines. The last mile is generally not fiber, nor is it a literal mile.

> nor is it a literal mile. The cost problem of the last mile is not for the 2 meters between the fiber router in the home and the living room. The issue with the "last mile" is that it used to be excessively expensive to lay fiber everywhere on the, literally, last mile outside people's home. I could plug a network card with an SFP port and have actual "fiber to the desktop" for the last three meters at my place but…

I recently switched from a supposed 900 Mbps Comcast connection to FTTH, and the difference is astonishing. There's just no substitute for Fiber.

Re: Boom, Bubble, Bust: The Fiber Optic Mania [pdf]

#40

Post by malfist »

hospitalJail wrote: post #30

I'm not limited by my download/upload speed. Heck, 4G or 5G, whatever is on my phone, is absurdly fast. I don't see the demand for consumers. Heck, outside AI, the computer isn't even my bottleneck. Up until ChatGPT/Stable Diffusion was released, I thought computing was near end-game for consumer needs.

640k should be enough for everyone right?
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