Re:1Gbps fiber for $70—in America? Yup.
by ericd on Saturday June 11, 2011 @02:03PM
(#2644428)
What could cause a cable underground to be more susceptible to failure than an aerial cable. I don't buy it.
Re:1Gbps fiber for $70—in America? Yup.
by Nrsolis on Saturday June 11, 2011 @07:10PM
(#2645123)
You don't have to take my word for it. The Telcos did their own reliability surveys.
Underground utilities have do deal with more intrusions from water, ice, salt, digging, backhoes, insects, rodents and other stuff you find at "ground level." Ask any outside plant engineer and they will tell you that cost goes up and reliability suffers when you place utilities underground.
Aerial utilities primarily only have to deal with trees and ice. Oh, and gunshots. In the backwoods, the local yokels will sometimes shoot at transmission towers, taking out the fiber links with them.
Hm interesting. Where I come from, the aerial power cables go down pretty regularly due to wind/trees from storms. I haven't heard of similar issues with the underground lines, but I don't know anyone at the utilities. I would have thought that glass fiber would be impervious to all but backhoes, though.
Re:1Gbps fiber for $70—in America? Yup.
by rosser on Saturday June 11, 2011 @02:41PM
(#2644503)
Among other things, backhoe fade.
Directional boring is one of the most expensive ways to lay cable. Just going underneath at standard two lane road in a residential neighborhood is something like $50-$100K.
Undergrounding utilities (esp in a metro area) runs something like $250K to $1M/mile. There are many, many variables that affect cost.
Underground cables are also much more susceptible to failure when compared with aerial cables. When they do fail, it's sometimes more costly to repair them if they are buried as opposed to attached to a pole.