@brouhaha @purple @futurebird @fivetonsflax @oscherler @argv_minus_one @CursedSilicon
A lot of the engineering that goes into manufacturing optical fiber cables for outdoor and/or buried installation goes/went into the water barriers. Yes, it should be fine for the coming decades.
Just don't expect the same for 900µm buffer fiber pulled through burried hollow channel conduits. I mean the conduits by themselves are fine, but the way they're installed…
Replying to @datenwolf@chaos.social
@brouhaha @purple @futurebird @fivetonsflax @oscherler @argv_minus_one @CursedSilicon
In fall 2025 / spring 2026 a lot of hollow channel conduit was installed under the sidewalks in the streets neighboring the house I live in. So I got a very good look at how those lowest-bidder-contractors handled it.
I was disgusted and appalled. And that was before they even got to running the fiber.
Replying to @datenwolf@chaos.social
@datenwolf @purple @futurebird @fivetonsflax @oscherler @argv_minus_one @CursedSilicon
GPON in my neighborhood is up on poles, but may well have been installed by poorly trained monkeys contracted to the ILEC. The ILEC is trying to get rid of their copper plant, yet they spun off their fiber plant to another company, so I guess they don't want to hassle with any plant.
It's entirely foreseeable that in 50 years, the fiber plant will be decrepit and in need of replacement, like copper now.
Replying to @brouhaha@mastodon.social
> GPON in my neighborhood is up on poles, …
🤨 … looks into bio… sees north american callsign.
Yep… checks out 😏
Replying to @datenwolf@chaos.social
@datenwolf
Oh, there's probably buried GPON here, too, in newer areas. But in my neighborhood, the copper was on poles.
Replying to @brouhaha@mastodon.social
Well, as a snobby European I can't help but notice, that we used to run our power and our communication lines overhead and on poles, too. Some of that even into the early 2000s.
But since then, most of that got burried. And that without any pressing needs, but just because maintining stuff, keeping it in good shape and bringing it up to standard by replacing outdated stuff saves you money in the long run.
Replying to @datenwolf@chaos.social
@datenwolf @brouhaha Where power was overhead, it still is today in rural areas in many cases.
Communications was put in the ground mostly in germany, I guess it helped when in the 80s they laid cable TV, Bundespost just renewed telephone cables as well where they were still overhead.
But not all europe is the same. I was in Valencia Spain ~10years ago. Big city, however much telco cables at the wall in 2m height. Beautiful restored old buildings and then this cable mess 😵💫
Replying to @1000millimeter@chaos.social
I used to live in a rural area. The house I lived in got power and ISDN though overhead lines. Both got moved underground a few years after I moved away from there.
At least once a year I get to visit my relatives who still live in that village. Zero of the overhead stuff remains. They even buried the 16kV overhead lines that ran to the transformer huts within the village; for a time the original huts remained, they've replaced them since, too.