How much fiber-optic cable do you really need?

Date published: 8/9/2008

FIBER, everyone agrees, is good for you.

But how much do you really need?

Will an overdose of fiber-optic cable from Verizon FiOS simply make your bank account go and go and go?

FiOS frustrates me because Verizon has been slow to fully deploy the high-speed all-fiber-optic service in our area and because service issues with the telephone, TV and Internet carrier are irritating to the point of becoming the stuff of local legend.

I've been critical of Verizon for that, while praising Cox Communications for its superior service, based on my own experiences and on those of readers who have called and e-mailed The Free Lance-Star.

But this week I must defend fair FiOS' honor in the face of Cox's "New Face of Fiber" ad campaign.

Gwen Sparks, a regional spokesperson for Cox, says these ads don't mean that the carrier is about to go all-fiber-optic.

"It just means we've always had fiber," she said yesterday.

Yes, all carriers do use fiber. But all are not created equal.

When Verizon competitors go to coaxial cable as they approach homes, some of the picture quality, capacity for high definition, and for Internet speed, is lost.

"What Cox tries mightily to gloss over is that it only has fiber in part of its network" Harry Mitchell, a regional spokesman for Verizon, said yesterday. "Cox's fiber ends in neighborhood nodes, where copper coaxial lines run from there to around 200 homes per node. That network architecture imposes limits such as decreasing Internet access speeds as more people go online.

"Verizon's FiOS services, on the other hand, are delivered over an all-fiber network," Mitchell said. "That means fiber optics all the way from our switching office to your home or business--no coax in between. This provides much more transmission capacity, clearer picture quality, more high-def channels and higher Internet speeds."

Kathryn Falk, Vice President for Public Affairs at Cox in Northern Virginia, maintained yesterday that the difference is negligible, as evidenced by the fact that Cox currently offers more HD channels than FiOS. Cox, she said, has spent $1 billion in the last few years to improve its network.

She also said Cox's recent move to Docsis 3.0 technology has pumped up Internet speeds to levels comparable to FiOS'.

Date published: 8/9/2008