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by newuser46547 2071 days ago
>The fact that we are using FSOC to replace the underground fiber is what creates the 10x in savings

Then why aren't other ISPs doing it?

2 comments

The tech is extremely new and other telecom companies and ISPs are testing it to plug holes in their network, this gives them only limited ROI on the tech because they've already got fiber networks and their entire organization is geared towards the deployment of fiber.

Also, it's worth noting that most ISPs/telcos are manpower and regulations based resource extraction organisations. Their moat is being able to handle local bureaucracy and pump in the heavy capital required to deploy the network. They like to buy and use proven tech that comes with SLAs and support from large tech vendors. They will wait for FSOC to be mature before they do anything meaningful.

We get the largest ROI from FSOC tech simply because we're building the network from scratch and are targeting the low cost market that is currently underserved. Most other ISPs are aiming for the premium market.

Oh come on!

Free space optics isn’t some new technology. The real reason FSO isn’t used is because despite almost half a billion USD in R&D over the past 20 years the reliability issues haven’t been solved.

FSO has taken a leap in the last 3 years. We've got 9 months of data with thousands of live customers being served that says otherwise.
Without divulging any trade secrets, are there any research papers or topics you would recommend learning more about? I'm really interested in learning more about these FSO improvements.
[Citation needed]
Way back in 2009 there was a company in Chennai that tried something like this https://www.equitybulls.com/admin/news2006/news_det.asp?id=5....

And AFAIK Hathway (another ISP in India) too tried something like this but didn't succeed and they went back to traditional fibre.

I don't know anything about the tech but it seems like it is not so easy and I do hope Wifi Dabba succeeds.