James Knott wrote:
Per Jessen wrote:
Adam Tauno Williams wrote:
about it. Around here it's the electricity companies promoting fibre,
I didn't know you could use fibre to carry electricity. ;-)
Yes, they are using the new kind with the holes.
It is primarily a legal/cost issue. Power companies have the right-of-ways to install the cable (and the labor force).
So do the telcos, but I think they saw fibre as being too expensive whereas the existing copper could be reused for VDSL at very little cost.
I don't know where you are,
About 15min outside Zurich, Switzerland.
but around here, both phone and cable companies moved to fibre many years ago, as it's the only way to carry all the bandwidth necessary today.
Does that include the local loop?? I'm certain the rest of the telco infrastructure is fibre and has been for quite a while, but switching to fibre on the last mile would be a very significant investment, especially when the copper does very well up to about 20Mbit/s.
In new developments, fibre to curb is common and also to large office, apartment & condo buildings.
I'm sure the same is the case here. I don't know what's done in apartment buildings, coz' the telephone system is certainly either ISDN or analogue. Maybe there's a big digital-to-analog converter in the basement of those apartment buildings. Three years ago, I had Swisscom put down 4 new ISDN lines for me - nobody mentioned fibre.
Copper is simply too bandwidth and distance limiting. Many people are too far from the central office to get ADSL, let alone VDSL.
I think the ADSL coverage is pretty good here, 95% or more I suspect, but yes, VDSL is a different story. /Per -- Per Jessen, Zürich (20.7°C) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org