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[sevenlayermuddle]

Fibre Distributed Data Interface.   I was involved in FDDI for a while.  An exciting time in my career, FDDI held huge promise, with a whopping ten-fold speed improvement over Ethernet.   

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiber_Distributed_Data_Interface

Ultimately, it was obsoleted by fast Ethernet and then gigabit Ethernet over much cheaper (copper) mediums.  The celebrated ten-fold increase was in relation to 10Mbps.    . 

A lesson to be remembered maybe, by those who see fibre, such as FTTP, as the only desirable  technology today, and who'd want to dismiss copper as a relic of the past? 

[burakkucat]

I don't have any memories of that medium . . . 

[Weaver]

I remember FDDI. It was the dog's.

[Ronski]

A lesson to be remembered maybe, by those who see fibre, such as FTTP, as the only desirable  technology today, and who'd want to dismiss copper as a relic of the past? 

I've often thought that when reading users posts in relation to fttp.

Wasn't there whole estates of this stuff deployed, which then caused problems with newer types of broadband?

[aesmith]

We did a number of FDDI deployments, typically with concentrators connecting servers on copper (CDDI), and FDDI to Ethernet switches connecting to stacks of pre-existing Ethernet hubs for the users.   These installation had quite long lives, although I can't put specific figures.   It was certainly impressive how hard you could drive the actual FDDI.

Regarding predictions about copper vs fibre, that's a very good point.   However remember that advances in speed over copper have generally needed new cable designs.   On the other hand people who installed 62.5 micron fibre thinking they were future proofing got a nasty surprise when they found that Gigabit would only go a few hundred metres.   

[kitz]

A lesson to be remembered maybe, by those who see fibre, such as FTTP, as the only desirable  technology today, and who'd want to dismiss copper as a relic of the past? 

I've often thought that when reading users posts in relation to fttp.

Wasn't there whole estates of this stuff deployed, which then caused problems with newer types of broadband?

I presume you mean TPON.  Some areas had fibre telephony installed in the 80/90s.   Ironic in a way isnt it. 
 
About 10 years ago - TPON (Telephony over Passive Optical Network) was a nightmare for anyone wanting DSL and it was basically tough luck.  "You can't get DSL because you have fibre on your line"
There was an whole area near here that had TPON and iirc they didnt get DSL until about 5 years after the rest of us.   

Much of the problem was BT had to totally relay a load of new copper and getting planning permission in one Borough... and that also required permission form another Borough Council's transport authority (ie dig up the tramlines and subsequent shut down of the trams for a while).   Wonder what they did with the fibre?   I know that in some areas BT had to install a copper overlay.   

[WWWombat]

On the other hand people who installed 62.5 micron fibre thinking they were future proofing got a nasty surprise when they found that Gigabit would only go a few hundred metres.

... which makes you wonder what variant of fibre would have been deployed, had BT gained permission in the eighties/nineties. Would it have been "future-proof" enough?