Broadband Delayed By Fiber Optics Shortage?

Dozing asks: "Like many folks out there I live in the middle of nowhere and I can't even dream of DSL and two way satalite just doesn't look that enticing yet. Lucky for me my cable company has been planning to offer cable modems for quite some time and they have finally started rolling them out. However, for the past several months they have been telling me that my fat pipe is delayed due to a national shortage of fiber optic cable. I spend a lot of time reading slashdot and other technology related sites and this is the first I've heard of this shortage. Does anyone have anymore information on what the status is on our fiber supply?"

Depnds on where you are

[jsfetzik]

It is not an across the board fiber shortage. It's a case of not enough fiber in the right places. There is plenty of fiber, and in some cases a glut, in major metropolitain areas. There is a significant lack of fiber to non-metropolitain areas.

My parents spend the winters in southern Texas. My dad has told me that although his modem speeds are fine, his internet performance sucks. Turns out that the fiber to the CO, and in fact the entire town of 25000, is well past saturated and no new capacity will be installed for at least 12 months.

So its a case of where you are and how well the infrastructure is built up.

shortage of workers as well

[j-beda]

I don't know how much of an effect the employee situation impacts on this type of thing, but there is a world-wide shortage of technicians for cable installation, testing, repair, etc. There is a shortage of PhD's, Masters, and undergraduate degreed people in the photonics industry, but there is a major major shortange of the techs who support them and everyone else using optical fibre.

There are less than a dozen schools offering tech training in photonics in North America, and not a lot in the rest of the world - see here [greenspun.com] for some of them.

Anyhow, no workers, no broadband.

SMF-28 over 1 year lead time

[xcmr]

Call Corning and ask how much SMF-28
(standard telecom fiber) costs and
they'll tell you they aren't quoting
prices this year! I'd call that short
supply! And all I want is about 4 km...

Fiber Shortage

[banuaba]

Word around here (here being an RBOC/LD Company based in Cinci, OH)is that 2002 is when the fiber shortage is going to happen. To combat this, the 'players' in the fiber industry (Qwest, Broadwing, AT&T, PacBell, etc.) are finding thier best fiber supplier and tying them into agreements for up to 100% of thier multi-strand/multimode fiber output until 2003.


Brant

Supply & Demand

[autocracy]

When supply drops and demand goes up/stays the same, then prices go up. However, I haven't noticed any increase in the cost of fiber lately so I'd say we're all set. I guess the cable company is kind of sitting down waiting to get enough money to lay down the fiber without taking out a loan...

ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US!

Fiber in short supply?

[QuokkaNetGuru]

News Burst: Raisin Bran and NutriGrain no longer on Supermarket Shelves.
Sources Claim Fiber in Short Supply.
Details at Ten.

Might depend on circumstances.

[human bean]

There are long lead times for some kinds of fiber cable, especially those that are designed for colocating with arial power lines.

A lot of operating companies are having problems getting diggable right of way, especially in environmentally sensistive areas. This leaves little choice but to use the existing poles and towers.

High-count fiber is in short supply.

[Bistronaut]

I work at a company that designs conduit for some major telcos, and I know for a fact that high-count fiber is on about a 2-year back-order. If you want low-count fiber (only a couple of strands), you can get it easily, but most companies only want fiber with counts in the hundreds (it cost's about the same to put it in the ground, so why waste time with low counts).