Monday, March 02, 2009
Quote of Note: Tim Nulty
"The very widespread, duck-the-issue viewpoint that, 'We need broadband but we shouldn't be an advocate of any particular technology, let a thousand flowers bloom and the market select which is best,' is a crock!
"Broadband equals fiber. Let's stop beating around the bush. Indeed, let's stop using the word 'broadband'. It has been abused to the point of uselessness, and specifically used to obscure the facts in favor of incumbents who want to continue selling their obsolete copper. All other fixed-medium technologies (DSL, DOCsis, BPL) are rubbish; bad stopgaps designed to get a few more years of service out of incumbent systems. The wireless options (WiFi, WiMax, 4G) are useful add-ons to a fiber foundation infrastructure, but they are NOT substitutes for it!"
Tim Nulty, former General Manager, Burlington Telecom, private correspondence (used with permission), February 2009.
"Broadband equals fiber. Let's stop beating around the bush. Indeed, let's stop using the word 'broadband'. It has been abused to the point of uselessness, and specifically used to obscure the facts in favor of incumbents who want to continue selling their obsolete copper. All other fixed-medium technologies (DSL, DOCsis, BPL) are rubbish; bad stopgaps designed to get a few more years of service out of incumbent systems. The wireless options (WiFi, WiMax, 4G) are useful add-ons to a fiber foundation infrastructure, but they are NOT substitutes for it!"
Tim Nulty, former General Manager, Burlington Telecom, private correspondence (used with permission), February 2009.
Technorati Tags: Broadband, fiberoptics, QuoteOfNote
Comments:
I have been an advocate for fiber optic networks for years and clearly the definition today should be broadband = 1 gigabit per second.
Anything slower than that is a joke - especially with networks only in the planning phases.
DSL is NOT broadband.
Sorry to burst everyone's bubble.
James Carlini
www.carliniscomments.com
Anything slower than that is a joke - especially with networks only in the planning phases.
DSL is NOT broadband.
Sorry to burst everyone's bubble.
James Carlini
www.carliniscomments.com
Well, I basically agree that fiber is great, and certainly makes perfect sense in most case of service to a building, but I think we oversimplify things by reducing usefulness to a single scalar, i.e. bandwidth, and ignore the time when we're not fixed to a wire/fiber. In those cases various forms of wireless can deliver lots of bandwidth, enough for email/web, if not quite HD Video.
But Policy in DC is reduced to that which can fit on a bumper sticker, so in that world fiber fits.
-- Jim
But Policy in DC is reduced to that which can fit on a bumper sticker, so in that world fiber fits.
-- Jim
It sounds as if Tim has been smoking a substance with, er, a lot of fiber. Or perhaps he has a large amount of money invested in a company that's involved with fiber. (Ah.... I see that he works for a company called Burlington Telecom.)
The truth is that fiber deployment is economically infeasible in many sparsely populated areas of the US -- and that wireless can provide the same speeds with greater reliability (it's hard to cut a radio wave with a backhoe).
The truth is that fiber deployment is economically infeasible in many sparsely populated areas of the US -- and that wireless can provide the same speeds with greater reliability (it's hard to cut a radio wave with a backhoe).
The trouble with fiber is that it tends to inconvenient for people who want to network while traveling down a freeway, riding a train, or enjoying the wonders of air travel, etc. The networks of the future will be built on a variety of media, just like the networks of the past. And as for this nonsense: "All other fixed-medium technologies (DSL, DOCsis, BPL) are rubbish" doesn't square with reality. These technolgies are actually "useful add-ons to a fiber foundation infrastructure" today; not substitutes, but stepping-stones. DOCSIS is a "hybrid fiber-coax" system.
Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
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Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
