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Stu038 · 12-01-2005, 19:41

I've been an advocate of fibre direct to home for a long time but realistically I don't see it coming for a long time.

A "drop fibre" would have to be armoured to the hilt. If someone was to dig up and damage the fibre running through their garden the first thing they're going to do is a have good nose at it. Imagine the fun that claims direct, the accident group or any of the other lot would have with the blindness that could result. That armouring would make the cables difficult to work with weight and flexibility wise, not to mention could end up making it physically larger than the existing cables which means less cables in a duct so more duct needed.

There would have to be some form of optical splitters in the street cabinets. That causes a whole new range of problems, splitting light generally causes alot more loss of signal than splitting RF this would mean that the lasers firing into the fibre would have to be a lot more powerful so more expensive, also the folks working in the cabinets currently have difficulty in putting covers back onto unused RF ports, theres no reason to believe that they'd be anymore conscientious with fibre splitters so again we have laser energy bouncing around ready to blind the unwary.

Fibre splicers tend to be experienced, qualified and in short supply, unfortunately many of the current crop of installers are the the opposite, so you've got to train a whole bunch of folks on something that no disrespect meant to any installers on the forum many of them wont be able to grasp.

I could add to the list of problems indefinitely, non of them are individually insurmountable but it comes down to one thing, cost.

Despite the continuing reduction in the price and physical size of the electronics and the fibres its still a huge cost. Which with the rate that data encryption/encapsulation technology is evolving isn't yet warranted. In the last few years on a pair of copper cable we've gone from 56K through ISDN, DSL, ADSL who's to say what will be out in the public domain in the next few.

12-01-2005, 19:41	#21
Stu038 RIP Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Leicester Posts: 818	Re: NTL - how far from fibre? I've been an advocate of fibre direct to home for a long time but realistically I don't see it coming for a long time. A "drop fibre" would have to be armoured to the hilt. If someone was to dig up and damage the fibre running through their garden the first thing they're going to do is a have good nose at it. Imagine the fun that claims direct, the accident group or any of the other lot would have with the blindness that could result. That armouring would make the cables difficult to work with weight and flexibility wise, not to mention could end up making it physically larger than the existing cables which means less cables in a duct so more duct needed. There would have to be some form of optical splitters in the street cabinets. That causes a whole new range of problems, splitting light generally causes alot more loss of signal than splitting RF this would mean that the lasers firing into the fibre would have to be a lot more powerful so more expensive, also the folks working in the cabinets currently have difficulty in putting covers back onto unused RF ports, theres no reason to believe that they'd be anymore conscientious with fibre splitters so again we have laser energy bouncing around ready to blind the unwary. Fibre splicers tend to be experienced, qualified and in short supply, unfortunately many of the current crop of installers are the the opposite, so you've got to train a whole bunch of folks on something that no disrespect meant to any installers on the forum many of them wont be able to grasp. I could add to the list of problems indefinitely, non of them are individually insurmountable but it comes down to one thing, cost. Despite the continuing reduction in the price and physical size of the electronics and the fibres its still a huge cost. Which with the rate that data encryption/encapsulation technology is evolving isn't yet warranted. In the last few years on a pair of copper cable we've gone from 56K through ISDN, DSL, ADSL who's to say what will be out in the public domain in the next few.