On Thursday 27 August 2009 15:04:59 Leo Bicknell wrote:
In a message written on Thu, Aug 27, 2009 at 09:58:22AM +0100, Alexander Harrowell wrote:
An interesting question: as the population gets sparser, the average trench mileage per subscriber increases. At some point this renders fibre deployment uneconomic. Now, this point can change:
This statement makes no sense to me.
The cost to dig a trench is cheaper in rural areas than it is in urban areas. A lot cheaper. Rather than closing a road, cutting a trench, avoiding 900 other obsticals, repaving, etc they can often trench or go aerial down the side of a road for miles with no obsticals and nothing but grass to put back.
So while mileage per subscriber increases, cost per mile dramatically increases. The only advantage in an urban enviornment is that one trench may serve 200 families in a building, where as a rural trench may serve 20 familes.
But more puzzling to me is the idea that fiber becomes uneconomic. This may have once been true, but right now you can buy 10km or even 40km lasers quite cheaply. Compare with copper which for even modest speeds requires a repeater every 2-4km.
True. But there is - there has to be - a limit, when the 70% or so civil works cost eats everything else. The limit may be more or less restrictive, but limit there is.