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From: brianc@zeta.saintjoe.edu (Brian Capouch)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Fiber Optics and ESS??
Message-ID: <2160@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 14 Dec 89 11:20:14 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 9, Issue 573, message 5 of 10

In TELECOM Digest #570, Marvin Sirbu writes:

>Replacement of existing copper to the home with fiber is a decade (at
>least) away.

I wish he would have marked this as an opinion.  This topic, of
course, has been the subject of hot debate amongst telco and
networking techies, not to mention savvy venture capitalists, for the
past year at least.  There is definitely *not* yet a consensus.

I am of the "sooner" frame of mind.  With the advent of FDDI, SONET,
and other high-bandwidth fiber technologies, coupled with a decreasing
premium for the cost of installing fiber, there is bound to be a move
on the part of *all* common information carriers to wire everything
new with fiber.  This will, IMHO, cause an upsurge in demand on the
part of business and residential consumers, and that resultant demand
will push providers into rewiring the rest of the plant with fiber.

The bigger question is *who* is going to do the wiring.  Will it be TV
cable companies, local telcos, or some other innovative entity that is
out there on the fringes right now, waiting for the cashflow equations
to work out right?  The "50 Megabit Living Room" that the folks at the
Media Lab have been talking about will be here sooner than most think.
"Telecommunications" magazine carried a very informative article about
the financial aspects of fiber to the home a year or so ago, and I'm
sold on the 5-year timespan as being most likely.  But of course, this
is just an opinion.  I'm inviting flames.