In a message written on Sun, Feb 03, 2013 at 12:07:34AM -0500, Jean-Francois Mezei wrote:
When municipality does the buildout, does it just pass homes, or does it actually connect every home ?
I would argue, in a pure dark muni-network, the muni would run the fiber into the prem to a patch panel, and stop at that point. I believe for fiber it should be inside the prem, not outside. The same would apply for both residential and commercial. Basically when the customer (typically the service provider, but not always) orders a loop to a customer the muni provider would OTDR shoot it from the handoff point to the service provider to the prem. They would be responsible for insuring a reasonable performance of the fiber between those two end points. The customer (again, typically the service provider) would then plug in any CPE, be it an ONT, or ethernet SFP, or WDM mux. Note I say typically the service provider, because I want to enable in this model the ability for you and I, if we both have homes in this area, to pay the same $X/month and get a patch between our two homes. No service provider involved. If we want to stand up GigE on it because that's cheap, wonderful. If we want to stand up 16x100GE WDM, excellent as well. It's very similar to me to the traditional copper model used by the ILECs. There is a demark box that terminates the outside plant and allows the customer to connect the inside plant. The facilities provider stops at that box (unless you pay them to do more, of course). The provisioning process I'm advocating is substantially similar to ordering a "dry pair" in the copper world, although perhaps with a bit more customer service since it would be a service the muni wants to sell!
In any event, you still have to worry about responsability if you allow Service Providers to install their on ONT or whatever CPE equipment in homes. If they damage the fibre cable when customer unsubscribes, who is responsible for the costs of repair ? (consider a case where either homeowner or SP just cuts the fibre as it comes out of wall when taking the ONT out to be returned to the SP.
The box is the demark. If they damage something on the customer side, that's their own issue. If the damage something on the facilities provider side, the facilities provider will charge them to fix it. There would be no "just coming out of the wall". There would be a 6-12 SC (FC?) connector patch panel in a small plastic enclosure, with the outside plant properly secured (conduit, in the wall, etc) and not exposed. The homewowner or their service provider would plug into that patch panel. -- Leo Bicknell - bicknell@ufp.org - CCIE 3440 PGP keys at http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/