On Thursday 27 August 2009 15:04:59 Leo Bicknell wrote: > In a message written on Thu, Aug 27, 2009 at 09:58:22AM +0100, Alexander Harrowell wrote: > > An interesting question: as the population gets sparser, the average > > trench mileage per subscriber increases. At some point this renders fibre > > deployment uneconomic. Now, this point can change: > > This statement makes no sense to me. > > The cost to dig a trench is cheaper in rural areas than it is in > urban areas. A lot cheaper. Rather than closing a road, cutting > a trench, avoiding 900 other obsticals, repaving, etc they can often > trench or go aerial down the side of a road for miles with no > obsticals and nothing but grass to put back. > > So while mileage per subscriber increases, cost per mile dramatically > increases. The only advantage in an urban enviornment is that one > trench may serve 200 families in a building, where as a rural trench > may serve 20 familes. > > But more puzzling to me is the idea that fiber becomes uneconomic. > This may have once been true, but right now you can buy 10km or > even 40km lasers quite cheaply. Compare with copper which for even > modest speeds requires a repeater every 2-4km. >
True. But there is - there has to be - a limit, when the 70% or so civil works cost eats everything else. The limit may be more or less restrictive, but limit there is.
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