On Tue, Aug 5, 2014 at 1:56 PM, Eugeniu Patrascu <eugen@imacandi.net> wrote:
So how is blowing microfibre in some tubes more expensive? You pay a one off installation fee and then a small monthly rate for the circuit (payable yearly).
The really nice and geeky part is that you can actually choose how your fiber will run, so if you want diverse paths to a location you can achieve that with certainty.
Hi Eugeniu, The word you're searching for is "microduct." I'm a big fan of Microduct. There's even some wicked cool equipment which will force the core out of in-place coax plant, converting it to microduct suitable for a fiber installation. But here are some of the places you may run in to trouble using it for a municipal fiber installation: 1. 10 miles of fiber optic cable is expensive (from a consumer perspective) even when you're able to float it through a series of ducts instead of having to trench. Who covers the cost? If the service provider amortizes it for the consumer (instead of the municipal infrastructure provider) then you're right back to the consumer lock-in that damages competition. 2. While microduct supports 12 or 24 fibers in a single duct, it does not support adding or removing fibers from a duct. To install a different quantity, you have to remove all the existing fiber and then blow a completely new set of fibers. Obviously service provider A is not motivated to install extra fibers that service provider B can subsequently sell you service on. Only a bare infrastructure provider would have that motivation. 3. Structure is good. It facilitates reuse. If you permit the fiber to be run between arbitrary points you end up with the same cruft as an office without structured cabling. Even if you use microduct, future-proofing requires central cross-connect points where folks patch. 4. I'm not sure how far you can float fiber down a microduct but I'm pretty sure you don't do it miles at a stretch. So, if you build your system with microduct and fiber-blown-later, you'll have a *lot* of points where the ducts have to be joined. Regards, Bill Herrin -- William Herrin ................ herrin@dirtside.com bill@herrin.us Owner, Dirtside Systems ......... Web: <http://www.dirtside.com/> Can I solve your unusual networking challenges?