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spc_markl 12/5/2012 | 5:14:32 PM
re: Stimulus Winners Get Active With Ethernet

Carol,


I wonder whether your article indicates that for all practical purposes, at least at this time in the US, the term “EPON” may be a misnomer as well as misleading.  While it probably does not matter when you are getting free money from the government, does not active Ethernet in general imply the potential for much greater costs than GPON with all of the additional outside plant expenditures, particularly fiber, and less density of the network elements?


Mark, Telecom Pragmatics

cnwedit 12/5/2012 | 5:14:32 PM
re: Stimulus Winners Get Active With Ethernet

Mark,


Certainly the stimulus money is impacting decisions because these folks know this is a one-time deal, and it's more money than any of them are going to see again.


But both the vendors and telcos are saying the cost differential isn't that great. The biggest part of the fiber installation cost is the labor, not the amount of cable, and that is very similar for the two approaches.


 


Carol

spc_markl 12/5/2012 | 5:14:31 PM
re: Stimulus Winners Get Active With Ethernet

Carol,


But if you are probably going to have home-running of fiber more with active Ethernet – in a sizable town, won’t those labor costs be exceedingly high?  Not to mention being awash with fiber and needing to deal with the problem of managing all that fiber.


Mark

spc_markl 12/5/2012 | 5:14:30 PM
re: Stimulus Winners Get Active With Ethernet

Seven,


I realize that.  It was more of a general statement.


But even in a reasonably compact town of say, 7,000 households, I am aware of a case in which over a million dollars was saved in outside plant cost in going with GPON over Ethernet.


Mark


 

paolo.franzoi 12/5/2012 | 5:14:30 PM
re: Stimulus Winners Get Active With Ethernet

 


Stimulus Winner and Sizable Town are incompatible.


 


seven


 

cnwedit 12/5/2012 | 5:14:29 PM
re: Stimulus Winners Get Active With Ethernet

Thanks for the addition - my list was certainly not comprehensive! I suspect there are lots more.

MSBridge 12/5/2012 | 5:14:29 PM
re: Stimulus Winners Get Active With Ethernet

In addition to the wins mentioned in Carol's article, VTX Telecom, a subsidiary of Valley Telephone Cooperative in southern Texas, is using its Broadband Stimulus funds to upgrade services to 15,000 subscribers. They tapped Enablence as their equipment vendor partner for this upgrade.

VTX Telecom offers a full range of telecommunications services – voice, data and video — in 18 exchanges, covering approximately 7,300 square miles and touching 19 counties in South Texas.  Valley says they selected the Enablence platform because of its ability to scale quickly, its cost-effectiveness and the reliability of its products. You can see more on this here: http://www.enablence.com/corporate-investors/press-releases/2011/1/18/valley-telephone-selects-enablence-for-broadband-stimulus

paolo.franzoi 12/5/2012 | 5:14:28 PM
re: Stimulus Winners Get Active With Ethernet

 


Let's use Valley Telephone as an example.  6500 homes in 7500 square miles....


Mark, all I am saying is that 7000 homes equates to about 30K people.  The IOC carriers break at around 10K subs.  Not just a town, but a town and all of its surroundings farms/homes.  So we need to be realistic about who we are talking about:


Tier 1s:  AT&T, Verizon, Centurylink (at least in terms of linecount)


Tier 2s:  Windstream, Frontier (maybe on the border of a Tier 1), Fairpoint, TDS, CBT, Hawaii Tel, Alaska Telephone


Tier 3s:  Pretty much everyone else.


I am sure I have missed some Tier 2s.  But all the Tier 2s ignored the stimulus and there are VERY few Tier 3s that have more than 10,000 lines.


Now, is it cheaper to run GPON over point to point ethernet?  Yes, and I have argued this in the past and pointed to a BT article about this that was written sometime back.  So, I think you are off not by an order of magnitude but just a bit of degree - think 1000 homes max in one of these Tier 3 towns. 


One big advantage of direct ethenet would be that it is easier to get longer distances than you can with GPON by buying longer reach optics versus placement of PON amplifiers (which require that the OLTs support them).  A second advantage for a small company would be that they would not need to have anyone that knew about PON.  When Grandma is your provisioner and Uncle Ed is your installer (don't laugh - this is not far from reality in some of the smaller T3s), having a single ubiquitous technology has its attraction.  I can tell you that sold a lot of gear for us at AFC (don't worry we will have a plug for that service).


seven


 

Mark Sebastyn 12/5/2012 | 5:14:28 PM
re: Stimulus Winners Get Active With Ethernet

Clearfield is a public company symbol CLFD

cnwedit 12/5/2012 | 5:14:27 PM
re: Stimulus Winners Get Active With Ethernet

I will get our records updated.

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