Ethernet over Copper Reviving The Local Loop

There’s been a decline in utilization of local loops as of late. Most of it is the result of residential users dropping their analog phone service in favor of going totally wireless or a combination of wireless and VoIP. This has given some phone companies the idea that local loops should just be decommissioned totally. There have even been feelers to the FCC on this idea. Sadly, the idea of decommissioning copper is coming at exactly the same time as technology advances are breathing new life into the local loop.

Someday all telecom connections to the building may be fiber. That day is not today by any means. Something like a mere 12% of all business locations are currently lit for fiber optic service. Some could be but the demand isn’t there. Others might be except for the construction costs. Others still are nowhere near a fiber point of presence and won’t be in the near future.

That leaves copper as the most popular way to bring telecom services into a facility. The standardized connection is the local loop. This is a pair of small diameter plastic insulated copper wires that are twisted together to reduce noise and crosstalk pickup. One end of the copper pair terminates at a network interface device mounted on or inside the building to be served. The other end runs to the nearest central office location up to a few miles away.

Residential local loops or subscriber lines typically have two copper pair or four wires in a small diameter cable. Business locations can have dozens of individual pairs in a binder cable. Each pair can carry one analog telephone line. Two pair can provide 24 digital phone lines or a broadband data line. A dry pair has no signal at all. It is an unpowered circuit between two points. This local loop is owned by the incumbent local phone company but can be leased by competitive carriers.

What competitive carriers are doing is deploying a new bandwidth technology on the local loops that they lease. It’s called Ethernet over Copper for good reason. The last mile connection is two or more local loops connected to EoC equipment at both ends of the line. One electronics box is mounted at the central office. The other is installed in your building.

What does Ethernet over Copper offer? It’s a way to deliver higher bandwidth than you can generally get with T1 lines, another user of the local loop. T1 lines are provisioned on one or two copper pair and deliver 1.5 Mbps of bandwidth. You need an interface box called a CSU/DSU to convert that to an Ethernet protocol that will connect to your LAN. Often the CSU/DSU is a circuit card that plugs into an edge router rather than a separate box. With Ethernet over Copper, that circuit interface is unnecessary. The signal from your service provider is already in Ethernet protocol.

EoC services are available from 2 Mbps on up to 200 Mbps. The 2 and 3 Mbps levels are good replacements for T1 lines as they offer more bandwidth at about the same price. Many companies are now upgrading to 10 or 20 Mbps as more sophisticated online applications are bandwidth hungry. Also, more content from the Internet is now video which benefits from higher bandwidth connections.

The higher Ethernet over Copper bandwidths can replace DS3 services (45 Mbps) and even fiber optic lines at the OC-3 (155 Mbps) level. In addition to a considerable savings on the monthly lease cost, these bandwidths can help a company avoid fiber optic construction costs and still get the line speed they require. By the time fractional or full Gigabit bandwidth is needed, your building may be lit for fiber optic services.

EoC is strictly a business location service as of now. Cable broadband serves the residential market that hasn’t kept a local loop in service for DSL. Businesses, however, have more demand for copper wireline circuits than ever before. Plunging costs on T1 lines and EoC services are causing even small convenience stores and other retailers to rethink satellite links in favor of higher bandwidth, highly reliable and reasonably priced copper-based connections.

Could your business benefit from more bandwidth at lower prices that you’d expect? Find out what Ethernet over Copper bandwidth services are available for your location or locations and how much they cost with an immediate online quote. You may be surprised that you can easily upgrade without having to pay more.

The Case For Telecom Copper

There is a move afoot by some of the largest telephone companies to decommission or get rid of their copper wire assets. Some of this is an attempt to foil competition. Some is simply a technology upgrade as fiber optic cables move in to replace century-old twisted pair copper bundles. Should the FCC embrace the retirement of the copper assets already in the ground and strung on poles, or is this copper a national treasure that needs to be preserved?

It may seem odd to think of copper as a national treasure. We tend to think of gold and silver when it comes to treasure. But this copper has very high value. You might say it is worth its weight in gold. That value, above the intrinsic value of the metal, is the from the time, effort and cost of stringing the copper wire from user to provider. The telephone companies, protected by a mandated monopoly for nearly a century, are the ones that made this investment and reaped the rewards. But that government monopoly was, in a sense, an investment by all of us to get that copper installed.

Now, in the 21st century, there are copper wire telecom cables running into nearly every home and business. They range from a couple of twisted pair for residences to dozens of pairs in large binder cables running into the back rooms of businesses. The fact that all this copper is in place and all conforms to a set of standards offers the opportunity to press it into service for more than just plain old analog telephony.

Indeed, the telephone companies themselves were first to use two copper pair to deliver T1 line and ISDN PRI services. T1 is most often used to provided dedicated broadband Internet access or point to point connections between two business locations. ISDN PRI carries 23 separate telephone conversations plus Caller ID and is popular for PBX telephone systems.

In recent years, competitive service providers have entered the telecom marketplace to compete with the incumbent local phone companies. The incumbents have an advantage in that they are the legal owners of the copper that runs from their offices to the residence or building being serviced. That’s called the local loop or last mile connection. Competitors have to lease the local loop from the incumbent telco. Of course, they could choose to bring in their own copper cables, but that would be cost prohibitive.

Savvy competitors have also figured out how to just lease the copper wires themselves, with no signals at all from the phone company. They then use newer terminal equipment to send non-traditonal format digital signals down the line. The most popular of these is Ethernet over Copper service. EoC offers higher bandwidths at lower costs than traditional telco services such as T1 or DS3.

Perhaps this is what’s stuck in the incumbent telephone company’s craw. Some meet the competition head to head and offer their own Ethernet over Copper services. Others figure the way to get rid of the competition is to get rid of the copper.

That’s just plain wrong. Until the government has enough stimulus money to fund universal fiber optic service the way that universal telephone service was mandated, taking copper options off the market only hurts the business community. It’s an especially bad move during a time of economic recession when most companies need the highest bandwidth they can get at the lowest cost. In another hundred years, hopefully a fraction of that, the entire interconnection infrastructure will have been upgraded to fiber optics or perhaps something even more advanced. But until that time there is no justification for retiring perfectly good copper wiring that has already been bought and paid for. Better to list it in a register of historic technologies and make sure that it is protected from degradation until no longer needed.

Could your company benefit from lower cost copper or fiber bandwidth options? Check prices and availability for your location. You may be surprised by how much you can save.