[LINK] Fairies

[David Boxall]

In discussion last night, the Magic Wireless Fairy 
<http://mailman.anu.edu.au/pipermail/link/2010-August/089193.html> 
reared its head (that thing really is a zombie) followed closely by its 
cousin, the Magic Copper Fairy (which asserts that copper can equal 
fibre now and will deliver petabits per second over parsecs real soon). 
Not surprising; few in my area expect to see fibre in their homes within 
their lifetimes, so they have to hope that the existing copper - or 
something else - can be made to deliver equivalent service.

One positive to come out of it was the question of comparative running 
and maintenance costs of customer access networks based on different 
technologies. The comparatively high energy cost of wireless has been 
mentioned on Link. I'm struggling to think of a metric that could 
compare all of the technologies - annual maintenance and running costs 
per gigabyte per kilometre, perhaps?

All the fuss seems to be about the "last mile". Are there any reliable 
figures comparing available technologies? There's a lot about 
establishment costs (much apocryphal), but little else that I can see.

-- 
David Boxall                         | ignorance more frequently
                                     | begets confidence than does
http://david.boxall.id.au            | knowledge
                                     | --Charles Darwin (introduction
                                     |  to 'The Descent of Man' 1871)