On Thu, Dec 16, 2010 at 8:02 AM, Jared Mauch <jared@puck.nether.net> wrote:
On Dec 16, 2010, at 1:16 AM, JC Dill wrote:
On 15/12/10 9:29 PM, Jay Ashworth wrote:
The underlying problem, of course, is lack of usable last-mile
competition;
I agree.
It exists where there is an ROI on investment. Capital markets haven't been friendly to network build since the dot-bomb, and for some reason localities are more willing to give tax-incentive financing to malls and stadiums rather than incenting over-builders.
see also my running rant about Verizon-inspired state laws *forbidding* municipalities to charter monopoly transport-only fiber providers, renting to all comers on non-discriminatory terms, which is the only practical way I can see to fix any of this.
The problem is that this should have been addressed 5-10 years ago, when
there *were* alternative ISPs who could have provided competition. Now that
Comcast has a monopoly on cable, and fiber is so bleeping expensive to install,
at best we might get *one* alternative to Comcast, and a duopoly is really no
better (for consumers, for the marketplace) than a monopoly.
Funny thing about competition is that there are losers as well as winners. DSL competition didn't lose by regulation, it lost (nationally) by cheaper, more elastic bandwidth available on other media and JC's previously-noted fickle and lazy consumers. Where there is competition, the little guy gets an easy low percentage (10-25%) of penetration based solely on not being the incumbent, but churn is high as soon as sign-up incentives expire and they get on a downward spiral of catering to complainers. Magic phrases are traded on dslreports and any retention-packages get spread across the entire customer base. Where there isn't market- sustainable competition, there is no actual legislated monopoly but rather ignorant local boards.
This is why I suggested it might take regulatory action, or changes in state laws.
Also engage locality first, as Jared indicates. The problem in going to the fed is that power will be skewed to the larger entities. Competitive providers breathed a sign of relief when Verizontal lost their attempts to get statewide television franchising and had to deal locality-by-locality, just like the small guys did. Would be worse if there was a single federal entity to buy off now that corporate campaign funding is both anonymous and unlimited.
If I want to start up a coop, or convince my local county/state they should be a neutral provider of conduits/dark fiber as roads are rebuilt, etc.. there are various barriers. Even if the cost would be nominal. I scaled-up some quotes to be an area-wide effort for fiber down every public road ROW, and came back with $100mil. (you private road types need to shell out your own cash for that leg).
The barriers to doing this as a project are well known. Even if you don't like ars, they have decent articles on these topics:
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/01/municipal-fiber-needs-more-f...
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/06/monticello-appeals-court-win...
http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2008/07/telco-wont-install-fiber-sues-to-...
Similar to the above, I could not even get Comcast to give me a quote to build to my area. AT&T ... good luck getting any data from them. I can tell they are filling in the gaps based on the trenching/boring going on, but there's no good way to motivate them. And even if I decided to drop $10k to install a bunch of POTS service for 1 month to force a build, who knows if that build would bring the right level of service. (As the POTS is regulated with a low install fee).
The incentives are clearly skewed here, but without that $100mil, reaching the 125k properties (111k residences) in my local area may be tough. (Note: there may be actual cost savings by not running down *every* public road, but using public road mileage and property counts seemed like a good method without actually designing the final fiber plant).
My notes are here:
http://puck.nether.net/~jared/blog/?p=84
The reply I received from my elected reps:
"Additionally, offering a millage to build a network for the general public may violate recent provisions within the Michigan Telecommunication Act."
- Jared
In a country where government-supplied healthcare is viewed as evil, how can people honestly expect the less-important telecommunications to be allowed to be "government run" as neutral municipal networks? Any unbundling of local HFC or FTTP loops will be slow and problematic.