RE:can someone fill in the blanksClearly fiber optics are several times more expensive than copper.
Trying to to come up with an initial cost comparison between Spectra’s copper cables vs the fiber optics with faster speeds.
I think we believe in a hyperscale data center there are about 100,000 servers using 32 port connections and Spectra says their up to 7 meter cables can supply 90% of this total.
So for this exercise let’s use 3 million cables to outfit one of these mega centers
The purpose would be to try and establish some potential selling prices between copper and optic connectors to see what might be realistic from a purchasing and value proposition that exists.
I read that these Data Center leases can run for about 10 year lease agreements with company’s like Digital Realty.
If Spectra’s average cable price was $50 US x 3 million = $150 million is total cost.
If Industry optical cables are 3x more expensive at $150 x 3 million = $450 million total cost.
The upfront initial saving on acquisition cost alone are pretty staggering if these guesstimates are somewhat close to reality.
So so let’s assume future optical cables can compete on processing speeds with Spectra’s cables, that still leaves the power saving of let’s say a minimum of 50% that would drop to the bottom line of annual operating costs.
This could also result in millions of dollars of savings in electrical consumption.
I don’t know if the life of the copper cable is the same as the life of the optical cables before needing replacement? I think the cable connectors in homes last quite a while.
The link I have provided allows for a spread sheet to be utilized to calculate the costs associated for cabling a facility with either copper vs optical cables.
I think the value of this information could support the belief that the Spectra copper cables would be well insulated against the technical improvements being made with the existing optical connectors .
If anyone has better costs estimates to improve this simple exercise, please plug them in so we can have a more accurate picture of what a Data center owner such as Digital Realty would be looking at while considering a hefty order of some of these cost effective copper cables our little company is peddling...