----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Graydon" <paul@paulgraydon.co.uk>
I'm curious how the feeling is on NANOG about shifting such provision towards municipal instead of corporations? I guess a rough summary of the competing views I've heard so far are:
Oh, look. A hobby horse. My opinion is a third: that last-mile fiber is, for several reasons, a Natural Monopoly, and having municipalities operate it, and farm their residents out as customers to any comer to the meet-me room, is the natural end-game ... and the sooner we get to it, the better. The problem is that many states have made it *illegal* for muni's to do this, encouraged, unsurprisingly, in many cases, by Verizon (who desperately needs FiOS to fly, because they've cut-to-clear in their copper plant for so many *decades* now that it's unsalvageable). Check the archives; I think I brought this up myself about 6 months ago. Cheers, -- jra