On with the technology!

Yeah, this is pretty cool…

Verizon Deploying Fiber Optics to Homes and Businesses in 6 More States in Northeast and Mid-Atlantic

So we’re finally entering into the technological age that many more advanced countries (i.e. Japan, China, Korea, most of freakin’ Europe) have been dominating for years now…better late than never, eh?! What’s even more impressive, I suppose, is that it looks like Tampa is going to be one of their pilot areas to see how popular and worthwhile the whole fiber concept really is. Nowhere near me right now, mind you – actually, North Tampa at the moment because there are so many new developments up there anyways – but it wouldn’t surprise me to see trucks around this area sometime within the next year or so, regardless.

Of course, I don’t see it necessarily being available to myself as an apartment dweller anytime in the future, but it’s still a pretty big advance in terms of connecting households to the rest of the world with the most efficient systems possible. Five or ten years ago, we all would’ve thought that the way of the satellite dish was the future, with those gigantic, gaudy hulks taking up space in the front yard, yet also prominently landmarking exactly which homes were ready for the wave of the future! Nowadays there’s a different tune, with most of those dishes having been scrapped for their DISH Network and DirecTV counterparts, although up until now they’ve really just proven to be a means of delivering television signals…and heaven forbid you live in an area that’s…say, the lightning capital of the world…and gets rain for weeks on end. Hope you brought a book!

Enter the days of fiber optics, where a single strand of fiber running into your home will provide the pipe for hundreds of digital cable channels and HDTV, along with as many phone lines as the females of your family can monopolize and enough Internet bandwidth to occupy you in the meantime! Just comparing the Internet aspect of it alone – I see that Verizon is offering both 5 Mbps & 15 Mbps pipes that are competitive with any other broadband source that you could find that maxes at around 3 Mbps. I don’t really know what anyone would do with those kinds of speeds…legally, anyways…but just think that if we continue in this fashion and continue to integrate computer and home entertainment as we have thus far, suddenly the idea of streaming a DVD at 4.5 GB from Blockbuster instead of driving to the video store isn’t all that crazy afterall. There is definitely potential here, I tell you…

There are already talks of Verizon teaming with DirecTV next year to begin offering alternatives to cable and satellite across this new fiber network of theirs and really, if it’ll save me a few bucks, I’d gladly ditch the digital cable if there is a viable way for me to merge over to a single service provider for all of my networking needs. Hehehe – it’s funny: most folks consider the schools in a given area and the crime rate and so forth when making their decision to purchase their first home…and yet on top of all of that, “Has the area been pre-wired for fiber?” will no doubt be added to my own list come next fall! Gosh, this is an interesting time that we live in!

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