FIOS, Cable Capacity Question

[TomD]

Excuse me if this has been asked and answered before, but I would appreciate some education regarding FIOS, and Cable.

I know that FIOS is based on fiber optics, and that many cable companies are laying fiber optic cable (but haven't really touched on continuing that run into the home).

My question: What is the capacity of each system? Just like E* and D* have capacity issues, I have to assume that each of these systems reach capacity at some point, especially with internet, phone, on demand services, and high def running on the same line to multiple locations.

As the amount of high def increases, and internet usage and demand increases as well, won't these systems eventually run into capacity issues?

Sorry if it's a dumb question, but I was curious....

 

[datwell]

TomD: The full answer is a very long story. The short version is that due to the very well thought out architecture of the FiOS network in conjunction with the fiber to the home (FTTH) vehicle, it is all but impossible for the capacity to be exhausted in any forseeable future scenario. The whole FiOS scheme makes for an incredibly robust network. And that's not to mention the coming IP TV.

Cable company's' architectures vary widely.

--Doug

 

[navychop]

And it's certainly NOT a dumb question. It's something hard to pin down. Some cablecos are moving to a switching system where they send you a block of channels all the time, and have a few channels slots "open." Then when you tune in a certain channel that is not part of the "always on" group, the system sends you that selected channel on an "open" slot. It's pretty invisible to the user, except for perhaps a slight delay, and allows them to in effect, have available an unlimited number of channels available. Of course, there are other limits, but it would massively increase the "capacity" of the cable.

The one system that appears doomed is the one where there is fiber to the neighborhood, and twisted pair to the home. Currently, it can only send 1, soon 2, HD channels. That is insufficient. No doubt this system will have a hard time competing with cable and satellite. More and more programs will be in HD, and more people will have HDTVs. It's easy to see they will want to watch one HD program while recording another, with junior watching a third and recording a fourth.

 

[TomD]

Thanks for the responses. I appreciate the information....

 

[Paulus]

I'm not sure what system FIOS is using but the current flavour of the month for fibre to the home networks (FTTH) is EPON with GPON being developed. Both these systems will provide VoIP and broadband internet access (including IPTV) but they also have provision for putting regular cable tv on a 1550nm wavelength on the same fibre.

There is plenty of stuff on the web regarding EPON & GPON.

 

[abricko]

Verizon rolled out their initial FIOS via BPON and recently (month or two ago) they announced the planned upgrade to GPON which would yield up to 2X downstream improvement and 8X upstream improvement. FTTH is simply amazing and will own for a long time. Kudos to verizon for spending the money. I'm glad they didn't cheap out like most cable cos or even what ATT is doing, which is basically a FTTN then they *DSL* internet and TV to your house.