[LINK] Considering Fibre to the Home

Harry harrymc at decisions-and-designs.com.au
Mon May 7 14:50:21 AEST 2007


Adrian Chadd wrote:
> On Mon, May 07, 2007, Matthew Sullivan wrote:
>>... on the same subject, I was under the impression that Canberra 
>>actually had some FTTH in the recent past...

> Perth has a little bit of it too, thanks to Bright Telecommunications,
> but it didn't last very long.
> 
> (Me, I really wish Western Power just kept laying fibre whenever they
> laid underground power cabling .. I hope they're not kicking themselves
> over it in the not too distant future.)

I hope they still are too, Adrian.

Having the energy provider host telecommunications means they have a link to
do some innovative energy management when our Kyoto (and global) obligations
are finally acknowledged.

With a network device in each household to adjust loads (with a priority set
by the householder) the power network has the capabilities for unobtrusive
load shedding; supply is no longer reacting to a chaotic load.

If the power company provides the network, some QoS provisioning means the
load balancing could occur in tens of milliseconds over the fibre network.

The communication network would need to be robust for this purpose which is a
win for content delivery from home businesses and telecommuting.

The network could react to variations in power delivery from home generation;
predominantly grid feed solar and micro combined heat and power.

The network could schedule electric motor vehicle charging (round robin) and
(as described by the Rocky Mountain Institute) draw power from those vehicles
during peaks in demand.

Power delivery is analogous to the issues of data peering where we currently
consume content from a distance source. If power production and consumption is
distributed, the network does not need costly "fat pipes" to a large source
and does not have single points of failure; like a nuclear power station.

Thinking about all these issues reminds me of "There will come soft rains" by
Ray Bradbury. Bradbury portrays the house as source of utopian comfort (with a
catastrophic interruption). Perhaps we need to consider his portrayal of home
automation in the story in new terms; for environmental sustainability and our
own survival.

I've just finished "Scorcher" by Clive Hamilton and, as well as being ashamed
at the way our present government has behaved over Kyoto, I think we have
fallen behind in our planning for intelligent energy use and have a way to
catch up.

All the best
Harry




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