In (rec.radio.amateur.misc), Robert Casey wrote:

Most fibre optic cables use railroad right of ways. The railroad
already exists and has direct paths from one city or town to
another, and is one entity for the firbre company to lease from. And
the railroads like having the extra income. They bury the cable off
to one or both sides of the tracks and railroads are used to heavy
equipment work being done. Railroads need communications for their
signals and keeping track of where the trains are and such anyway.
So they throw in extra fibre for that when installing the other
fibre. And from those towns fibre is strung along telephone poles to
reach that place out in the sticks. Imagine a high speed 'net link
to Ted Clampet's shack he had before he got his oil money.... "Wee
Doggies, look at this porn"..... :-)

An increasing amount of fiber is being buried on (or under) highway
right-of-way. I know; I work for a state department of transportation,
and we worked deals to get some very nice free bandwidth out of the
fibers along some Interstates. I expect we'll be able to do the same
for fibers buried along federal and state highways, once the carriers
recover from the dot-bomb and start building bandwidth out again.

--
Mike Andrews

Tired old sysadmin

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"Mike" == Mike Andrews writes:

[... Robert Casey talks about fiber and railroad right-of-ways ...]

Mike An increasing amount of fiber is being buried on (or under)
Mike highway right-of-way. I know; I work for a state department of
Mike transportation, and we worked deals to get some very nice free
Mike bandwidth out of the fibers along some Interstates. I expect
Mike we'll be able to do the same for fibers buried along federal and
Mike state highways, once the carriers recover from the dot-bomb and
Mike start building bandwidth out again.

This was done five or ten years ago in New York -- I worked at
the place that managed the fiber for the state. The fiber was laid
along the NYS Thruway, which passes through the nine largest cities in
NY and within some short number of miles of a large percentage of the
state population. Much of that fiber was dark last I heard.

The idea of buried fiber along every two-lane road in the country may
be a fantasy, but laying cable along every Interstate is certainly
doable with the resources available. Of course, who will run this
true "information superhighway" is the next debate...

Mike -- Mike Andrews Tired old sysadmin

Jack.
- --
Jack Twilley
jmt at twilley dot org
http colon slash slash www dot twilley dot org slash tilde jmt slash
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"Jack Twilley" wrote


The idea of buried fiber along every two-lane road in the
country may
be a fantasy, but laying cable along every Interstate is
certainly
doable with the resources available. Of course, who will run
this
true "information superhighway" is the next debate...


Ten-twelve years ago I was up in northern Minnesota deer hunting.
Got up to my stand way back down a township road, 5 miles from
the nearest dwelling, at zero-dark-thirty and waited for Bambi's
dad to show up with the sunrise. Just in time for morning colors
(0800) I start hearing this awful racket off in the distance,
like a farmer might be buring drainage tiles or something, except
this part of Minnesota hasn't seen an agricultural plow since the
depression. Finally got curious (and cold) enough to go
investigate. Here, out in the middle of absolute nowhere, is a
contract crew burying a 144-fiber cable big as your wrist, and
another spare alonside of it. Every half-mile they put in an
above-ground service loop, and the next day another crew came
behind and plonked down a splice-and-access pedestal at each loop
waiting for the subscribers to show up. The pedestals are still
there, some kinda shot up, but no customers on the horizon. I
bet the local Podunk Power Cooperative is getting ready to roll
out BPL in the same manner!

73, de Hans, K0HB

"KØHB" wrote in message
link.net...

"Jack Twilley" wrote


The idea of buried fiber along every two-lane road in the
country may
be a fantasy, but laying cable along every Interstate is
certainly
doable with the resources available. Of course, who will run
this
true "information superhighway" is the next debate...


Ten-twelve years ago I was up in northern Minnesota deer hunting.
Got up to my stand way back down a township road, 5 miles from
the nearest dwelling, at zero-dark-thirty and waited for Bambi's
dad to show up with the sunrise. Just in time for morning colors
(0800) I start hearing this awful racket off in the distance,
like a farmer might be buring drainage tiles or something, except
this part of Minnesota hasn't seen an agricultural plow since the
depression. Finally got curious (and cold) enough to go
investigate. Here, out in the middle of absolute nowhere, is a
contract crew burying a 144-fiber cable big as your wrist, and
another spare alonside of it. Every half-mile they put in an
above-ground service loop, and the next day another crew came
behind and plonked down a splice-and-access pedestal at each loop
waiting for the subscribers to show up. The pedestals are still
there, some kinda shot up, but no customers on the horizon. I
bet the local Podunk Power Cooperative is getting ready to roll
out BPL in the same manner!

73, de Hans, K0HB

Hello, Hans

My gut feeling is that if someone is out in the boonies and they *really*
want high speed internet, they could go for satellite and have a decent
system. Yes, $50.00 per month is not as cheap as you can get cable or DSL
(at least in some areas), but it is doable and I doubt too many ISPs are
going to try high speed service where, even if they could subscribe
everyone, the average population density is 10 per square mile or less

I suspect that BPL will go the same route; they'll try, perhaps, but it will
be in the cities and suburbs where they can make money (and they will have
competition *and* cause a lot of qrm). The low population density areas
will *still* not be served (except by satellite or, perhaps, dial-up).

As for president, I *still* like Ike!!!

73 from Rochester, NY
Jim AA2QA



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Jim Hampton wrote:
... stuff deleted ...
I suspect that BPL will go the same route; they'll try, perhaps, but it will
be in the cities and suburbs where they can make money (and they will have
competition *and* cause a lot of qrm). The low population density areas
will *still* not be served (except by satellite or, perhaps, dial-up).

I agree with this, except that a satellite link has too much latency to
support
VPN, so some of us rural folk are still stuck with only dialup (and
I$DN). There
is an outfit in town that's putting up terrestrial microwave links in
the area,
but they claim the County is stalling on the approval for the tower they
need
to service my area. Grrrr!

I give BPL little chance of success in my neighborhood - the PG&E lines
around here
generate so much hash that it would never fly. Had PG&E come out once
to look at
it aan it went away for awhile, but now that the hot weather's back so's
the noise.

73 from Rochester, NY
Jim AA2QA

73,
L