On 12/31/2015 09:40 AM, Geoffrey Oltmans wrote:
So, I'd say realistically you're likely to see copper for a good
while longer, but it is getting pushed farther and farther to the
edges of the networks. I'm happy for it to stick around for as long
as possible. :) Eventually xPON will supplant it, and the Cable
company and Telco networks will look virtually identical.
I've long thought that will eventually be the case. It makes sense.
One thing that aerial fiber doesn't appear to suffer from is theft.
It's not unknown for a bunch of guys to steal a half-mile of telco
copper on a quiet rural road where nobody's likely to ask what they're
doing.
The "stop and ask" is pretty prudent, as not all telco stuff around here
is company-serviced--CL uses contractors extensively, so it's not always
a company vehicle at the site.
The copper theft seems to have abated around here. At its height,
idiots were jumping the fences around 500KV substations to rip up the
grounding grid.
--Chuck
