"John Mazor" wrote in message
...
[someone said]
It is amazing what folks can do with the rules once the feds lock them
in. We have a new ritzy exurb going in where they noticed a federal
program to encourage broadband in farm areas. They used the subsidy to
set up their cable system for their houses. Well, it used to be farm
land and the feds were sloppy.

Here the county is thinking of subsidizing an expansion of fiber cable,
including what would be service to $400k houses.

But in the DC area, $400K is low-cost housing or townhouses. They hardly
build anything below $600K within 25 miles of DC. They want $800K for new
cardboard-wall townhouses not too far from me.

Mark my words, the conversion of telephone service to fiber will
reduce the ultimate reliability of phone service. There is still "copper"
into the home, and the conversion from fiber to copper takes place in nearby
electronics powered from the electric utility. When the lights go out, the
phone fiber-to-copper electronics run on battery UNTIL THE BATTERY RUNS
DOWN, a matter of a couple of days. So your phone will fail during an
extended electrical outage. Neat. Many cell-phone sites do not have a
backup generator, so they too fail when their battery runs down.