On Jan 29, 2013, at 4:39 PM, Jay Ashworth <jra@baylink.com> wrote:
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From: "Jean-Francois Mezei" <jfmezei_nanog@vaxination.ca>
It is in fact important for a government (municipal, state/privince or federal) to stay at a last mile layer 2 service with no retail offering. Wholesale only.
Not only is the last mile competitively neutral because it is not involved in retail, but it them invites competition by allowing many service providers to provide retail services over the last mile network.
This, Jean-Francois, is the assertion I hear relatively frequently.
It rings true to me, in general, and I would go that way... but there is a sting in that tail: Can I reasonably expect that Road Runner will in fact be technically equipped and inclined to meet me to get my residents as subscribers? Especially if they're already built HFC in much to all of my municipality?
It doesn't actually matter. You don't necessarily need to be the only wholesale offering, you just need to be open to all service providers. This means that if Road Runner wants to pay for their own infrastructure instead of using yours, then that will increase their costs and likely make it harder for them to compete with ISPs (and other services) that choose to use your infrastructure. Owen