While I am inclined to agree with your conclusion, your method of argument is not appropriate.

Market share isn’t the critical measurement here. One must look at the margin to see what is really happening – i.e. in the last year what % of broadband adds were FTTH. While still small you will see it is a more significant force.

Andrew

I’m sure the debate regarding DSL vs fiber will rage on, especially in this country. The truth is, worldwide there is little debate. The DSL forum’s most recent stats demonstrate DSL maintaining a 65% worldwide market share with no sign of slowing down. Fiber continues to hold

The issue about fiber cuts is partially resolved with connectorized fiber. I grant you that if it si buried it is very hard to replace. But buried copper isn’t much easier.

There is no need to apologize for defending AT&T for exactly the reasons you point out.

I think it comes down to the fact that the infrastructure clearly will need replacing in the next 10-15 years, and the interest rate environment is (was?) very conducive to taking the leap now. Then again, someone from AT&T may invent a new UWB last mile delivery mechanism and make fiber obsolete….

Great Comments, thank you.

ATT FTTN units will eventually be pushing 100 Mbps services short distances (>1 Kft) over coper drop wires. For concern regarding the copper from the FTTN to the premises the drop wires are 22 AWG vs 26 AWG for typical Cat5 or better cabling. It also contains a bonded/grounded shield (which Cat5 does not). Those speeds are attainable with reliability as long as everything is bonded/grounded. Most people do not seem to have a problem attaining and sustaining 100 Mbps or better transfer speeds in the LAN environment; whats the difference in running a long Cat5 drop or running a long heavier gauge OSP equivalent?

FTTH is EXPENSIVE to deploy. How many times have you or someone you know had a drop wire damaged? Copper is cheap to replace, ATT doesn’t charge for drop wire (usually), what happens when you cut a fiber drop while landscaping? Who pays for that one? How do you power it? Power pairs? (copper pairs carrying up to -180 VDC). What about power outages? Where do you place the UPS? Who pays for it? Ever need to make a call when there is no power?

The other problem is easements, a lot of municipalities will not give (or sell) any more space for ATT to bury ie Verizon in NYC and ATT in Miami. Manholes are usually full so now what? Pull out that working 1,800 pulp (paper) cable and put the customers out of service while they pull fiber and quickly do a site turn up? Not unless their is a natural disaster like in New Orleans. And if you did most of those cable runs are not in conduit so you don’t just slide a new fiber in place.

For those who do not feel these speeds are attainable over the old PSTN facilities how is it that ATT and the former BellSouth has been deploying up to OC3-like speeds over copper reliably? aka Metro Ethernet. Most installs are fiber but when cost prohibitive they use their old copper plant using a DSL technology. Generally holding a 12-15 Mbps synchronous connection on each pair reliably. That many times is on 20 year old 18-26 AWG copper plant.

Yes ATT has a LOT of work to do upgrading/repairing their network, and often they make costly mistakes, but you are comparing one of the largest telcos in the world with enough market capital to buy and sustain many small countries to the likes of some cable tv companies? Who though in their small monopolized markets can be fiercely competitive, they generally just do not stack up on the large scale.

Sorry to defend the companies that were and now are ATT but after bring the world the Telephone, Data networking, the transistor, the cell phone, the solar cell, the laser, digital transmission and switching, the communications satellite, the first single chip digital signal processor, UNIX, the C programing language and there is probably a few things I have forgotten. Some one over their might know what they are doing. But why so much spin against ATT? Is it because inventing Long Distance communications allows people to call you that you do not want to hear from? (don’t forget to call Mom) Oh and that UNIX thing was rumored to of had something to do with that seldom used thing called the internet. (See the wiki for more info http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Labs).

Just my two cents…Or was that a buck fifty?

2)I think AT&T is missing the boat. Most people in my neighborhood who have signed up for DSL wind up having to have new phone cable burried anyway. Whay doesn’t AT&T just burry fiber to their door rather than wire, and spread the cost out over more years?

This is only likely under the most unfair comparison conditions — e.g., using the worst MPEG4 encoder/codec/player against the best MPEG2 encoder/codec/player.

Generally, MPEG-4 streams will produce a much better picture at the same bitrate or maintain the same quality at a significantly lower bitrate than MPEG-2 streams.

I would bet it is less than $30 but more than $15. Other readers may guess better.