Part P - new cable colours

[Stefek Zaba]

Ah, an independent voice, then ;-)

Dinosaur-like, I just don't see it. RF spectrum is limited - Messrs Nyquist, Fourier, and Shannon are tediously difficult to bamboozle, whatever the IPO spreadsheet says :-) For the large urban areas, wired wins in cost terms, readily so if you can re-use existing wire (hence xDSL and cable-TV-piggyback schemes), pretty readily if you can re-use existing ducting and wayleaves. If you have to dig new trenches, there's a one-off capital cost, but final equipment cost is cheaper for both operator and subscriber. That's where your business model affects the investment decision - if you want to go after the better-off early adopters and have the infrastructure cost scale quite closely with the numbe of users, the Wireless Way is attractive; if you expect to build to a mass market quickly, the pain of the initial investment is outweighed by future revenues. Admittedly, that argument's easier to make when the finance houses are falling over themselves to pump money into anything with "interweb" in the name than now ;-)

Stefek

[Mike]

Never claimed to be :-) But having helped design the current ADSL system I think I have a reasonable grasp of what works and what doesn't.

Totally agree. But the average number of bits downloaded by most people is really small - they just want the same data with less latency.

I worked on the VDSL standards and have designed suitable equipment to install, but unless the service providers want to use that service, no operator is going to install it. As for cable TV systems - forget it. When they were given their licences they were required to install fibre which would have created the fibre to the house (FTTH) system we really need now, but once the licences were awarded they asked for and got optouts from this requirement because "fibre is too expensive".

Which will bankrupt you, as it did with most cable companies in the 80s/90s.

Not really. Once you are in high volume the cost of most pure electronic items becomes remarkable similar. It's things like mechanicals or displays that vary the price.

Oh if only they were. Raising finance at the moment is grim.

[tony sayer]

You say that, but when the "local" exchange gets ADSL enabled the connections to the wireless networks start to drop off;(

[tony sayer]

In article , Mike writes

And "insultant" eh?, I'm one of they, but I try to keep it quiet;)

Well if they can afford it, from the government who of course are well up for flogging off the radio spectrum. Course there is the small problem of provisioning the service nation-wide at an affordable price...

Nope don't see that at all . Sat is good for "broadcasting" but not for one to one comms..

Yes it could, but somehow don't see that.

I reckon that they'll be a variety of connection method's for a long time to come as yet, the cheapest delivery will win out in the end....

[Hugo Nebula]

On Tue, 30 Nov 2004 13:34:37 +0000, a particular chimpanzee named Tim S randomly hit the keyboard and produced:

Effectively that's what was (is) proposed.

The remit of the Building Regulations is for the health, safety and welfare of people in and around buildings. The provision of ducting for communication cables seems to be going way beyond the definition of 'welfare'. It's the kind of thing that should be left to market forces.

[Andy Hall]

True. Mainly because some of the original operators like Tele2 attempted to reach the consumer market with low cost entry packages for consumers. The equipment and installation costs exceeded the short term revenues and the economy of scale wasn't there to compete with BT, and so these original operators fell by the wayside. Nowadays, AIUI, the majority of WLL customers are businesses willing to pay more.

THis fills a gap in the market between consumer "boadband" (not real broadband) and 2Mb leased line.

[Mike]

If the bandwidth is free, as it will be in US, Canada, middle East, Italy and a few others so far, then rollout cost is remarkably low - there's a complete set of local transmitter aerials covering the country already to get things started. These would obviously gradually be replaced by lower power directional units as the need arises.

How much one to one comms do you do ? For example every Usenet page could be transmitted as it is written and updated every few minutes for new logons. Same with BBC News and all the other high use sites. The potential satallite bandwidth is very high.

We agree on that one. At least provide the regulator or government don't interfere.

[Mike]

What do you expect from a government where social engineering seems to be so high on the agenda. Wouldn't want the poor not to have broadband, would we ? They can do without food, sanitation and so on provided they've got the Internet. Oh dear ........

[Andy Hall]

21st century opium for the masses.

If part Q is mandatory broadband, then part R will be mandatory installation of wireless webcams in the home "to protect people".

I'm expected to see TLC stocking combined low energy light and webcam fittings any day now.........