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Thread ID: 127739	2012-11-10 09:32:00	fibre internet, will it be a hit?	Frank_sumbody (16923)	PC World Chat

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
1311571	2012-11-10 09:32:00	Recently I saw a newspaper advertisement for the local area with map showing who can get it now and who can get it soon, I think since the copper internet cost so much, most of it been used up for telephone rental, maybe fiber internet will be cheaper. And if it turned out less than $50 a month I would be interested. Maybe I was wrong AGAIN! it appears from what I saw the two prices are very similar except the speed is a bit faster. whippy do. I find my wireless connection fast enough for me.	Frank_sumbody (16923)
1311572	2012-11-10 18:18:00	Because copper is used for phone you figured fibre would be cheaper? Your logic is flawed. Copper has been there for ages, it's used for phone and internet. With all the work and expense involved in running new cable, why would you imagine it would be cheaper? They have to recoup their expenditure, and in rural areas, the big cities have to subsidise that cost too.	pctek (84)
1311573	2012-11-10 20:10:00	Fibre will be a hell of a lot better than copper. Consistent speeds, much higher bandwidth, better redundancy and once the cable is laid it can even be upgraded simply by replacing the optical hardware so you don't have to re lay cable. Copper gets awful after 2km from an exchange/cabinet and drops off after 5 or so k's (might be wrong, perhaps its 10km?) whereas fibre can do much longer runs before an amplifier/relay is required. two prices are very similar except the speed is a bit faster. That's great, most places charge a hell of a lot more for fibre than ADSL... of course that will change once most people switch over. ADSL will die out and become cheaper and fibre will take the lead. Internet speed is the number one number that people want/need in their broadband. Of course latency comes into it but on fibre that will be pretty consistent and with copper who knows what you'll get! Just because you are happy with your wireless doesn't mean the rest of the country has to be, your occasional post on PF1 might work fine but streaming TV/SSH might get a bit tedious. Your "wireless" is served by your ADSL anyway unless you have satellite or use the 3G network.	The Error Guy (14052)
1311574	2012-11-10 23:43:00	The copper lines will eventually disappear. It's just a question of how long the transition takes, with the big remaining barrier being the cost of going from the roadside to the home. I'll dig my own trench if it'll save me a bundle on the cabling, but that won't happen until the ocsts for internet and phone viafibre get very close to the price via copper. I don't use a lot of internet, so the 100GB plus plans hold no appeal for me. However, I'd love to have a line that doesn't degrade with the weather. The copper ones are vulnerable to moisture (plus I put a spade through it once after a taproot grew right around it). I do wonder how well fibre will tolerate being stretched and dislodged in the ground by roots.	Paul.Cov (425)
1311575	2012-11-11 00:13:00	I do wonder how well fibre will tolerate being stretched and dislodged in the ground by roots. The fibre sheathing is darned tough. I doubt there will be much issue.	The Error Guy (14052)
1311576	2012-11-11 00:15:00	Just because you are happy with your wireless . I am not happy with my wireless, that is why I looked into it, I am disappointed with the speed for the same money, I just think for someone who has just splashed out in copper equipment to get Internet [bugger I went away and forgot to finish off the paragraph] Of course I am will aware too that the copper lay out was paid by the tax payer before it was sold of to a overseas owner, now we have been screw twice with the copper assets, what I am really thinking if this project was integrated with pacific fibre crossing the whole thing would be worth it .	Frank_sumbody (16923)
1311577	2012-11-11 18:17:00	I don t think we'll see a major drop in prices until we get a second incoming pacific cable that is now owned by Telecom. The government should really make this a priority! Imagine if the present one got damaged!	Digby (677)
1311578	2012-11-11 23:04:00	The government should really make this a priority! Imagine if the present one got damaged!The impact would be minimal - the SCC is physically redundant, and has geologically disparate shore stations, so even if the cable is cut or a landing point goes down, you'll still get your internet fix. Two simultaneous failures is still a risk, albeit rather unlikely.	Erayd (23)
1311579	2012-11-12 00:48:00	I don't think fiber will get a cheaper pricetag, may get more services and larger caps put in though.... over the years one could guess continual business improvements but that hasn't translated to cheaper pricetags. There may have been ones like Slingshot as an outliner but for the general Joe/Jane it hasn't. Ie., the main providers. If fiber goes ahead so instead of managing the copper line, it may be costs to manage the fiber line. And from what I have seen from prices of Orcon and the latest Snap brochure which was delivered to us, the prices are pretty much inline with ADSL2+ but with more services like call waiting, caller ID, voicemail that you don't have to deliberately pay more for, around the same data cap but a faster speed supposedly. I guess over time as people are becoming more computer literate we may see more people getting fiber and they may be content in not having a POTS but there may still be that minor group like the elderly or those who are not in tune with computers who may still prefer a cheaper POTS if they don't use the Internet. Or maybe companies can provide $45 fiber plan that allows phone calls only.	Nomad (952)
1311580	2012-11-12 01:19:00	The copper lines will eventually disappear. It's just a question of how long the transition takes, with the big remaining barrier being the cost of going from the roadside to the home. This is true, but there are other barriers. The new fibre network relies fairly heavily on there being good uptake to recover the costs, if not enough people sign up for fibre the whole project could be in jeopardy. Add to this the resistance from some people for losing the traditional "landline" and there are some concerns still. A lot of people are perfectly happy with the current broadband speeds. Fibre is cheaper than copper to install and maintain, but building a whole new network is still a massive undertaking. While the copper network certainly has had continuous maintenace and upgrades, it's existed for a very long time and was installed by the government originally. It's a tribute to ingenuity just how much performance they have squeezed out of it, way back since data was first sent over copper wires they have been saying it'll never go faster than xxx it's impossible. Something I find mildly interesting - there is a significant power saving involved in not having to supply DC power to household phones. Expanding on the Error guys comments a little, a phone line can work out to 20km+ on good cable but broadband basically can't work past about 5km with it performing best at 3km and under. The reasoning behind the cabinetisation program that has been ongoing since before the UFB started is to get most houses within 900M of the ADSL equipment because that's the max distance where you get (or close to it) the full connection speed possible on ADSL2+ before it starts dropping off quite quickly. It's fairly simple in theory, the higher the connection speed the higher the maximum frequency used to accomodate the increased bandwith. The higher the frequency the more quickly it loses signal strength on copper cable and so the less distance it will travel (or more correctly the loss of copper cable increases with the frequency transmitted). Adsl breaks the available frequencies into 64kb blocks and tests them each to see if the signal is usable, that's what it's doing when you see the dsl light flashing during setup. The longer the cable the less usable frequency blocks it'll find and the lower your speed will be. Fibre doesn't really behave like this. Although the loss of different light frequencies is still variable, fibre is tuned for one particular band of light and then it's sent in pulses at that frequency. Speed is limited by how fast the terminating hardware can switch the light on and off and also how quickly it can detect those pulses. Loss is fairly low allowing long distances to be achieved. In theory as the hardware on the end is improved the same cable can still be used to provide much faster speeds so it has the potential to be much more future proof. On top of all this fibre is glass, it doesn't corrode, is largely unaffectedby water, is immune to electromagnetic interference, and is built into very robust cables that survive pretty well under most conditions.	dugimodo (138)
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