Telecommunications network providers and users are concerned about the single point of failure in "the last mile," which is the single cable from the network provider's last switching station to the customer's premises. How can a customer protect against that single point of failure? Comment on whether your approach presents a good cost-benefit trade-off

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Generally,
the
last
mile
is
not
protected,
at
least
not
for
normal
(residential)
customers.
Plain
telephone
service
typically
connects
two
pairs
of
wires
to
each
house,
for
two
reasons:
to
have
a
spare
pair
in
case
of
a
failure
in
the
first
and
(more
important)
to
make
for
an
easy
upgrade
to
two
telephone
lines
if
the
customer
expands
a
service
request.
Compensating
for
a
failure
in
the
last
mile
requires
redundancy,
from
the
last
switching
point
to
the
endpoint.
But
that
implies
two
cables
on
different
poles
(to
protect
against
a
windstorm's
severing
a
cable)
or
in
two
underground
paths
(to
protect
against
the
ubiquitous
nonmalicious
backhoe
operator).
Such
full
redundancy
is
expensive
unless
high
availability
is
truly
required.