On Tue, October 23, 2007 4:06 pm, Jack Bates wrote:
Errr, 8 pairs per customer? Even 4 is a step backwards. If we're going to do construction at that level, might as well drop in fiber. We're still enjoying the fact that ADSL runs on 1/2 a pair while the customer's phone service is out.
Doing (or getting the incumbent to do, where the last mile is a monopoly) a little bit more of what you already do seems to be an awful lot easier than doing something completely different. Certainly in the (admittedly all European) countries where I've seen it done, getting 4 or 8 copper pairs from a customer site to the exchange is an order of magnitude or more difference in both cost and lead time to doing anything at all with fibre. Every house I've lived in has had 4 pairs already going from the house to the first street cabinet, with just the first pair connected for voice, and getting a second line has always just needed a patch onto a spare pair from the cab to the exchange. Obviously if *everyone* wants 4 or 8 pairs to their house, there's going to need to be a lot more copper between the exchange and the street cabs. It's not clear that *everyone* wants upstream though, and 2M to 5M on a single pair (depending on distance / quality) is quite possible if you wanted to think in terms of ubiquitous symmetric service. I take it that getting spare / new copper in the US is more painful? Regards, Tim.