IP: remote concentrators, dsl and sbc more on dsl and rbocs

[Dave Farber <dave@farber.net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Rick Bradley <roundeye@roundeye.net>
Date: Sun, 07 Apr 2002 18:18:20 -0500
To: farber@cis.upenn.edu
Subject: Re: IP: more on dsl and rbocs

* Robert Lee (robertslee@comcast.net) [020407 17:16]:
> Verizon wants to sell me a T1. I refuse to buy. They insist they cannot
> offer me DSL because I am 18,000 feet away from the CO. A friendly Verizon
> tech showed me a Remote Terminal around the corner from my house. He said
> they are busy putting in RT's everywhere in hopes that the FCC will keep
> CLECs off any loop with fiber. He says they could offer me DSL right now
> for just the cost of a DSLAM but with limited resources it is more important
> to them to keep out CLECs than to offer DSL.

Dave, 
I wanted to reply to this particular paragraph as it finally provided
the answer to a puzzle that has been nagging at me for some time now.

I live in the Rio Grande Valley in southern Texas, and am a currently-
appeased SBC customer (those with strong stomachs who are interested in
my SBC DSL and POTS ordeal can poke around my website in the "SBC"
section).  I was surprised that I could even get DSL down here on the
border (originally in Donna, TX, and now in Harlingen, TX), but it has
apparently been deployed pretty heavily, perhaps as part of a contract
to wire the schools (?) which generally seem to have decent
connectivity.

Anyway, for the past couple of months now I've noticed that SBC is
running new fiber like it's going out of style.  They are running fiber
to and around population 2,000 towns (e.g., Los Fresnos, TX), and in the
larger towns (Harlingen is ~50,000) to outlying areas with almost no
residents.  I'm not sure if your readers have visited a colonia or not,
but the idea of providing DSL to areas that have trouble getting running
water is ironic at best.

I've been watching the trucks and workmen doing pole runs and buried
runs, thinking "surely they're not running more fiber?" only to see a
little orange sign a week later warning about the optical fiber.  I told
my fiancee a couple of weeks ago, "I don't know what they're doing, but
the fix is in -- they're counting on not letting anybody else use those
new lines or else they wouldn't be spending all this money."

When I read the previous post I finally understood -- they're hoping (if
it's not already a foregone conclusion) that they won't be made to open
up fiber runs to CLECs and so will be able to completely close out DSL
competition by dismantling the DSL gear in the COs.  (Of course just
not maintaining the gear would probably suffice...)

Thanks,
Rick
-- 
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