Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband

[Paul Timmins <paul () telcodata us>]

Leo Bicknell wrote:
> If you have to reach someone 20km from the CO, the cost of running
> the ditch-wich down the road in a rural area is not the dominate
> cost over the next 20 years.  It's equipment.  If the copper plant
> takes 4 repeaters to do the job, that's 4 bits of equipment that
> can fail, and will need to be upgraded at some point.  Running
> something as simple as point to point fiber they can be provided
> with GigE speeds today with no intermediate equipment; the cost of
> a 20km GBIC is far less than the cost of installing 4 repeaters.
>
> The problem with all of these is ROI, not cost.  Somewhere along the
> line we've decided very short ROI's are required.  Do you work at a
> company where an ROI of over a year is laughed at?  When the original
> rural telephone network was pushed ROI's of 50 years were talked about.
> There's plenty of infrastructure built every day with ROI's of 20 years.
>
> So it would cost $2000 per home to put in fiber.  The margin on the
> service is $5 per month.  It's a 33 year ROI.  That's ok with me, it's
> infrastructure, like a road, or a bridge.  We're still using copper in
> the ground put in during the 60's, 70's, and 80's
>   
Seems like a good idea to the technical side of me, but the business 
side sees a problem: that the employees like to eat in the 33 year span 
wherein the company isn't making a dime on its customers.

-Paul