urbanMSP

Yes, and also include an estimate when said fiber will rope across the Lake street bridge to Merriam Park.

CenturyLink to start fiber-to-the-home build out in the Twin Cities

http://www.twincities.com/technology/ci ... rnet-speed

CenturyLink, the dominant local landline phone company, is pricing the new service at about $80 a month if bundled with other services, such as telephone and DirecTV, or $109 a month if Internet access is purchased alone.

It really is absurd how much we let companies charge for this.

Hm... Competing with USI's network by charging nearly twice as much for the same service... Bold move.

I suppose if they can get a network to places USI hasn't reached (they have more manpower) than they can charge what they like. 65 to 80 isn't that much of a jump.

http://www.startribune.com/business/270022351.html

Why would anyone pay this? The entire time I've lived in Mpls I've been able to get 25-50 mpbs internet, via Comcast or CenturyLink, for roughly $30/mo.

Because it's orders of magnitude faster. Also, latency in generally much better with a fiber hook up

I've gone from 7 to 12 mbps. At $40 a month. eghh.

Comcast for $30/month for 25-50 mbps?! For beyond the initial 12 month period? Or are they extending that rate if you call and ask to cancel?

I think he has the time and patience to switch between services after the end of each promotional discount.

I've always switched services and/or had roommates and now the wife sign up as new customers. But if people routinely pay $60+ it has saved me nearly $2000 since my days of free collegiate internet. How else are you going to build your money mustache and retire at 35?

I wouldn't pay $80 for 1Gb service. I have 100Mb service and I can't even saturate that.

I'd love to pay $80 for 1 GB service, if only because my Comcast bill comes out to more than that per month. Good grief, they know how to nickel and dime their customers. My roommate and I finally gave in a while back and got cable TV because it was only marginally more expensive than internet alone. Might as well wring out a little more value.

Wish there was a way to get cheaper access outside the southwestern quadrant of the city. Our two big providers just don't cut it. When I'm apartment searching next summer, access to USI is legitimately high up on the list.

I suppose if they can get a network to places USI hasn't reached (they have more manpower) than they can charge what they like. 65 to 80 isn't that much of a jump.

http://www.startribune.com/business/270022351.html

Tyler Middleton, Twin Cities general manager for CenturyLink, said the fiber-optic service would be available in most of the metro area within a year.

Within a year? Good luck.

I'm actually doubtful that CL's plan is truly fiber-to-the-home as USI is doing. Qwest/CenturyLink have advertised "fiber" service in my neighborhood now with 100mbps+ but the fiber is just to the distro for your block/neighborhood... it still uses you plain old copper pair into your house. Technology has increased significantly and they can do much faster data speeds over copper for the last few thousand feet.

it still uses you plain old copper pair into your house. Technology has increased significantly and they can do much faster data speeds over copper for the last few thousand feet.

1Gb/s over copper? I'm skeptical. But I've also been wrong many, many times before.

10Gbs can be had over Cat6 (obviously in much shorter and much more controlled enviroments than underground cable, and requring 4 tightly twisted pairs), and even Cat7 could doo 100Gb on short distances, so anything is possible.

10Gbs can be had over Cat6 (obviously in much shorter and much more controlled enviroments than underground cable, and requring 4 tightly twisted pairs), and even Cat7 could doo 100Gb on short distances, so anything is possible.

Well, it's all about the distance. You can do almost anything given a short-enough distance. We're now talking about optics on silicon so copper/aluminum isn't even enough for distances measured in nanometers. Yes, I know the domains are completely different. It's a bit tongue-in-cheek.

Closer to home, supercomputers are using fiber for the network between cabinets, distances measured in the tens of feet at most.

One great advantage of fiber is that it's very resilient against changing weather conditions -- I went through a period at my last apartment where my cable modem signal would drop out, and it was at least partly due to the changing seasons. I think the pattern was that the signal got much stronger in the winter, but would be weaker in summer, but I may have that backwards. I'm not quite sure what the mechanism is, but I imagine the change in humidity had a lot to do with it.

Some pretty high speeds are possible over copper, but it's typically done in climate-controlled conditions indoors. Optical fibers are better for variable weather conditions. Optics don't require as much electricity, and therefore require less cooling -- Moore's Law tends to drive power requirements down over time, but the 10GbE network cards I've seen have typically needed big heatsinks (and sometimes fans) when using a copper cable, but the comparable optical card could get by with just a small heatsink.

Optical lines are also non-conductive, so there isn't any need to worry about your computer equipment being fried because of lightning following the network line into the house (there's still the regular electrical grid to cause mayhem, of course, but it does eliminate one potential path).

My guess is that they will push as much as they can through copper via short runs to the block/node headend (what they've been doing in my hood for 5 years) and they will upgrade to FTTH on a block-level when they can get the most out of that investment.