Flexible Optic Fiber Promises Cheaper Last Mile

bn0p writes "Ars Technica has an article on a Korean company that has developed a low-cost, flexible, plastic optical fiber that could bring cheaper 2.5 Gbps connections to homes and apartments. While not as fast as glass fiber, it is significantly faster than copper. In related news, Corning recently announced a flexible glass fiber that can be bent repeatedly without losing signal strength. The Corning fiber incorporates nanostructures in the cladding of the fiber that act as 'light guardrails' to keep the light in the fiber. The glass fiber could be as much as four times faster than plastic fiber. Neither fiber is available commercially yet, but both should help with the last mile problem when they are deployed."

Cabling expense

[EmbeddedJanitor (597831)]

Physical cabling, of any sort, is cheap if you're already digging trenches etc.

If you don't have other reasons to dig trenches etc, then wireless is typically far cheaper because the installation costs are zero.

Re:Cabling expense

[BadAnalogyGuy (945258)]

Physical cabling, of any sort, is cheap if you're already digging trenches etc.

This explains why Europe is so far ahead of the U.S. in terms of broadband penetration.

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[timeOday (582209)]

Finally some dividends from WWI.

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[calebt3 (1098475)]

But it is less reliable. And the highest speeds offered by Clearwire in my area is the lowest speed offered by Comcast.

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[westlake (615356)]

If you don't have other reasons to dig trenches etc, then wireless is typically far cheaper because the installation costs are zero

If the installation costs are zero, why has municipal WiFi flat-lined?

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[Bandman (86149)]

all kinds of reasons.

-wireless backbones suck after you get too many nodes, and maintaining dedicated landlines to APs gets expensive quickly
-maintaining an infrastructure of finicky boxes in inaccessible locations which need constant coddling to maintain their functionality
-rampant bandwidth abuse (see tragedy of the commons)
-overly limited access locations due to the distance limitations, and the fact that tree leaves suck up 2.4ghz like no one's business

And despite that, there are some places where they

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[terrymr (316118)]

Massive lobbying campaigns by incumbent telcos, who in some cases even bought laws prohibiting such municipal systems.

Re:Cabling expense

[nmg196 (184961)]

> wireless is typically far cheaper because the installation costs are zero.

Err, no. Wireless is very expensive to install. Even more expensive perhaps than mobile phone networks (mainly because you need 50-100 times more access points than you need for mobile phones (due to the very low transmission powers the standard permits).

Why do you think that there are almost no cities with city-wide wireless access, years after the technology became prevalent? Most people have problems getting WiFi working in their house - let alone trying to get it to work for a whole town without all the channels massively overlapping. Municipal WiFi won't take off until the standard (perhaps a NEW standard) allows higher transmission powers and a larger frequency band for extra channels.

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[Ephemeriis (315124)]

wireless is typically far cheaper because the installation costs are zero.

Sure, in theory, it's cheaper because you don't have to sling cables/dig trenches/whatever... But in practice I've found it usually costs just as much as a wired installation, if not more.

Wireless if fickle. You'll have a great connection in one room and then it'll go to hell in the next. You'll be fine with five users connected and then it'll go to hell when a sixth connects. The weather affects signal strength, as do human bodie

Two decades too late

[BadAnalogyGuy (945258)]

Flexible fiber optic may be a great solution for our broadband needs, but their true calling [mooncostumes.com] is now twenty years passed.

Actually,

[WindBourne (631190)]

The plastic one would be great in the last 100 feet (33 meters). It would be nice to run fiber through the home, as well as a cat 5. The cat 5 can carry power (POE). But if that plastic can carry 2.5G AND is easy AND cheap to install, it will quickly make waves in the housing industry.

Re:Actually,

[hjf (703092)]

CAT6a and CAT7 can work up to 10G, provided you use appropriate connectors such as Siemon's TERA, which can also be used for carrying telephone and CATV over the same wire. If you need the full 10G, you use 4 pairs. If you don't need 10G, you can use less pairs and the rest for other things (i.e: your PVR could use CATV, POTS, and still have 5Gbps for data). I know, I know, when 10G is commonplace, maybe we won't have CATV and POTS anyway.

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[Firethorn (177587)]

I'd rather just run a couple copper wires with the fiber if you want a combined power/information source. PoE is something of a hack. You'd be able to push more power with a couple of dedicated wires, for lower cost - simpler construction because you only need a couple wires even if you increase the gauge, don't need to twist them, etc...

As for the other poster, I've seen those connectors - complex and expensive looking even(especially?) compared with fiber connectors. After a certain point fiber IS chea

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[Firethorn (177587)]

Standard ATSC HD streams are up to 19.3Mbps. A few of these can comfortably stream on a decent 100Mbps switch.

Thanks, I was looking for those figures, but couldn't find them, so I went off from some compressed video I have - it's 720p, and came out to be around 1megabit. Plenty of room to stream that, at least across a switched 10mbit network.

Hmmm... wiki lists ATSC as being able to carry 'several' video and audio streams, but that's probably at lower than maximum resolutions.

Given your example, yeah, you'

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[Jeff DeMaagd (2015)]

POE is basically irrelevant. You may as well forget about it. It's not going to power anything but the lowest power devices. I do have a POE setup for the device from the ISP, the bandwidth from that device certainly isn't limited by the copper. POE will work for a wired VoIP phone though, but then, I think people favor cordless devices, neither really push enough to merit the use of fiber.

no they won't

[EjectButton (618561)]

Not in the United States anyway, our "last mile problem" has a lot more to do with entrenched telecom and cable companies with regional monopolies than any sort of fiber bendiness.

Re:no they won't

[calebt3 (1098475)]

Those monopolies only exist because they have the government's blessing. You can bet that they will be broken up shortly if the legislators find out that they could be getting their pr0n faster. Unless maybe those monopolies give enough bribe money that the legislator can pay for a 2.5Gb connection without thinking twice.

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[Courageous (228506)]

Cable Television in many areas of the US is not government sanctioned as a monopoly, but is one anyway, because the situation is indeed natural. Has to do with the economics of digging and competing. Better not to, just tacitly agree to territories.

C//

Last mile = Apartment Buildings

[imstanny (722685)]

Flexible fiber optics would do wonders for apartment buildings and its residents. With cable going digital in 2009, this would be very important. BTW - check out the back of your plates - it may be made by Corning as well (mine is).

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[calebt3 (1098475)]

This could be a good incentive for a us to finally get out of our parent's basements and into apartments of our own.

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[explosivejared (1186049)]

There will still be monopolies and that's a fact. The only change that may made is in who is playing the game. This could do wonders however in kicking out the telcos already entrenched and fattened with fiber money which they have done nothing constructive with.

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[Firethorn (177587)]

Cable is already mostly digital, in many areas. Or were you thinking about the shutting off of analog broadcast TV that's happening in 2009?

Besides, shipping digital data over coax is not exactly unknown technology. modern technologies can have it carrying lots of digital technology, in that you can treat it like a whole range of RF channels - it'd be like transmitting on every channel available for 802.11a,g, and hundreds more*. It's kinda like increasing transmission over a single fiber by using lasers

Will this matter?

[tsotha (720379)]

I don't think the cost of the actual cable will change the equation very much. I've been out of it for more than ten years, but even then you could get fiber for less than $1/foot - I assume it's even cheaper now. I have to believe most of the cost lies in planning, getting permits, and digging trenches.

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[guruevi (827432)]

Depending on what you want it's between 50c and $1,50 per foot. Compare that to CAT5e which is $0,05/foot, multiply by 200.

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[timeOday (582209)]

$200 is only 3 months of Comcast subscription fees.

cheaper 2.5 Gbps connections

[seanadams.com (463190)]

cheaper than the one I have now? sweet!

Invest for the long-term

[r_jensen11 (598210)]

What I don't get is why we seemingly refuse to invest for the long-term in the United States. Sure, some companies do, generally the smarter ones. But when it comes to public infrastructure, politicians haven't found a way to inform the public that by spending 2x as much now, we're saving 20x as much over the next n years.

I know that technology evolves at a rapid rate, but if we invest more money now and use the same amount of energy* now (compared to doing investing less money and the same amount of energy), then we can use the energy that's left over from not having to double our efforts next year for other causes.

*energy here is refering to human capital.

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[Shajenko42 (627901)]

What I don't get is why we seemingly refuse to invest for the long-term in the United States. Sure, some companies do, generally the smarter ones. But when it comes to public infrastructure, politicians haven't found a way to inform the public that by spending 2x as much now, we're saving 20x as much over the next n years.

Perhaps because we don't believe them?

It's easy to SAY that you'll save a lot in the future, and then not deliver. Most likely the particular politician that claimed that will have

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[rmerry72 (934528)]

...politicians haven't found a way to inform the public that by spending 2x as much now, we're saving 20x as much over the next n years.

Politicians, business leaders - hell most people - don't believe/see/understand/care (pick one) that a stitch in time really works. If they can't see immediate bang for buck then they won't support it. That's the way our world is now and has been for a while. Instant gratification. Apollo program got cut because of the same attitude, lack of spending in helath/roads/telec

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[ThousandStars (556222)]

In many ways we do invest for the long term. POTS has been around for about a century. For another example, my parents' house was built in 1996 or something like that, and they have an option for something like six phone lines if they so choose. Except they now use cell phones and have zero phone lines -- oops! All the money spent on those extra copper lines doesn't matter, but I know they'd use fiber optic lines if the builder had had the foresight to include them.

Fast forward to today. As I stated in an e [slashdot.org]

Re:Invest for the long-term

[Belial6 (794905)]

Unfortunately, fiber would be just as bad of a long term decision. How about conduit. If instead of just allowing builders to lay wire, they should run conduit under the roads, and right up to the house, and that the conduit is owned by the city/county. The city/county could then rent the last mile to anyone that wants to offer data services. We could actually have competition in the telecom and cable tv industry. If this were done in new construction or during times when major reconstruction is already in progress, the cost would be dramatically less than than trying to do this in established neighborhoods. I would bet that once people started seeing the benefits, you would see demand for retrofitting older neighborhoods with conduit. This would also turn the last mile into an on going revenue source for the cities/counties.

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[Belial6 (794905)]

Here in the US they don't do conduit at all. The reason they don't is because it is cheaper cheaper to just run the cables, and the only way you will get developers to spend an extra dime is if it mandated by the city/county. While it sounds like NZ has the problem half solved, allowing the company to own the conduit is only slightly better in practice than letting them bury their cables directly. (By the way, when we are saying conduit, we are not talking about a protective sheathing, but are talking ab

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[p0tat03 (985078)]

politicians haven't found a way to inform the public that by spending 2x as much now, we're saving 20x as much over the next n years.

Because they're not likely to be around in 15-20 years, or even more. By the time Joe Public realizes what a marvelous public infrastructure decision that was, 20 years ago, the politician is long gone from office, perhaps even retired. Why let the incumbent take all the glory for your handiwork? In the meantime the taxpayers are bitching and moaning about why they have to build this expensive infrastructure *now*. Politicians are only as short-sighted as the constituents they serve.

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[Squalish (542159)]

You can also see the other end of this.

• Given that there are temporary measures an officeholder can take to push back major forseeable crises.
• Given that these measures improve the immediate situation and deepen the intensity and inevitability of said crisis
• Given that we have elected an officeholder who's not motivated by pure benevolence towards his constituents, and is self-interested in immediate popularity/power.
• And given that this officeholder is term limited.

What motivation does this officeholder have

Installation cost

[RedWizzard (192002)]

Is the cost of the cable really that relevant? I thought it was the cost of installing the cable that was the major stumbling block.

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[memrob (1144041)]

I think you're correct - cable itself isn't the greatest expense - even the custom ends on the cables are fairly cheap, though more expensive than with copper as they are a bit finicky. But the installation is the expensive part. Civil utilities are installed in new subdivisions by government contractors by the local city or county in most places, but television cable and phone lines? I'm not so sure who foots the bill for that infrastructure. This doesn't even mention that installing new fiber in alrea

Fiber faster than copper? Ummm....no

[cafucu (918264)]

While not as fast as glass fiber, it is significantly faster than copper.

Not quite, since speed =/= bandwidth. Fiber can provide more bandwidth than copper because lasers can light fiber up and turn it off quickly without a problem, whereas electrical charges on a conductor tend to hang around for a bit. But the actual delay from source to destination is faster on copper. Again, speed =/= bandwidth.

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[BlueParrot (965239)]

Eh? Are you concerned about the speed of the light pulse in the cable? In that case let us just say that you are going to need a REALLY fancy cable to get any relevant improvements...

Wrong summary

[ihavnoid (749312)]

The research group is mentioned to be in "Korea Institute of Science and Technology", which is better known as KIST here in Korea, isn't a company. It is a government research agency.

Last mile...

[Usquebaugh (230216)]

My understanding is that the last mile problem is all to do with the cost of laying wire not the cost of the wire itself. Also, if everybody has gigabit connections the cable provider is going to have to invest in some very serious switching and upstream connections. In short fixing the last mile will probably only expose problems up stream.

I keep wondering about god playing dice and quantum entanglement. Currently, the labs are stuck at a few miles. But if they can up the range and speed would this not be a better solution. A cable of infinite length that is also secure that you can give to any ISP. ISP would be an open market and speeds would go up as costs went down. No need for cable/wireless so zero installation costs.

So is QE going to happen or is it just my poor grasp of the subject matter?

Peopel always missunderstand quantum...

[BlueParrot (965239)]

Using quantum interactions to transmit information also requires you to transmit a signal the old fashion way. This is essentially what prevents you from exceeding the speed of light. You would also need a way to distribute the entangled particles ( each pair can be used only once ). The advantage of quantum entanglement is completely down to its ability to transfer quantum states ( no set of classical information can completely describe a quantum mechanical system ) and it's security against eavesdropping

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[jrcamp (150032)]

In short fixing the last mile will probably only expose problems up stream.

How do you think progress is made? At any given point in time there will be one bottleneck in a system. Things progress by removing the bottlenecks one by one. You fix the slowest part and then move on to the next slowest part. Over time, the system as a whole evolves to become faster as its parts do.

If it exposes problems upstream then great! It means we have removed a bottleneck and the next worst one will be fixed. Other

TFA misses the point

[timmarhy (659436)]

It's not the cable itself that's expensive, it's laying it.

Wow!

[SailorSpork (1080153)]

You mean I can get internet porn even faster with these plastic rope thingys? Sign me up!

Better idea

[ILuvRamen (1026668)]

What's wrong with copper? I'd freakin love even 100 MBPS at my house! That's like a minute and a half for a good quality DVD movie instead of hours. And copper can do gigabit so geeze. They just need more of it and better network switches and routers instead of cheaping out and giving crap service to everyone to save a buck

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[Jeff DeMaagd (2015)]

Fiber propogates much longer distances and easier. Your 10/100 ethernet is only up to (IIRC) 100 meters. The same goes to gigabit, but that's even touchier.

If the last mile matters

[ThousandStars (556222)]

There's a reasonable chance wireless will eventually solve many of the last mile problems; I recently cancelled Millennium Cable in Seattle for ClearWire [clearwire.com] instead. Right now it isn't available everywhere and the service isn't particularly fast by fiber standards, as its 1.5 down /756 (I think) up. But if the technology improves faster than fiber can be rolled out we might not care by the time 2011 rolls around.

This isn't news at all!

[by Anonymous Coward]

The article writers and poster have no idea what they are talking about. Unfortunately most of us fiber scientists & engineers got laid off during the tech crash.

Plastic fiber has been around for decades. It is cheap. The problem with plastic fiber is that your signal won't go as far as with a glass fiber. However, for "last-mile" use, you don't need to worry about signal loss since you aren't going very far. The big cost in "last-mile" is digging up the ground and putting in the cable/conduit/fiber. Th

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[calebt3 (1098475)]

If you build it, they will come...
Providing speeds like this will allow service providers to expand into new frontiers with internet connectivity. Real-time access to a remote drive comes to mind, as well as entirely hi-def video streams.

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[QuantumG (50515)]

Cool! Where can we buy it? How much does it cost?