In places like Palo Alto all of the fiber to the home is done with fiber strung from utility poles. I believe the same is true of the fiber to the home setups in Washington state (east of Lake Washington at least).
It's a cheaper way to do it but yeah it does have issues with weather and all. (cables getting cut by trees etc..) The major reason for not doing it underground is probably due to building rights and such which might be more trouble than they are worth for google at this point. Plus the conduits are expensive, might be cheaper to just put new cables when some break than building conduits.
The coating will be nearly the same of the copper wires and regarding the fragility i guess they are not deploying a single fiber, so the cable composed by multiple fibers should have the same mechanical characteristics of the copper one. Imo, no particular differences from the weather endurance point of view.
Given that the fiber is placed inside of duct that it's strung from the poles you could reasonably expect it to have the same resilience as existing copper infrastructure. Hanging anything from the poles, especially if they are used for delivery of electricity, is heavily regulated so there shouldn't be any weather related issues that wouldn't also take out copper. Those should consist primarily of things like downed poles.
I guess part of the consideration is that if something was able to take down the fiber being strung on the utility poles, then it most likely took down the power along with it.
There are standards for stringing up wire. I'm pretty sure that there is a heavy jacket protecting the cable, which is sometimes attached to a metal wire.
The alternatives aren't really viable. In most US cities, there aren't shared utility conduits underground, so burying cable means marking safe dig areas and burying cable in dedicated trench -- dumb idea.
Making things worse, utility poles are revenue generators for the local telephone and electric company, so there is no incentive to move aerial cable installations underground.
In Washington state (Whatcom/Skagit/Island county), I would estimate that most of the fiber optics are aerial. Some extra work needs to be done to dampen vibrations due to the wind, but this is relatively simple.
Aerial fiber can be very inexpensive. In Bellingham, a pair on a 70km run could be had for the about the same recurring cost as a T1, and build-out is fast and cheap.
I watched Verizon string fiber optic cable on the pole in front of my home from my porch last week. The Time Warner fiber optics in my area are also riding on that same pole.
This is a bit off-topic, but the fact that stringing or burying wire is necessary for ISPs is one of the arguments for net neutrality legislation.
The networks rightly point out that they invested lots of money in their infrastructure, and argue that therefore they should be able to do whatever they want with it.
Net neutrality proponents would reply that the public has invested in the network, too: we've allocated a scarce resource, like space on our utility poles or under our roads, to the ISP. (Not to mention friendly policies, actual subsidies, etc.) Only a limited number of wires can be put on a pole or under a road.
If an ISP can provide service without using any scarce public resources, they should be able to sidestep regulations. But I can't think of a way to do that: it's either physical space or radio spectrum, neither of which is infinite.
Net neutrality legislation may be a bad idea; I don't pretend to understand all of the issues involved. I would certainly be irritated if my tax dollars subsidized an ISPs infrastructure, and my road was torn up to lay their cable, and they then took that service and throttled YouTube in an effort to give their own video service an advantage.
But maybe that's a boogeyman argument and such things wouldn't happen.
I can definitely see both sides of the coin, but there isn't a neat or clean answer. The old telcos like Verizon, AT&T, etc see bandwidth as a limited resource that needs to be rationed.
Companies like Google in Kansas City sees bandwidth as being like a parking lot for a big box store, or a subway stop for a big-city department store -- a funnel to bring in customers.
I think the compromise lies in the middle -- you need a physical regulatory environment like Germany, where the actual conduits for public utilities are owned by the public. Then you have the companies compete on the value they bring to the table -- customer service, a better global network, price.
It will really depend on how well Google accomplishes their goal. If it becomes a money sink, it won't be a revolution. Part of the reason Google is doing this is to get first hand knowledge of the costs and challenges.
If you read the article it says that they are looking to optimize price for high adoption rates unlike many of the existing community fiber projects. Until pricing is announced no one knows what that means, but it does seem to be pointing towards more affordable high speed internet connections.
Considering that the primary definition of the word "revolution" actually refers to circular motion, I'd say we're both being a little pedantic right now.
Couldn't we find a word that is somewhere "below" revolution to describe this? Bringing connectivity to parts of the world that don't have it might be a revolution, but just bringing faster connections to people who can download more HD content doesn't seem revolutionary
I don't think the article is saying speed and connectivity are the revolution, rather that Google will revolutionize the ISP industry by providing a profitable network without ripping off consumers.
I know this is right out there, but why not focus on going wireless to solve this 'need to avoid digging stuff up' hurdle? I thought advances in wireless speeds was going to be the real revolution.
24 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 64.2 ms ] threadI was under the impression that fiber needs to be underground; is running it over utility poles a common occurrence?
It'll be interesting, Kansas City can have pretty intense weather.
The alternatives aren't really viable. In most US cities, there aren't shared utility conduits underground, so burying cable means marking safe dig areas and burying cable in dedicated trench -- dumb idea.
Making things worse, utility poles are revenue generators for the local telephone and electric company, so there is no incentive to move aerial cable installations underground.
In Washington state (Whatcom/Skagit/Island county), I would estimate that most of the fiber optics are aerial. Some extra work needs to be done to dampen vibrations due to the wind, but this is relatively simple.
Aerial fiber can be very inexpensive. In Bellingham, a pair on a 70km run could be had for the about the same recurring cost as a T1, and build-out is fast and cheap.
The networks rightly point out that they invested lots of money in their infrastructure, and argue that therefore they should be able to do whatever they want with it.
Net neutrality proponents would reply that the public has invested in the network, too: we've allocated a scarce resource, like space on our utility poles or under our roads, to the ISP. (Not to mention friendly policies, actual subsidies, etc.) Only a limited number of wires can be put on a pole or under a road.
If an ISP can provide service without using any scarce public resources, they should be able to sidestep regulations. But I can't think of a way to do that: it's either physical space or radio spectrum, neither of which is infinite.
Net neutrality legislation may be a bad idea; I don't pretend to understand all of the issues involved. I would certainly be irritated if my tax dollars subsidized an ISPs infrastructure, and my road was torn up to lay their cable, and they then took that service and throttled YouTube in an effort to give their own video service an advantage.
But maybe that's a boogeyman argument and such things wouldn't happen.
Companies like Google in Kansas City sees bandwidth as being like a parking lot for a big box store, or a subway stop for a big-city department store -- a funnel to bring in customers.
I think the compromise lies in the middle -- you need a physical regulatory environment like Germany, where the actual conduits for public utilities are owned by the public. Then you have the companies compete on the value they bring to the table -- customer service, a better global network, price.