AT&T disappointed with offers for struggling DirecTV

[Don in CT]

Nope...for fiber to the home is just one long fiber from the central office to the house...network backbones would have redundancy ...

The fiber has to be spliced though at the nodes.

 

[Juan]

The fiber has to be spliced though at the nodes.

No nodes...its a pon fiber...passive opitical network...i am talking from the terminal in the central office to customer house...there is a splitter just before the house that connects to the drop line to the home...

 

[Don in CT]

No nodes...its a pon fiber...passive opitical network...i am talking from the terminal in the central office to customer house...there is a splitter just before the house that connects to the drop line to the home...

They are not going to run a direct shot to each house from the central office. That would be way too expensive.

 

[Juan]

They are not going to run a direct shot to each house from the central office. That would be way too expensive.

Thats what the splitter is for...depending on the port in the co...could be 32,64 or even 128 customers on each fiber...the splitter is usually on a pole or cev

 

[TheTechGuru]

Thats what the splitter is for...depending on the port in the co...could be 32,64 or even 128 customers on each fiber...the splitter is usually on a pole or cev

and it's a passive splitter, no power required. No power is required anywhere between the customers and the CO (which has two massive generators here) for that matter which makes fiber way more reliable than cable that has powered amps all over town that if one looses power everything past it goes down.

Though the Texas snowstorm blackouts fiber still worked as long as you had a generator while the cable co's went down once the backup batteries on their line amps died.

 

[navychop]

Not to mention, glass fibers will shatter even quite some distance from a large explosion, such as a nuclear one.

But then, I guess we’d have other things to worry about.

 

[ncted]

Thats in a lab...no car accidents taking down poles...the laser will fail long before the fiber needs to be replaced....but here is the real kicker..as lasers get better...they will need different fiber...the people you are talking to are the ones who came up with the 5g self install kit that worked great in a lab but failed miserably in the field...the 5g frequencies were too weak to penetrate walls...verizon bought a bunch of c-band frequencies to replace and suplement the original uhf frequencies...not 5g national..the ultra high speed 5g

He was talking about what they plan for in the field. It is his job to determine how often they should have to replace/fix things for the bean counters. Certainly a tech upgrade could require new fibers in some cases, just like copper.

 

[Juan]

He was talking about what they plan for in the field. It is his job to determine how often they should have to replace/fix things for the bean counters. Certainly a tech upgrade could require new fibers in some cases, just like copper.

But they test in a lab

 

[Juan]

He was talking about what they plan for in the field. It is his job to determine how often they should have to replace/fix things for the bean counters. Certainly a tech upgrade could require new fibers in some cases, just like copper.

Yes I know...you cant test anything in the real world first...takes too long...so they do the best they can do

 

[Juan]

Yes I know...you cant test anything in the real world first...takes too long...so they do the best they can do

I have been an engineering tech for 20+ years so I am a bit biased against lab testing..my job is to make it work..I dont mean to insult or demean anybody working in a lab...they do alot of work

 

[ncted]

I have been an engineering tech for 20+ years so I am a bit biased against lab testing..my job is to make it work..I dont mean to insult or demean anybody working in a lab...they do alot of work

Yeah, field testing only gives so much usable results. Anyway, he says the field data he is given about failure rates for fiber are typically consistent with or better than manufacturer's claims. I am sure that data is sanitized to remove incidents involving a backhoe or a car taking out a utility pole and, normalized by region due to weather extremes, and probably a number of other factors that don't come to mind at the moment. I am also sure much of the fiber infrastructure is still too new to really know for sure as well as most of it would fall into the first couple of quartiles of data.

What I can say for sure is the Bell Atlantic (and later Verizon) guys my co-workers dealt with at Nortel certain beat us up when something didn't work as promised. They had by far the highest standards, and held Nortel to them. When we didn't deliver, it was costly for Nortel. I am sure the same is true for Corning, et. al. in the fiber business as well.

Either way, I still think FTTH everywhere is the best solution. I am sure it could be done as well with copper somehow, but not with the current technologies I am aware of. I am willing to admit, I may be uninformed or incorrect.

 

[Juan]

Yeah, field testing only gives so much usable results. Anyway, he says the field data he is given about failure rates for fiber are typically consistent with or better than manufacturer's claims. I am sure that data is sanitized to remove incidents involving a backhoe or a car taking out a utility pole and, normalized by region due to weather extremes, and probably a number of other factors that don't come to mind at the moment. I am also sure much of the fiber infrastructure is still too new to really know for sure as well as most of it would fall into the first couple of quartiles of data.

What I can say for sure is the Bell Atlantic (and later Verizon) guys my co-workers dealt with at Nortel certain beat us up when something didn't work as promised. They had by far the highest standards, and held Nortel to them. When we didn't deliver, it was costly for Nortel. I am sure the same is true for Corning, et. al. in the fiber business as well.

Either way, I still think FTTH everywhere is the best solution. I am sure it could be done as well with copper somehow, but not with the current technologies I am aware of. I am willing to admit, I may be uninformed or incorrect.

Nortel frame relay?

 

[Jimbo]

Isn't the the same with copper. If a pole gets hit the wires need to be replaced. Most of the infrastructure is above ground no matter what it is.

Tons of the Fiber is Also run above ground ...
There will be issues with Fiber just like with copper (unless ALL Fiber is backfeed like it was talked about years ago, but we know its not ... I'm sure the MAJOR lines are, but most are not).

Squirrels will have a field day with fiber just like copper, and possibly birds as well.

 

[Jimbo]

Don't most fiber networks have redundancy. If one line goes down it re-routes.

Some do, but most don't ....

 

[Jimbo]

Thats what the splitter is for...depending on the port in the co...could be 32,64 or even 128 customers on each fiber...the splitter is usually on a pole or cev

There are many points for a splice in fiber runs.

 

[Jimbo]

and it's a passive splitter, no power required. No power is required anywhere between the customers and the CO (which has two massive generators here) for that matter which makes fiber way more reliable than cable that has powered amps all over town that if one looses power everything past it goes down.

Though the Texas snowstorm blackouts fiber still worked as long as you had a generator while the cable co's went down once the backup batteries on their line amps died.

I doubt that the CO Batteries would diminish enough to be an issue anywhere ... most CO basements are filled with batteries.

 

[ncted]

Nortel frame relay?

Almost certainly. The group I was with worked on almost every product since they did systems packaging, PCB design, environmental and RF testing, and field repair analysis (and probably some things I am forgetting due to the intervening years). The product I remember the most "feedback" on was Spectrum and specifically the DSLAM cards, but the details of the others have faded into the past.

 

[NashGuy]

We have two cable companies with separate hard lines on the poles (Spectrum and Grande) both offering a maximum of 940/50 while AT&T Fiber is 940/940 and currently $51/mo for a year with promos and includes access to HBOMax.

Based on plugging in a random address in their website, it look to me like AT&T Fiber's gigabit service there in Ft. Worth costs the same as it does here in Nashville and lots of other places: $70 (including the $10 gateway fee) the first year, then $90 thereafter. And, yes, HBO Max included free.

 

[slice1900]

Either way, I still think FTTH everywhere is the best solution. I am sure it could be done as well with copper somehow, but not with the current technologies I am aware of. I am willing to admit, I may be uninformed or incorrect.

It can easily be done with copper from the curb with no reduction in speed, over either telco or cable company copper for the last bit. There is zero benefit from bringing fiber all way to the house, let alone inside the house.

The thing is, you either have completely new companies running the fiber (as is the case where I live) who have no choice but to run it all the way because they don't own the copper in your yard, or the telco is doing it and copper has such a bad rap with the public that even though it makes no sense to run fiber all the way to the house they do it anyway because they fear the cable company they are competing with will advertise against it as somehow being not real fiber.

 

[Juan]

It can easily be done with copper from the curb with no reduction in speed, over either telco or cable company copper for the last bit. There is zero benefit from bringing fiber all way to the house, let alone inside the house.

The thing is, you either have completely new companies running the fiber (as is the case where I live) who have no choice but to run it all the way because they don't own the copper in your yard, or the telco is doing it and copper has such a bad rap with the public that even though it makes no sense to run fiber all the way to the house they do it anyway because they fear the cable company they are competing with will advertise against it as somehow being not real fiber.

You have any links for a 1 gig copper connection to the home?