Thanks to the time lag in print media, I had an article in the March edition of Marketnews where I made dismissive comments about using fibre optics residentially.  Needless to say, in the the months between when I submitted the article and when it ran, both my attitude and knowledge had changed considerably, which is why they ran the following online column for me this week:

http://www.marketnews.ca/news_detail.asp?nid=3635

My question is who amongst the CE Pro readership is on the forward edge of doing fibre networking in their client’s homes?  Also, would you be available for me to tap as a resource for expert soundbytes in future stories on the subject?

Thanks in advance.

Many have talked about putting fiber in the home since the 80s.  It is interesting that we still are having these discussions.  I agree with you on the point about the cost of copper as one of the more compelling points for fiber in the home.  The outrageous prices have made everyone reconsider less expensive ways to do things.

We have looked at recommending some of the newer fiber-based HDMI extender products, too.  This appears to be a perfect application for fiber, especially for longer distances.  We have used fiber-based USB extenders in the past for some specific applications like putting HD DVD drives remote to the host.  Fiber for connecting Ethernet switches together already is common place, but for different reasons (and they also tend to be localized to the same space).

We always encourage installers to complement the copper runs with conduit, especially for display areas.  That way they can pull whatever they need as the technologies change (who knows how well Display Port will take off in a few years).  Innerduct is a perfect way to support fiber if it is needed in the future.  One also needs to at least allow space for fiber terminations in the form of structured wiring cabinets on the back-end for jumpers and care must be taken when coiling fiber slack on rack shelves designed for that purpose.

What we are not seeing, however, are reasonably priced Ethernet switches with lots of ports for connecting it all together via fiber or machines with fiber ports built into them.  What we also need are some Extenders for Windows Media Center that support fiber natively to keep from having converter boxes hanging around.  From a performance view, we doubt the additional bandwidth of fiber is a necessity for these though.  In fact, most would find it hard pressed to justify fiber based on bandwidth for A/V installations when compared to the moderate costs and ease of availability for gigabit Ethernet.

  =D-

Those are great points Derek, thank you!

I think another issue that has stalled fiber in the home is the current low cost of gigibit ethernet equipment (switches, NAS, etc.) and the shift to using ethernet for many high-speed media transmission tasks.

I remember back in the late 1990’s, fiber in the home was almost a sure thing.  Cable manufacturers all had “bundled” cable with 2 mulit-mode fibers included (in addition to coax and CAT5).  I’m not sure anyone still makes it.

It’s definitely a chicken-egg problem.