Where the rubber meets the road

One of the most compelling early experiences of my life as a telecom reporter was the 1988 fire that consumed an Illinois Bell Central Office in the Chicago suburb of Hinsdale, Ill. It not only knocked out local service to thousands of customers, but it took down multiple long-distance hub offices and led to dramatic changes in the way fiber optic networks are built and operated.

But for me, there was a more dramatic lesson. The smoking hull of the Hinsdale CO was the first central office I'd seen. And covering the details of that fire--how it likely started in trays that carried the massive spaghetti bowl of wiring through the facility--was my first glimpse behind the wizard's curtain of the public network.

Since then, I've tried to be more aware of such mundane things as cable management, outside plant procedures and back office operations, knowing that this is often where the best laid plans for new technology fail.

ISDN didn't take off initially in part because it didn't fit into any mass-provisioning system, making every deployment an expensive special case. DSL ran afoul of the same situation, but since there was a more serious competitive threat, it got the resources required to become part of the telecom mainstream. Fixed wireless technology continues to run afoul of trees, buildings and weather.

In an effort to look more closely at the every day issues of broadband deployment, today we start a new series of articles--"Broadband Front Lines"--that will look at the people, technologies and mundane details that are pushing broadband forward--and pulling it back.

The first in the series owes its life to the cooperation of a Verizon Fios installment crew. Others already scheduled will look at the struggle of an independent ISP to stay in business competing against incumbents, and a local government's dilemma over how to best bring fiber into town.

Let me know what you think at cwilson3@primediabusiness.com.