----- Original Message ----- > From: "Scott Helms" <khe...@zcorum.com>
> > However, for any given ring, you are locked into a single technology > > and you have to put active electronics out in the field. > > Correct, but you can have many layer 2 rings riding your physical ring. In > a normal install you're going to have over a hundred fibers in your > physical ring, I'd personally build it with over two hundred, but > that's just me. And I would personally not design something where the physical layout locks you into a specific *category* of technology (active equipment in the field), but that's just me. :-) > Here's the Graybar catalog with a good breakdown of the kinds of fiber > you can choose from, though you have to have a rep to get pricing: > > http://www.graybar.com/documents/graybar-sps-osp.pdf Nice reference, added to my list; thanks. > > You can't, given a ring architecture, provide dark fiber leases. > > That's incorrect, you simply don't have as many available but in a current > "normal" build you could easily provide 100+ dark fiber leases that extend > from your MDF (still don't like using this term here) all the way down > to the home or business. And, conversely, I could, actually, *build a ring atop home run*; it would just be a folded ring, where the active gear is at the end of each run. > > I realize it is your argument that one doesn't need to do so, > > there's no market for it, etc. However, I don't agree with you. > > No, my argument is that the demand for dark fiber is very low and so > building your network so you can provide every single connection as > dark fiber is wasteful. Doing things which are not quite cost effective *yet* is pretty much the *hallmark* of government, is it not? Hybrid car tax breaks, Solar PV install tax breaks... these things are all subsidies to the consumer cost of a technology, so as to increase its uptake and push it onto the consumer-cost S-curve; this is a government practice with at least a century long history. It's pretty much what I'm trying to accomplish here. And thanks for teasing that thought out of my head, so I can make sure it's in my internal sales pitch. :-) > First, exactly how many and what Layer 2 technologies BESIDES Ethernet > do you think you have a market for? GPON/DOCSIS/RFoG? That's one people are deploying today. Over the 50 year proposed lifetime of the plant? WTF knows. That's exactly the point. To paraphrase Tom Peters, you don't look like a trailbreaker by *emulating what other trailbreakers have done*. I'm not *trying* to do the last thing. I'm trying to do the next thing. Or maybe the one after that. > First, there are very few businesses in the size town we've been discussing > that even have this scenario as a wish list item. "...now." > Second, how many > businesses that need/want remote connectivity for their workers at home > AREN'T running Ethernet on their corporate LAN and at the employees' home? Course they are. > Another thing to remember is that many businesses run VPNs because of the > encryption and controls it provides, not because they can't get or afford > direct connectivity. You have a vanishingly small set of potential > customers IMO. Perhaps. But the *current* potential customer base does not merit locking in a limited design in a 50-year plant build. > > Admittedly, this only works for the employees that live within range, but > > it's an example of the kinds of services that nobody even imagines today > > because we can't get good L1 services cheap yet. > > This is the key point. IF someone was able to put together a nationwide or > even regional offering to allow inexpensive Layer 1 connectivity things > would be different. How, Scott, would you expect that sort of thing might happen? By people taking the first step? Yeah; thought so. My county doesn't have the same first-trencher advantage my city does... but it does have the advantage that *it is nearly 100% built out as well*; we are, I believe, the densest county *in the United States*; maybe Manhattan beats us. Maybe DC; maybe Suffolk County in Mass. So it's not at all impossible that we might be the first domino to fall; there are a lot of barrier island communities near me that would be similarly easy to fiber, since they're so one-dimensional. (Geographically; I'm sure their residents are quite nice. :-) > However, that's not going to happen AND we already > have good cheap solutions to deal with that. Most commonly VPLS over GRE > or VPN whose only real cost beyond the basic home Internet connection, > is a ~$350 CPE that supports the protocol. You're paying $350 for VPN routers? Could I be one of your vendors? > So, if you're running a company > with regional or nationwide offices and home workers would you be attracted > to a more limited method of connection that is only available in certain > areas as opposed to the solution that works everywhere? Which is easier for > your IT staff to support? Accurate, but not germane. They're not my target market. Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth Baylink j...@baylink.com Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100 Ashworth & Associates http://baylink.pitas.com 2000 Land Rover DII St Petersburg FL USA #natog +1 727 647 1274
