Re: I pity the people in other countries, since the US is the most technologically-advanced nation in the world.

On Mon, 21 Jul 2008 14:13:19 -0700 (PDT), cryptoguy
<treifamily@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

David Loewe, Jr. wrote:
On Wed, 16 Jul 2008 14:37:55 -0400, mike weber <fairportfan@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
On Wed, 16 Jul 2008 04:26:11 -0500, Andy Leighton
<andyl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Tue, 15 Jul 2008 21:42:49 -0500,
David V. Loewe, Jr <daveloewe@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

One wonders if this is the equivalent of the AT&T effort (fiber to the
node) and the Verizon effort (fiber to the premises) which are already
being rolled out...

I think it is a bit of both but predominately fibre to the kerb (node).

One could, perhaps have actually followed up the link, where one would
have found:

[quote]

Under their plans, the fibre will be linked to the street cabinet --
and in some cases, such as the Olympic village for the 2012 Games --
directly to the premises.

Homes linked to a fibre-to-the-cabinet network will receive initial
speeds of up to 40 MB but BT expects this to increase to 60 MB with
new technologies. Those on a fibre-to-the-premises network will see
speeds of up to 100 MB.

[end quote]

Leave it to Mr. weber to not understand that his wording and posting
history gives rise to the notion that he thinks the Brits are ahead of
us on this. My post, asking as it does if the future project of BT is
equivalent to the already being rolled out projects of AT&T and
Verizon, was intended to firmly put the kibosh on that notion.

I follow this topic, and the broad consensus of people familiar
with the world situation re broadband speed and penetration is that
the US has fallen greviously behind in both.

I'll look up references if people want, but Google is just as close
to you as it is to me. Try checking the speed and penetration
available in (for example) Finland, Estonia, Japan, and South
Korea.

We are *not* the leaders.

Mark Stephens (aka the PBS version of "Robert X. Cringely") has an
interesting column
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2008/pulpit_20080718_005261.html
that touches on this subject. Essentially, he says that we are both
correct in at least some of the arguments we've put forward.

For example, he says that "Of the 30+ nations that can be judged to
have residential Internet service superior to the U.S., in case after
case that superiority can be attributed to government funding of
infrastructure, to largely urban (short-distance) topologies, or to
aggressive competition." which confirms your view that we are behind
some countries, but also confirms my view that factors that do not
apply to those countries have placed us there. As another example of
what I said, he claims that "...the topology of the U.S. Internet is
such that the high-bandwidth technologies applied in Japan would not
work as well here simply because of a larger rural customer base." -
which dovetails nicely with what I said about compact countries with
compact populations.

Additionally, he says the future outlook is not bad - for a number of
reasons - including the fact that AT&T and Verizon have committed to
fiber networks (as I pointed out).

"DOCSIS 3.0 services will begin appearing shortly, offering up to 150
megabits per second, though it is doubtful that many cable ISPs will
jump straight to that level given the emerging xDSL telco limitation
of 24-26 megabits per second.

The telcos, notably AT&T and Verizon, are aggressively building out
their fiber plants. Verizon is taking fiber directly into the home,
but AT&T is taking its fiber only as far as the curb . This ostensibly
limits AT&T to xDSL speed limits, though the company can use channel
bonding (more than one pair of copper wires per service) to increase
speeds if forced to do so by competition. Verizon is rolling out
residential fiber service from 30-50 megabits per second but its
equipment can jump to 100 megabits per second if needed without
requiring another truck roll.

An important secondary motivation for this fiber rollout is that
telcos are not required to share such facilities with competitors as
they have been required to share copper infrastructure under the
Telecommunications Act of 1996. So while there may be competition in
the neighborhood from cable modems, once the fiber is in and the
copper is out the telcos need never again fear competition from
Competitive Local Exchange Carriers (CLECs)."
--
"It's raining soup and we haven't built any soup bowls."
Dr. Jerry Pournelle
.

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