Re: [NANOG] Roport on internet business

[David Barak <thegameiam () yahoo com>]

> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Jared Mauch <jared () puck nether net>

> I know, watching my local incumbent they are not replacing damaged copper with fiber.  I think they must have 
> warehouses of it someplace.  I can't imagine that it is good to replace buried copper w/copper during the wintertime.  
> If you're out doing it, might as well *actually* install fiber in the conduit.

> (Unless it's about unions/job protection for the copper guys).

> - Jared (not saying unions are bad, but when you operate two assets and have a different union for each, it can limit 
> your potential significantly).


One of the very hard things about running a large, geographically distributed layer 0/1 organization is managing the 
various and sundry physical cables from point to point.  Replacing one bad span with a good span which is qualitatively 
different introduces a level of version control and management headache, and if done in a haphazard fashion can reduce 
the overall availability of the network.  I don't know who your incumbent is, but it's reasonable to assume that they 
have some strategy for cable plant management which includes overall technology refresh at some point, with 
like-for-like replacement until then.

Also, last I checked, the specs on "how to build a good layer 0/1 fiber infrastructure" were different than those for 
copper - because the capabilities are different, the network architecture has different optimizations available.

This doesn't mean that the provider shouldn't be moving toward a large-scale fiber rollout - far from it!  I just 
wanted to provide a reason why they might not want to do said rollout in a piecemeal fashion.

David Barak
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