Re:6 tenths of a mile from neighborhood DSLAM? (Score 2, Informative)

The 'washing machine sized boxes' are remote cabinets. Each of these contain rectifiers, batteries for power backup, and the DSLAM. The copper plant was already in existence. The new expense involves running fiber to these cabinets and some rearrangement of copper plant to terminate into the cabinet. A similar expense is incurred by CATV/coaxial systems. The higher bandwidths required for digital channels and more 2-way communications limits the number of coax amplifiers that can be in tandem. A traditional CATV company must run fiber optic cable further into its plant, not unlike what this telephone company had to do. Also, limiting the coaxial distribution to one amplifier makes the coaxial serving area only 2 or 3 blocks square, so 3100 feet doesn't appear so bad. The DSL solution also allows standard telephones to work without having to go through additional boxes that may have to be powered by the customer. I have personally looked at most of the local loop alternatives. One of the biggest obstacles that always comes up is the electronics required; how much it costs and how to power it. The fiber to the home solution offers the most bandwidth, but is limited by the cost of electronics and the powering options. In this solution the customer almost certainly must provide the power for their equipment and including backup means that it must include an UPS that the customer would be responsible for. Service providers would be cautious about being responsible for all those remote UPS systems. Fiber to the curb shortens the length of copper (twisted pair or coax) but actually makes the powering scenario more complicated. It is not cost-effective to run AC power to every pedestal and powering from a remote cabinet requires parallel copper as well as fiber to the pedestal. This solution also places a large load on the battery plant at a remote cabinet. These batteries now have to power remote equipment and the resistive loss of the copper plant feeding the remote electronics increases load to the point that one entire cabinet may have to be devoted to housing batteries. Of course, one could take the approach of some CATV companies and not provide backup power. In a competitive environment, this could be a mistake. Another issue that always must be a consideration is whether the provider is incumbent, or a new entry. The existing assets must be considered, as well as the skill sets currently in place in that company. Since every one of these architectures has its trade-offs it is hard that only one solution is optimal. The service offerings that a provider wants to deliver is also an important consideration and the main reason why there are pros and cons for each. As a closing note to my comments, the solution that Clear Lake Telephone Company chose probably makes very good sense for them. They no doubt could have lowered their cost by using an ADSL solution giving them greater range, but would have had to delay their market entry as the technologies needed for an ADSL solution slightly lag the VDSL solution (thus the 3100 feet). Although more costly, it also gives them a bit of future proofing against new requirements. Transporting an HDTV signal, for example. Since an ADSL solution cannot carry even one HDTV channel, VDSL capability would have to be added.