German government needs options for rapid FTTP deployment

Vodafone calls for German government help with ultrafast broadband rollout | News | DW | 05.05.2019: However, in an interview with Welt am Sonntag newspaper, Vodafone's German chief, Hannes Ametsreiter, said that connecting from the network to individual homes, the so-called last mile, was "extraordinarily challenging."

"It is enormously expensive to rip the road on your own," Ametsreiter said, suggesting that Germany looks at how broadband is rolled out in Spain and Portugal, where the state invests in the infrastructure, laying empty pipes, just as it builds highways.

This is called "dig once" in America. It's a perfectly sensible policy. But it can't meet the urgent need to rapidly replace obsolete copper cable built for the period of analog voice telephone service with fiber to the premise. It will have to go on utility poles where buried conduit does not exist.

Then when future road restoration or other trenching projects are undertaken and conduit installed, the aerial fiber can then be retired. Additionally, there are lower cost methods to deploy aerial fiber near energy lines such as lightweight All-dielectric self-supporting (ADSS) cable that can speed aerial deployment.

Another option is microtrenching provided the road surface is sufficiently thick with a stable base. But it must be ensured the microtrench slot is deep enough lest the conduit be forced out of the microtrench as Google Fiber recently learned to its dismay in Louisville, Kentucky.

B.S. rationale for yet more "broadband study" instead of telecom infrastructure modernization

Klobuchar, Capito Introduce Bipartisan Legislation to Measure the Economic Impact of Broadband - News Releases - U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar: WASHINGTON – U.S. Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), co-chairs of the Senate Broadband Caucus, reintroduced the Measuring the Economic Impact of Broadband Act. While the federal government measures the economic impact of many industries, it does not produce current, reliable statistics on the economic impact of broadband on the U.S. economy. Accurate, reliable data on the economic impact of broadband and the digital economy is a valuable tool for policymakers and business leaders and many research institutions, state broadband offices, and trade associations have highlighted the need for this data. The Measuring the Economic Impact of Broadband Act would require the Bureau of Economic Analysis in consultation with the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Technology to conduct a study of the effects of the digital economy and the adoption of broadband deployment on the U.S. economy.

“In the 21st century economy, broadband is a critical force for creating jobs, leveling the playing field, and increasing opportunity,” Klobuchar said. “This bipartisan legislation will ensure that we have more reliable, publicly available economic data in order to make informed decisions about expanding broadband, connecting our communities, and keeping us competitive in an increasingly digital world.”

The purported rationale for this data hunt is utter bullshit. And likely proffered at the behest of big telephone and cable companies whose motive is to further delay America's badly needed modernization of its legacy metallic phone and cable TV infrastructure to fiber and allow them to continue to redline neighborhoods for advanced telecom service. Let's hold off building while we collect more data and do further study.

As progressive the term "Fourth Industrial Revolution" sounds, it's really regressive

Powering the Fourth Industrial Revolution with 5G | About Verizon: The arrival of 5G – the next generation of wireless networks – unleashes an opportunity for smart cities to take full advantage of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, where everything that can be connected will be and the full force of transformative technologies like artificial intelligence and autonomous vehicles will permeate where we live, work and play. What 5G delivers that 4G and earlier networks cannot are the blazing speeds and ultra-low latencies (data transfer delays) that allow massive amounts of data to be relayed between connected devices, systems, and infrastructure in near real time. In other words, 5G enables the super-fast response and data analysis that can allow driverless cars, cloud-connected traffic control, and other sensor-laden smart city applications to truly thrive.

As progressive as Verizon's use of the term "Fourth Industrial Revolution" might sound, it's really regressive. In the 20th century, the Industrial Revolution represented a major phase in settlement patterns, bringing masses of people to cities to work in centralized offices and factories. In the latter half the century, automobiles, cheap motor fuel and telephones sparked a second migration to the suburbs -- and with it daily commuting that now in 21st century is overloading 20th century era transportation systems and creating choking traffic congestion encompassing urban centers and suburbs.

Verizon and other telecom companies are talking up the potential of information and communications technology (ICT) and specifically a developmental 5G wireless technology to reinforce the metro commute pattern. Instead of a more progressive use: to replace it by more widely distributing knowledge work and other economic activity beyond costly and congested metro areas. That's truly a revolutionary use of ICT with far greater potential to improve people's lives.

The short term business models of Verizon and other investor owned telcos can't fully support that large scale deployment of advanced telecommunications infrastructure (ATI) because it would require significant long term investment in fiber optic cable serving homes and businesses in less densely populated areas of the United States. Lower population density means slower return on infrastructure investment that isn't tolerable to their shareholders. That's why a publicly funded and owned model of ATI is needed.