That's incorrect, you simply don't have as many available but in a
current
"normal" build you could easily provide 100+ dark fiber leases that extend from your MDF (still don't like using this term here) all the way down to the home or business.
And, conversely, I could, actually, *build a ring atop home run*; it would just be a folded ring, where the active gear is at the end of each run.
Yep, that's likely what will happen over the long term anyhow. That's why I asked about a new apartment building in your territory. You decision would be either run additional fiber to support each apartment as an end point, simply provide backhaul to some other provider, or put your own actives somewhere nearby.
I realize it is your argument that one doesn't need to do so, there's no market for it, etc. However, I don't agree with you.
No, my argument is that the demand for dark fiber is very low and so building your network so you can provide every single connection as dark fiber is wasteful.
Doing things which are not quite cost effective *yet* is pretty much the *hallmark* of government, is it not? Hybrid car tax breaks, Solar PV install tax breaks... these things are all subsidies to the consumer cost of a technology, so as to increase its uptake and push it onto the consumer-cost S-curve; this is a government practice with at least a century long history.
It's pretty much what I'm trying to accomplish here. And thanks for teasing that thought out of my head, so I can make sure it's in my internal sales pitch. :-)
All of those items have some chance of mass deployment. Mass deployment of Layer 1 connectivity in the US is much *much *less likely.
First, exactly how many and what Layer 2 technologies BESIDES Ethernet do you think you have a market for?
GPON/DOCSIS/RFoG? That's one people are deploying today.
That question was in reference to commercial accounts not service providers.
Over the 50 year proposed lifetime of the plant? WTF knows. That's exactly the point.
To paraphrase Tom Peters, you don't look like a trailbreaker by *emulating what other trailbreakers have done*.
I'm not *trying* to do the last thing.
I'm trying to do the next thing. Or maybe the one after that.
First, there are very few businesses in the size town we've been discussing that even have this scenario as a wish list item.
"...now."
Second, how many businesses that need/want remote connectivity for their workers at home AREN'T running Ethernet on their corporate LAN and at the employees'
home?
Course they are.
Another thing to remember is that many businesses run VPNs because of the encryption and controls it provides, not because they can't get or afford direct connectivity. You have a vanishingly small set of potential customers IMO.
Perhaps. But the *current* potential customer base does not merit locking in a limited design in a 50-year plant build.
That's a business call, but like a lot of decisions you're making a ton of assumptions as well. You're assuming for example that the costs of running additional fibers won't go down significantly during that 50 year time span. You're assuming that the cost of DWDM gear won't go down sufficiently that running new fiber is simply not needed to support the new architecture. You're also assuming that Layer 1 will at some point have a reason for customer adoption when the entire world is working on Layer 3 methods of doing this.
Admittedly, this only works for the employees that live within range, but it's an example of the kinds of services that nobody even imagines today because we can't get good L1 services cheap yet.
This is the key point. IF someone was able to put together a nationwide or even regional offering to allow inexpensive Layer 1 connectivity things would be different.
How, Scott, would you expect that sort of thing might happen?
By people taking the first step?
Yeah; thought so.
There are more "first steps" that are never followed up than people actually starting a trend. There is a guy in my neighborhood that swears we can all drive around in cars powered by recycled frying oil and he built one to prove it works. I should point out that your idea is not new nor are you the first to try to build something like this.
My county doesn't have the same first-trencher advantage my city does... but it does have the advantage that *it is nearly 100% built out as well*; we are, I believe, the densest county *in the United States*; maybe Manhattan beats us. Maybe DC; maybe Suffolk County in Mass.
So it's not at all impossible that we might be the first domino to fall; there are a lot of barrier island communities near me that would be similarly easy to fiber, since they're so one-dimensional.
(Geographically; I'm sure their residents are quite nice. :-)
Today there are networks based on this premise in every state I've cared to check. Here in Georgia the independent phone companies formed a seperate organization called US Carrier (which was recently sold for much less than they put into it). The muni's formed a partnering (initially) network called MEAG that was later renamed to GA Public Web ( http://www.gapublicweb.net/). When the two were first constructed in the early 2000's they actually had a interconnects and could sell off each other's network, but that fell apart over time.
However, that's not going to happen AND we already have good cheap solutions to deal with that. Most commonly VPLS over GRE or VPN whose only real cost beyond the basic home Internet connection, is a ~$350 CPE that supports the protocol.
You're paying $350 for VPN routers?
Could I be one of your vendors?
VPLS and good remote management is well worth $350.
So, if you're running a company with regional or nationwide offices and home workers would you be
attracted
to a more limited method of connection that is only available in certain areas as opposed to the solution that works everywhere? Which is easier for your IT staff to support?
Accurate, but not germane. They're not my target market.
Owen brought up that example.
Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth Baylink jra@baylink.com Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100 Ashworth & Associates http://baylink.pitas.com 2000 Land Rover DII St Petersburg FL USA #natog +1 727 647 1274
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