From: tcubed@ddsw1.mcs.com (James Hanlon)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Comments on the Multimedia Article
Date: 10 Oct 92 16:51:45 GMT
Organization: ddsw1.MCS.COM Contributor, Chicago, IL
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 12, Issue 771, Message 1 of 3

FZC@CU.NIH.GOV (Paul Robinson) writes:

> The problem we have is that we have copper wire (or that cheap
> substitute I can't remember the name for, DXC, DGC or something) which
> can't handle large bandwidth.  When people switched from outhouses to

All the above is true enough, but I can get a 500Mhz bandwidth pipe to
my house tomorrow for ten dollars (sometimes less during promotions).
It's coax, but it's 50,000X the bandwidth of tip-ring, and 300X that
of T1. The issue is not "copper is slow, fiber is fast", it's that
telco thinking invariably excludes options that don't involve sending
billions of dollars to them to Rewire America.

> servicing this demand, the only answer we have is to tear out the
> wires and put fiber in.  We will buy the capacity as we want it.  Just
> have the capacity there and have it low enough cost to allow anyone
> who can afford a phone now to get in on this stuff.

How much is an RF modem, bandwidth of 1MHz or so? 50 bucks? How
complex are RF multiplexors? Can you go RF to T-1 or T-3? (MCI seems
to).

> Note to anyone working for a telephone company: Do us all a favor and
> oversupply capacity!  You should build for a factor of one hundred

There is so much excess capacity today that moneymaking organizations
routinely send crude text messages (required bandwidth: roughly 300
baud) down 6MHz-wide channels 24 hours a day. They know they have
bandwidth to burn.

>> Many feel that for the market to take off, the country must have
>> a new communications network capable of opening a video circuit
>> between any given point and another -- just as today's telephone
>> network does for calls.

>  "Video Dial Tone".  You can get it now, it's just too expensive.  What

Or, by changing our perspective, we can merely alter an existing video
communications network from unidirectional to bidirectional capability.

> terms of what people use the space for and instead simply allocate
> them a block of frequency.  If they buy 6MHZ space, they can do FCFMV
> or they can transmit 500 simultaneous telephone calls.  What is
> expensive is the switching equipment.  But it can be done.

Just how expensive are video matrix switches? Who makes them?

> FCFMV telephone calls at $1 a minute.  Charge someone $300 to install
> his line on a finance basis, say over a ten month period.  Charge $100
> a month for the service. 

It is currently about $10/$25 for coax-to-the-home; 300/100 is a tough
sell.

>> Highly complex software also will be needed to control and
>> manage new networks capable of carrying large amounts of digital
>> data.

> I believe this to be true; it therefore behooves all of us that the
> systems be done small and simple; it makes failures less dangerous.

The software to allocate, track usage of, and bill for, 50,000X chunks
of bandwidth-time, is not 50,000X more complex than that for X chunks.
Any software developer that quoted me 2X, in fact, would be in for a
cross-examination of his motives.

> To reuse an overworked quote from a movie I've never seen, "If you
> build it, they will come."  If the capacity is there, people will find
> ways to use it that the inventors would never even dream of.  When the

A duchess once said: "You can never have too much bandwidth."

> We need new ideas and we need to think of new ways to use the
> technology and the capacity we have. 

Some ideas: RBOCs forbidden by law to subsidize the rebuilding of the
Venezuelan phone system, or to dream up new, expensive ways of
delivering video to my home when I already have an old, cheap way.


Jim Hanlon  tcubed@ddsw1.mcs.com