from the well,-I-didn't-know-that.... dept.
http://cityinfrastructure.com/single.php?d=RuralOutsidePlant&t=Rural%20Outside%20Plant
Another section of this web site talked about outside plant, which is the telephone company's term for the cabling and other equipment which connects your home telephone to their Central Office.
This diagram shows an overview, and below are some pictures and descriptions of how outside plant is different for rural areas.
The main differences are that the Central Offices are typically smaller, and the cable distances are much greater.
[Editor's Note: A few weeks ago we ran a story about a cold war hardened shelter which generated a reasonable discussion. This is another one of those submissions which show how regular everyday systems are actually put together and maintained; in this case part of the standard telephone system. It is informative and I discovered several things about a standard US telephone cabling that I did not know before e.g. some cable is pressurized with air to help prevent water ingress, but it provides additional benefits to the engineers who have to maintain the system.]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by optotronic on Friday September 06 2024, @01:37AM (3 children)
Thanks for this. The ample pictures show a lot of things I've seen on poles and wondered about.
I wonder how much longer telephone wiring will be used. Around here they're stringing & burying fiber all over.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by janrinok on Friday September 06 2024, @03:54AM (2 children)
My guess is that the poles will remain for a long time to come,
It is expensive to lay fibre in rural areas where it might only serve a relatively small number of users. So what they tend to do here is wait until the system breaks down. If it is copper cable of some kind and they still have some in stock then they will replace it. But at some point it will become too expensive or require cable that they no longer hold in stock, or perhaps even is no longer manufactured. I suppose at that point they will be forced to replace it with fibre. However, I guess they will choose the cheapest option because I don't know of a telephone company yet that will choose a long-term but expensive option rather than look at the next quarter's bottom line.
I have found several internet sites describing stringing fibre from the poles rather than burying it where it is better protected. Sometimes this is necessary because the ground is unworkable or there are other significant obstacles. One mentions the following:
so it is obviously a solution that is required in some instances.
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday September 06 2024, @01:19PM
Telephone companies will be brought kicking and screaming into the 22nd century.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Informative) by crm114 on Friday September 06 2024, @05:54PM
Or not
After Superstorm Sandy in 2013, they get wireless towers instead of copper.
https://money.cnn.com/2013/07/22/technology/verizon-wireless-sandy/ [cnn.com]
Mind you, copper had power sent from a central plant to the end-users phone - so if everything went south, at least the land-line phone would work as long as there was battery/generator/emergency-generator-on-a-truck at some central location.
Now Long Island will probably get phone service - since the towers have redundant power. But their phones won't work once the cellphone battery dies.
(Score: 1) by Bean Dip on Friday September 06 2024, @03:09PM (3 children)
Thank you owl for submitting this. The site has other nifty photo essays which are also quite interesting.
Does anyone know how they splice/connect a cable with 1200 twisted pairs?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by crm114 on Friday September 06 2024, @05:42PM (2 children)
I found this interesting, even if just the pictures.
https://www.theverge.com/c/24070570/internet-cables-undersea-deep-repair-ships [theverge.com]
I used to work next to the old copper telecom guys in a former organization. It was basically the same as the verge article, but with copper instead of fiber. Fiber just makes it "more fun".
(Score: 3, Interesting) by janrinok on Friday September 06 2024, @07:10PM (1 child)
That link was fascinating! Thank you.
Mind you, I have just lost more than half an hour somewhere...... :)
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 2) by crm114 on Saturday September 07 2024, @06:28PM
Thanks. First time I got interested in undersea cables was NANOG 43 (2008)
https://archive.nanog.org/meetings/nanog43/presentations/Demystifying_Bahsoun_N43.pdf [nanog.org]
Samia gets up and actually has a one-foot section of a cable. At the end of her presentation, she let us hold it. (it was surprisingly heavy because of all the layers of cladding) Made me have a whole new level of respect for what makes the internet work.
The other presentation was
https://archive.nanog.org/meetings/nanog43/presentations/Demystifying_Kirwan_TATA_June_2008.pdf [nanog.org] "Demystifying Undersea Cables"
Fascinating stuff.