"$10 billion takes fiber to every school, hospital in the US"

[diogen]

Here.
Sounds like a good use of Gates' billion$... Or are these Buffet's?

Something similar was discussed in the War Zone some 20 months ago
http://www.satelliteguys.us/hd-dvd-...-much-fiber-optic-line-into-each-us-home.html
There the price tag was $100B to fiber optic every US household...

If the Gates Foundation finances the first project it might kick start the second...

Diogen.

 

[mike123abc]

Well AT&T is spending $18 billion this year on wireless upgrades (by their press releases). They are building a couple thousand towers, the rest is to run fiber to all their towers for backhaul. I believe they have about 100k towers. I bet that the number of AT&T cell towers is on the same order of magnatude as schools and hospitals.

 

[Ramy]

Where is that money going to come from though?

 

[navychop]

HEY! Where's my wallet?

 

[diogen]

I bet that the number of AT&T cell towers is on the same order of magnatude as schools and hospitals.

A couple more projects like this plus Gates' money and the US map will have half a million fiber connected points. To implement this will take a few years.
By then WiMax, LTE or whatever replaces it should take care of the last mile for those that can't get fiber directly into their homes (i.e. metropolitan areas).

Diogen.

 

[mike123abc]

Where is that money going to come from though?

You already are paying for it... They tax all the phones for this type stuff.

 

[Ramy]

You already are paying for it... They tax all the phones for this type stuff.

Oh, ok.

 

[mike123abc]

If I had to guess, I would guess that 95+% of houses in the US have fiber within a mile of them. The stuff runs everywhere, the problem of course is still the last mile.

 

[vurbano]

City schools here have had fiber for the last 5 years or more. Heck even the traffic lights have a fiber network

 

[Stargazer]

Part of the problem is that there are many fiber lines, even in rural areas, but the phone companies want too much to use them. The FCC is just now looking at how much those companies are charging since Verizon and AT&T have the majority of the backhaul bandwidth out there and they ware wanting better pricing instead of monopolistic type of practices making it unaffordable to those needing access to it.

 

[diogen]

Part of the problem is that there are many fiber lines, even in rural areas, but the phone companies want too much to use them.

And I believe this is exactly the setup where Gates' money can really spoil their expectations and trigger a fiber landslide...

Diogen.

 

[Stargazer]

A fiber was just ran to a school up the road from me and there is no dsl or cable broadband in the area. The cable company is running broadband to every school in the state in a statewide deal. Now if they would allow us to use the fiber already in place to provide bandwidth for neighborhoods at an affordable cost it would be wonderful. Verizon has fiber to a box near me but wont put DSL equipment into the box. They said it was lightspan and was ready but they wont put the cards in the slots.

 

[The Insider]

Brighthouse has been provideing fiber and "cable" services for schools in central florida for almost a decade now.

 

[diogen]

Libraries dying for bandwidth—where's the fiber (and cash)?

From the article

Most of America's libraries make it a part of their mission to offer Internet access to anyone in the community, but a severe bandwidth crunch is hobbling those efforts...

One of the problems is funding...

But another problem is simple availability...

Diogen.

 

[diogen]

Not really school/hospital/library internet topic, but interesting nonetheless
How to be the world's greatest ISP

It's surprising (and refreshing), then, to find a quite different business model like plus simple operated by French ISPs.
French broadband providers like Free.fr, Numericable, and SFR have just one offer. It costs €30/$45, and for that you get everything:
- Cable and DSL internet at 20-30Mbps (and DOCSIS3 or fiber at 100Mbps in some towns)
- Free telephony to 100 nations (mostly to fixed lines; calling mobiles costs more)
- HDTV with a HD-DVR
*********
This isn’t all you get. More is included, like free access to WiFi hotspots, music jukeboxes, computer games, your own personal television channel for live TV, etc.

It looks like being separated from the "old world" by an ocean has its advantages... to the service providers...

Diogen.

 

[Juan]

A fiber was just ran to a school up the road from me and there is no dsl or cable broadband in the area. The cable company is running broadband to every school in the state in a statewide deal. Now if they would allow us to use the fiber already in place to provide bandwidth for neighborhoods at an affordable cost it would be wonderful. Verizon has fiber to a box near me but wont put DSL equipment into the box. They said it was lightspan and was ready but they wont put the cards in the slots.

verizon has shifted gears.. the emphsis is putting high speed data (LTE) to cell towers

 

[diogen]

The next move in the broadband saga: National Broadband Plan
FCC wants 260 million people on 100Mbps broadband by 2020

By 2020, the National Broadband Plan calls for 100 million homes to have 100Mbps Internet access, and the US should have the world's largest "ultra-high-speed broadband testbeds." In addition, Internet adoption rates should hit at least 90 percent—way up from the current 65 percent.

Broadband will also become a universal service like the telephone system of old—and FCC Chairman Julius Genachoswki promised today that even baseline service would be faster than the 1-2Mbps currently pushed by other countries.

Diogen.

 

[diogen]

Related discussion that made it to Slashdot...
Slashdot Technology Story | Why Broadband In North America Is Not That Slow

It started here and then was "rebutted" here.

I understand the difference between anecdotal evidence and statistics, but I haven't seen such a garbage Soviet-style piece of journalism in a very long time...

Canada is likely soon to have a proportion substantially higher than France's of homes served by advanced fibre and cable networks that can deliver such speeds, thanks in part to the ubiquity of cable networks that are less costly to upgrade.

And WTF does this mean?

And North Americans use the Internet somewhat more intensively than do Europeans, according to Cisco Systems data on Internet traffic. Further, business Internet traffic in North America appears to be at levels substantially higher than elsewhere in the world

Using real-world data on the amount of time taken to deliver files to end users from its global network of servers, Akamai Technologies reports that the average download speed for Canada was 4.2 megabits a second, against 3.2 Mbps for France...

The most interesting part: while talking about the Internet and bringing up "rebuttal" arguments not a single link is provided. Pathetic.

Diogen.

 

[mike123abc]

The next move in the broadband saga: National Broadband Plan
FCC wants 260 million people on 100Mbps broadband by 2020


Diogen.

Most cable systems are on the way to DOSIS 3.0 by the end of 2013. All the major ones should have it. 100Mbit/sec should be available to 260 million people without the FCC having to do anything.

It is the 40-50 million that have no access to high speed now are the same ones that will still not have access.

 

[diogen]

You don't need Google to run fiber to the home...

Fiber to the home done right in a high density urban setting: Amsterdam
How Amsterdam was wired for open access fiber

And that is open fiber, i.e. any ISP can use.
Start digging in the morning around a shopping mall and be done by 2PM with no visible traces of disruption!

The most interesting part: you get fiber even if you live in a boat!

Diogen.