On Tue, 15 Nov 2005, Owen DeLong wrote:
Most places have no fiber "last-mile". Some do. Of those that do, I know that many were installed by cable companies and that there are in many of those places utility taxes that are being collected and passed along to at least partially fund said buildout. I know that Comcast signed a huge sweet-heart deal with the city of San Jose, for example before they started tearing up my neighborhood. They seem to have laid interduct to the curb and co-ax to the home. I haven't seen them bring any fiber anywhere yet, but, I presume that's what the interduct is for at some point.
So I'm confused. San Jose is doing exactly what you are advocating. San Jose has decided to use taxpayer funds to build a city-owned fiber optic conduit system it will own and lease to telecommunication companies and other users. Palo Alto also spent a lot of its taxpayers funds to build a city-owned fiber optic system. http://www.sanjoseca.gov/budget/ http://www.sanjoseca.gov/budget/FY0506/proposedCapital/10.pdf See Fiber Optics Development Fund But what does that have to do with funding ILEC facilities? As I recall, despite spending a lot of taxpayer money, the cities couldn't convince the ILEC to use the city-owned fiber optic facilities. The ILECs built and use its own facilities, without taxpayer funds. Heck, until 1982, they wouldn't even sell you a phone. The phones were stamped property of the Bell System, not for sale. I'm not sure if there is really a natural monopoly. There are multiple wires to most houses and through most public rights of way. The fact that there a damage between different provider facilities when they dig in a right of way is evidence that right of ways contain multiple providers.