The new technology that’s needed is Fiber To The Premise (FTTP). With the GPON standard, a 1.2Gb Passive Optical Network (GPON) can be split 32 times to give each premise 37.5 Mb service at the least. The reason this isn’t happening on a widespread basis is economics.
I work for a telephone company that is providing DSL and IPTV. We understand to really improving our TV delivery and up bandwidth to our customers we will need to go with FTTP. We did a study on what it would cost to convert areas to FTTP and found that in small cities and towns the cost would be about $1,500 per premise. In the rural areas the cost went up to $24,000 per premise.
On the other hand, there is downward pressure on DSL rates. AT&T/SBC are running ads for DSL as low as $12.95 per month. We also have the FCC and Congress talking about requiring companies like ours to provide ala carte channel selection which would decrease the average revenue per TV customer.
We are deploying FTTP in new housing developments because the difference in costs between burying a fiber drop and a copper drop to a house is not much different. But deploying FTTP to established neighborhoods is not economically feasible at this time.
There’s an even more important reason than cost. The franchise to operate. That’s granted by some local governing body (city council, township board of trustees, etc.) and they’re often reluctant to grant a second franchise for an overbuild.
That situation is rapidly changing though. There are many small independent telcos preparing to roll out video services via IPTV. In fact, my company is consulting with five such telcos to do that right now. The telcos are doing this in the wake of the recent CATV IP telephony deployments. Everybody wants to eat the other guys’ lunches.
Cable has been in Hawaii since the early sixties, if not earlier because of the many valleys, antennaes are generally ineffectual. They rebroadcast the basic vhs channels including the two or three uhf broadcasts and the FM radio channels. When HBO and their ilk came in, not surprisingly, those in the boonies with cable already were the first to partake of their services. People with good antennae service, in the most urban areas, were the last to get it.
I was curious about that too (even more curious about why the dopers seem to have skimmed right past it).
According to a google scan, the Christian Science Monitor had an article late last year that said in August, 62% of cars that were sold were “flex” vehicles which could run on either ethanol or gasoline, and Brazil gets most of its ethanol from sugar cane. link
So, some (maybe even most) cars there can run on ethanol or gas. That’s a pretty big jump to “…they no longer need oil for there vehicles. Everything runs off sugar.”
I have to dispute iinet’s claim to be the “Third Largest ISP in Australia” on the grounds that until you mentioned them and posted a link, I’d never even heard of them, I’ve never seen a TV, radio, or newspaper ad for them, and I’ve never come across anyone with an “@iinet.com.au” e-mail address. A quick questioning of several people I know (including a couple of computer geeks) has the same result: “Who?”
Of course this isn’t a scientific study or even a representative sample, but I can’t see how a company few people have heard of can claim to be “Australia’s Third Largest ISP”.
I always thought the Big ISPs here were Telstra BigPond, Optus, OzeMail, IPrimus, AAPT, and DoDo.
Of course, “Third Largest” could mean anything- from area covered, to number of customers in Regional areas, to the size of the buildings they keep the servers in…
Verizon IS rolling out FTTP to as many places in the country as they can right now. They are also getting whatever licenses they need wherever they can to provide TV over the net. My area may have it by this year. They tested it in a semi small texas town for a few years first. They are going somewhat in debt on this because they are just charging new customers around $40 USD per month for it including hookup.
I am surprised you haven’t heard of them, considering they own OzeMail.
Regardless of whether they are ‘3rd largest’ or not, the point of my post was to illustrate that better technology is in fact available, and not as bad as what has been made out.
Fair enough. I believe our current ISP provides some ultra-fast Broadband as well, but I’m quite happy with our 512/128kb service at the moment… But it’s nice to know the technology is out there!
Expensive compared to what? It’s certainly not expensive compared to other broadband or comparable telephony services.
Admittedly, to get the faster speeds with iinet you have to bundle your phone with them as well, but considering you’d have to rent a phone line anyway I consider this to be a moot point.
Our phone/internet bill each month averages about $85.00AUD, which comprises the $29.95 phone line rental, $49.95 10gb limit internet access, plus about $5.00 worth of calls.
