In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

eg. compare BT's cost per meter to lay fibre to say verizon's cost. Both commercial companies but the latter does it at much lower cost somehow eg. stringing across street posts instead of digging.

Being in America helps too, but certainly overhead is a lot cheaper than digging.

They've also said they aren't going further in deployment unless they can get their costs down.

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

lAs I said a while back people in very bad adsl areas will willingly pay for faster connections.

About a year ago somebody came onto the BT forums and ranted on about how BT were not helping them.
It comes out that they lived in the small town of South Cave in the east ridings of Yorkshire It is part of the diffuse border between BT and Kingston and as Kingston was going to installl FTTC. BT wasn't going to bother.
They came on ranted and raved how they DESERVED both companies to install FTTC so they could choose the cheapest provider as KCC was "too dear"

This is the problem that companies have to put up with because until you see people sign on the dotted line all you have is words.

Can you imagine the uproar if more and more cables were strung overhead instead of being underground?

Have a look at some cities in the US and Japan and you will realise how unsightly it gets.

yes thats the problem with this country, people too obsessed with scenery.

I dont walk around staring upwards at cables. Plus if an area already has poles there wouldnt be a huge difference anyway.

Plus if an area already has poles there wouldnt be a huge difference anyway.

Verizon use poles where the copper line was on poles and underground where that was the existing setup.

A couple of villages nr me have nagged BT and/or the electric utility to underground their stuff and de-pole the place.

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

yes thats the problem with this country, people too obsessed with scenery.

I don't know, I have friends and family in the USA and in the areas with cables on poles almost everyone in that area has at least 5 days a year with ZERO service for phone, electricity, cable-TV and internet.

They have a lot of problems with surges when poles fall over and get spikes on the line (either faults or road accidents).

Underground is a lot nicer - and some housing estates (subdivisions) in the US are now being designed with underground services - costs more but means you don't have outages when the next ice storm or snow storm runs through.

fair point.

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

yes thats the problem with this country, people too obsessed with scenery.

I dont walk around staring upwards at cables. Plus if an area already has poles there wouldnt be a huge difference anyway.

The real problem is with the planning process and every objection is given the same weight no matter how stupid. The French have a phrase, "You don't ask the frogs if it is okay to drain the swamp"!

Need it, build it...job done.

DrT

In reply to a post by DrTeeth:

The French have a phrase, "You don't ask the frogs ...."!

ROFL