I am not sure this isn't because of the odd Italian justice system. If you want to get a better understanding of the justice system in Italy read the Monster of Florence by Douglas Preston. It is a fascinating read on a serial killer that ran wild from the 60s to the 80s.

What you will learn is that the Italian system is no where near what you would expect a civilized country to have. The prosecutor discarded the idea that it was a single serial killer killing couple and mutilating them for the notion that a Satanic cult was doing it. Anyone who tried to prove otherwise soon became accused of being part of the Satanic cult making the whole event look like the Salem Witch Trials. Preston himself got accused, even though he did not arrive in Italy until the 90s.

The worst part - the judge bought that non-sense. And as an interesting side note the same judge became involved with the Amanda Knox case (the American accused of murdering her room mate). What did they come up with in that case? That the victim died as part of "some kind of Satanic rite, with Amanda allegedly first touching Meredith with the point of a knife, then slitting her throat." It would be funny if it wasn't a court of law.

In the end it made me understand that what would never stand up in court in other western courts can happen in Italy - it just does not surprise me.

The reason it is smaller than you would think is a thing called reachability. While I do not work with submarine cables I have been doing fiber optic equipment for about 20 years. From a metro perspective the numbers seem small given DWDM systems that can achieve many channels of 40G and 100G but there are limitations particularly related to distance. I really am not sure what the amps are (I would guess mostly EDFAs and RAMAN amps plus some back to back amps for regen to clean the signal up) but the higher the speeds the shorter the distance and more amps are needed. All of this adds complexity in an inhospitable environment and greatly adds to the cost.

If anything surprises me about this article is the cost - $300 million seems a bit cheap for the fiber (in an armored submarine cable), transmission equipment, and labor to lay a 10,000 km cable.

You know, I have been teaching my daughter logic and we have been studying false arguments. We just covered tu quoque - thanks for the example!

I have the same printer and am likewise impressed. Someone earlier said that the construction on brother was poor - not that I have seen with this printer. I too was looking for color that would not dry out and have been very happy with the 4040CDN. It prints out of the box from windows and linux. The only downside is the printer reports "out of toner" long before it really is. Google and you will find the steps to reset the counter and you can buy the tone to refill online very cheaply. Networked color laser duplexing for less than $300 - hard to beat.

So remember, if you want to break into someone's house do it in the UK and stay out of Texas. The law here, known as the Castle Law, is a bit different

Again by the ITU-T G.709 standard an OC192 WAN PHY and LAN Phy can be transported in an OTU2 (OCH 107). This has a payload (+OPU) of 9.9953G. To get true wire speed 10G you have to use an OTU2e (OCH 111, also called transparent mode) which has a payload +OPU of 10.3125. FWIW, there is also an FC standard OTU2f (OCH 113) which has a rate of 10.51875G. I keep these numbers on a chart I made on my wall - too much to memorize :-)

Well, not exactly. Yes, it is true that OC768 is in the 40G range but that is not the full story. 40G signals are carried over DWDM systems using digital wrappers (all of this is based on the ITU-T G.709 standard). So an OC768 is carried in an OTU3 (OCH430) wrapper. But if you want to carried a 40GE signal is can be carried in an OTU3e1 (OCH445). Yes, I know this is an extension of the current OTU standard but my point is that the speed of Ethernet is not really bound by SONET as most of the transport is over DWDM systems, not MSPP SONET/SDH systems. It is carried digitally wrapped over DWDM ROADM systems.

Oh, and yes, I am currently working w/ 40G systems and soon 100G.

No, other companies can not use the fiber like they can the copper - and that is the point. In 2004 the FCC ruled the RBOCs (incumbent telcos) were required to continue selling copper access to CLEC (Competitors) under Section 271 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 BUT removed the requirements for fiber. This was done to encourage the RBOCs to make the huge investment in the fiber infrastructure. There was a lot of debate about this at the time and I think, being in the business for years, this was a good decision otherwise I can assure you there would be NO FTTP (fiber to the premises) in this country. But the cutting of the copper is out and out dirty pool.

Now CLECs have no alternative to delivery as there is no copper and they can't use the fiber. Do you think VZ knew this? Uh, yeah...

Personally I think that if the RBOC has cut the copper line they should be required to repair it for the CLEC - at thier cost - period. It seems the only fair course.