Financial world's news today, headline: Google explores ultra-fast Fiber service for dozens of cities...
Fiber to the home.. too expensive for mortals (maybe not Google) to retrofit in areas where cable is overhead, on poles, I suppose. But I remember long ago, GTE wired overhead/on-poles new cable, on the same poles as the ancient cable system in place. Only in 3 or so regions. Each house had a choice of two cable companies, and GTE's (now Verizon) was vastly superior.
Google's fiber to the neighborhood, for cable TV that's underground, might be appealing if they replace the fat coax from their splitter/tap demarcation point, with a fiber device in the same pedestal, and run fiber where the fat coax runs. Inside existing pedestals, they could put a good-sized fiber to coax media converter, self cooled. The power for this would have to be wires in the same jacket as the fiber. Wouldn't need much power (unlike AT&Ts refrigerator sized VRADs that consume hundreds of watts).
The coax to the home stays the same physically, but the RF on that coax is a different concept, based on a switched network.
This avoids replacing the coax to each house which is very expensive. Also avoids trenching each house.
A big hurdle for Google is the lack of local presence, to smooze the city planners/permit department, etc. The cities (in the US) get a franchise fee from the cable co (and telco?) of about 5%. So it's an easy sell.
I have a friend living in a planned community where, some 15 years ago, Verizon / GTE had the foresight to themselves use an easement and put in empty conduits in a 30,000 home area. Last year, they pulled fiber through these and dethroned Time Warner's cable customer base. Zero TW customers now, and more for less $ for the residents.
Fiber to the home.. too expensive for mortals (maybe not Google) to retrofit in areas where cable is overhead, on poles, I suppose. But I remember long ago, GTE wired overhead/on-poles new cable, on the same poles as the ancient cable system in place. Only in 3 or so regions. Each house had a choice of two cable companies, and GTE's (now Verizon) was vastly superior.
Google's fiber to the neighborhood, for cable TV that's underground, might be appealing if they replace the fat coax from their splitter/tap demarcation point, with a fiber device in the same pedestal, and run fiber where the fat coax runs. Inside existing pedestals, they could put a good-sized fiber to coax media converter, self cooled. The power for this would have to be wires in the same jacket as the fiber. Wouldn't need much power (unlike AT&Ts refrigerator sized VRADs that consume hundreds of watts).
The coax to the home stays the same physically, but the RF on that coax is a different concept, based on a switched network.
This avoids replacing the coax to each house which is very expensive. Also avoids trenching each house.
A big hurdle for Google is the lack of local presence, to smooze the city planners/permit department, etc. The cities (in the US) get a franchise fee from the cable co (and telco?) of about 5%. So it's an easy sell.
I have a friend living in a planned community where, some 15 years ago, Verizon / GTE had the foresight to themselves use an easement and put in empty conduits in a 30,000 home area. Last year, they pulled fiber through these and dethroned Time Warner's cable customer base. Zero TW customers now, and more for less $ for the residents.
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