On Tue, Jan 29, 2013 at 7:39 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.
As long as they support open peering they can probably operate at layer 3 without harm. Tough to pitch a muni on spending tax revenue for something that's not a complete product usable directly by the taxpayers.
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?
Not Road Runner, no. What you've done, if you've done it right, is returned being an ISP to an ease-of-entry business like it was back in the dialup days. That's where *small* business plays, offering customized services where small amounts of high-margin money can be had meeting needs that a high-volume commodity player can't handle. Regards, Bill Herrin -- William D. Herrin ................ herrin@dirtside.com bill@herrin.us 3005 Crane Dr. ...................... Web: <http://bill.herrin.us/> Falls Church, VA 22042-3004