Pissing and Moaning About Copper
August 25, 2009
For those of you who read this regularly, you know that I am an admitted bigot … a fiber optic
bigot.
I think copper loops are long past prime time and are not reliable enough or scalable enough to deliver globally competitive broadband. Water is a big problem for copper.
I wanted to share with you something that came across my desk. It was created somewhere on the internet.
A farm wife called the local ILEC phone company to report her telephone failed to ring when
her friends called — and that on the few occasions, when it did ring, her dog always moaned right before the phone rang.
The telephone repairman proceeded to the scene, curious to see this psychic dog or senile lady.
He climbed a telephone pole, hooked in his test set, and dialed the subscriber’s house.
The phone didn’t ring right away, but then the dog moaned and the telephone began to ring.
Climbing down from the pole, the telephone repairman found:
1. The dog was tied to the telephone system’s ground wire with a steel chain and collar.
2. The copper wire connection to the ground rod was loose.
3. The dog was receiving 90 volts of signaling current when the number was called.
4. After a couple of jolts, the dog would start moaning and then urinate.
5. The wet ground would complete the copper circuit, thus causing the phone to ring.
This demonstrates that some copper loop problems CAN be fixed by pissing and moaning.
It is impossible for this to happen with fiber optics. Copper Loops – PETA is probably on my
side!
Posted by wbrache | Filed Under Telecommunications industry
(3 votes, average: 4 out of 5)
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3 Responses to “Pissing and Moaning About Copper”
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Dave,
I’ve worked with the local Telecom for 28.5 years and heard that same “dog barking when the phone rings” story when I started here. Troubles abound in anything that has electrical current running through it, so whether it’s a computer circuit board, a fiber-optic cable, a copper line or silver-satin cord, there’s always a chance of service related issues. Dogs not excluded (from chewing on the exposed station wires, which I’ve replaced miles of).
Though you may feel copper is past it’s prime, there are hundreds of thousands of rural copper routes that may never be upgraded due to overwhelming costs associated. That’s just a simple fact that will remain until we’re fully wireless delivery, which renders your fiber option “past prime time” too.
And with the ability to deliver one-gig+ bandwidth via copper lines, why do most customers care how it gets to them as long as they get the bandwidth they want in order for them to interact within their communities of interest (social media, media, friends, family, colleagues, business, etc.)??
If you want a watermelon, do you care if I get it to you by Yugo, Semi-truck or train? As long as you get what you want, and it’s delivered on time & as you expect and provides what you desire, why would you care how it got there?
So, don’t knock copper when it continues to provide millions and millions of customers superior service. Especially those that have no other option…yet.
[Thanks for allowing me the ability to comment. I subscribe to and read all your blogs through Google Reader.]
Joey,
I have been in the industry for 17 years.
I live in the sticks and our ITC decided about 6 years ago to upgrade their copper backbone plant to Fiber.
That allowed them to give us DSL at 10Mup/10M down back then. Currently we enjoy 15Mup/15 down. In fact, the changes were so good w/fiber, that they decided to scrap future wireless to the home and go FTTH.
We are a partner with them. Our house sits approx 15 acres off the road, where the backbone runs, I have agreed to trench and lay the conduit on my property for them, in turn they will splice and run through my conduit.
In exchange, I will be given cable TV (instead of SATTV, that is an utter joke due to rain, snow , and tree fade) up to 40M up/down with future ability to get cloes to 10/100 INET and all the local/LD calling we can eat, the cost is going to be around $125 for the bundle. That will reduce our current bundle with them by over $50.
directly north of us over the highway about 7 miles our friends are not so lucky, they still have DU, because AT&T Local refuses to upgrade their backbone from copper to fiber. They tried Wildblue and hughesnet only to find SAT INET to be a bigger pain than DU.
that said they settled on Wild Blue, because DU is not viable.
The issue they have been told is that it simply would cost far too much to upgrade the copper bacbone, like us they several acres off the main path of the AT&T copper backbone, to add extra pain they are 5 miles from the nearest DLC…so getting DSL is out of the question.
They have also been told the simply upgrading the copper is also out of the question.
Copper does not provide superior anything imho and wireless in rural area’s has serious limitations as well, that continue to.
until WIld Blue, our neighbors new that INET service was gone for weeks after it rained. Wild Blue still has fits when it rains or snows, but at least it is a marginal improvement over DU.
The real answer is to upgrade to fiber and define broadband at a minimum of 100M, this will force the RLECs, etc to get serious about upgrading their ISP/OSP.
Everyone we know that is 7 miles north of us would hand your hat to you in reply to your copper priivdes superior service comment, it does not period imho!
I suppose the real question would be this:
How does our local ITC/RLEC get to a point that it embraced the benefits, etc of going to fiber, upgraded and then furthermore decided to go FTTH, then lower the price points and still create value?
How did they decide that fiber was better than even wireless in most applications?
sorry Joey, but the overwhelming cost excuse does not cut it for me, there are ways to cut costs and partner with even your residential customers in such a way that crushes the bandwidth divide.
Dear Joey:
Joey or aka Copper Head Joey.
Copper remains the scourge of the earth – if you analogies hold true, why did we ever pave the interstate highway system? You would, eventually get to your destination over a dirt or stone interstate highway system.
Wouldn’t you know it, on my street this past week the town has been replacing water pipes and mains … lots of water everywhere … take a guess what has happened to phone service! Unfortunately, Verizon FIOS is not in our area.
I have yet to experience a dielectric fiber optic cable get affected by water or lightning for that matter. We have over 100,000 fiber miles of cable – never had a water or lightning problem …
I have pictures of lightning hitting a sheath and melting the outside cladding — but not melting the glass … it just keeps ticking …
Thanks for reading and commenting.
Copper needs to go.
Dave Rusin