Re: Funding the Internet

I don't know about CA but in the US for the last 20-30 years all the trunks have been fiber. The only copper being laid was the "last mile" between the Central Office and the end-user, and even that is turning to fiber as more and more businesses and residences want high-speed access.
Hal Rosser wrote:
"Roedy Green" <see_website@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:78eqv35fiibcj4if9j1pvp1gcoonbb0f78@xxxxxxxxxx
I have seen various people predicting a major overloading of the
Internet coming. Demand is growing very rapidly, and nobody is
building the infrastructure fast enough to handle it.

Initially the US government, under the leadership of forward thinking
politicians like Al Gore funded the "information super highway" which
created the backbones to make today's Internet possible.

It has been spectacularly successful, and could fail from its own
success and overly rapid growth.

To keep this golden goose alaying we need major funding for converting
the whole thing to fibre, to increase bandwidth, to make various
technological changes, to make it less susceptible to spam, DOS,
viruses, worms and terrorism.

The obvious way to raise this money is with taxes. I think it is
reasonable for North America, Australia and Europe to fund this and
not worry about the impoverished countries contributing.

Copper has become a semiprecious metal. Thieves break into homes just
to steal the copper. This may actually spur the conversion to fibre
for communications. All we need now is a way of delivering electric
power without copper or in ways that make it very hard to get at.
--

The present network was overbuilt - and is mostly fiber already. (In the US.)
Increases in capacity come from both more fiber and better electronics.
Putting more channels on the same fiber is cheaper than burying another group of fiber-optic cables.
http://www.lageman.com/bandwidth.htm


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: 21CN
    ... Fiber to the premises, or at lest to street boxes, is not so far fetched though. ... If you remove the copper wires altogether the power wires aren't gong to interfere with the fibre..and medium high voltage DC could be used as well.. ... BT to run power and fibre down them? ...
    (uk.telecom.broadband)
  • Re: Phone Line Interfacing - FCC Part-68
    ... fiber, to keep from having to tear up roads and sidewalks. ... concrete conduits are almost full of copper, so they pull one cell full ... there are few poles being taken down to ... they replaced the aerial cables over 10 years ago. ...
    (sci.electronics.design)
  • Re: Phone Line Interfacing - FCC Part-68
    ... fiber, to keep from having to tear up roads and sidewalks. ... concrete conduits are almost full of copper, so they pull one cell full ... there are few poles being taken down to ... they replaced the aerial cables over 10 years ago. ...
    (sci.electronics.design)
  • Re: Funding the Internet
    ... created the backbones to make today's Internet possible. ... Copper has become a semiprecious metal. ... This may actually spur the conversion to fibre ... Increases in capacity come from both more fiber and better electronics. ...
    (comp.lang.java.advocacy)
  • Re: Funding the Internet
    ... fiber as more and more businesses and residences want high-speed access. ... Here in BC most subscribers are using DSL piggybacked on a copper ... I have seen fibre being laid, but I don't see the IAPs advertising ...
    (comp.lang.java.advocacy)