Submitted by acohill on Tue, 09/07/2004 - 09:52
PCWorld has a nice summary of fiber to the home projects, mostly from the telephone and cable company perspective.
Some of the key ideas in the article:
- A single of channel of HDTV requires 9 megabits/sec, well beyond the current cable and DSL offerings.
- Countries like Japan have 100 megabit fiber service in much of the country already, putting the U.S. at a disadvantage globally.
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It will take 5 to 10 years to get high speed fiber services (i.e. that will support HDTV and other high capacity uses) to most U.S. homes and businesses (meaning communities should be in this for the long haul and not look for "magic" broadband fixes).
- Major price drops in the cost of fiber and fiber electronics have made FTTH (Fiber To The Home) much more affordable.