----- Original Message -----
From: "John Osmon" <josmon@rigozsaurus.com>
On Thu, Dec 23, 2010 at 10:17:46AM -0800, Joel Jaeggli wrote: [...]
The fact that I can get a wavelength to county dump in Eugene OR the composting facility in Palo Alto doesn't really do anything for the residential access market.
Why not?
You have to start with connectivity *somewhere*. If the economics work out, *someone* will build the residential access market from those access points.
Well, I think Joel's real point was that it's not necessarily a given that just because fiber's being installed by (or under contract to) a city or other municipality, that it will necessarily be run to *every single premise* in that municipality. And of course he's right, but there are lots of good reasons to do it that way; buildings often change occupancy and purpose, and the dump, of course, is *run* by the municipality very often, and you want all your official facilities connected up anyway. And doing it all as one build probably makes it easier to finance. My personal favorite reason to do this is that it *increases the property values in the municipality*, an assertion for which I have no documentary evidence or studies. :-) (To clarify there, by "this" I mean muni fiber in general, not necessarily passing every premise, though Metcalfe's Law probably applies here as well...) Cheers, -- jra