[IP] Fiber Optics Takes the Long Way Home
Delivered-To: dfarber+@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2003 12:20:59 -0800
From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
[Note: This item comes from reader Jack Powers. DLH]
At 9:59 -0800 12/31/03, Jack Powers wrote:
Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2003 09:59:24 -0800
Subject: Fiber Optics Takes the Long Way Home
From: Jack Powers <jack@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Fiber Optics Takes the Long Way Home
Despite decades of experiments, big telecom companies are moving ever so
sluggishly to extend fiber optics to individual residences.
By Jeff Hecht
December 31, 2003
A strange chasm is opening up across the landscape of home
telecommunications. On one side, bold visionaries are bringing the
tremendous information-carrying capacity of optical fibers all the way to
homes. On the other side, stodgy and stingy corporations are clinging to
aging copper wires, claiming that homes don't really need fiber's
bandwidth-and that fiber is too expensive anyway. The reluctance of the
telecom companies bodes badly for the future.
<...>
That record raises a very troubling question-are today's giant
stockholder-owned communications companies incapable of the massive
investment needed to build a new network? Are they limited to
nickel-and-dime patches until aging infrastructure falls apart because
managers don't dare to tell Wall Street they need to spend on long-term
rebuilding? The mega-corporations that operate today's networks are not
the same ones that built them. They know how to milk the old cash machine,
but there is distressingly little evidence that they are capable of
building a new one to meet tomorrow's needs. I hope they can prove me wrong.
<http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/wo_hecht123103.asp>
Archives at: <http://Wireless.Com/Dewayne-Net>
Weblog at: <http://weblog.warpspeed.com>
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