On Thu, Jun 3, 2021 at 1:37 AM Masataka Ohta < mohta@necom830.hpcl.titech.ac.jp> wrote:
The city should provide base infrastructure, lease it to operators at the same price, and get out of the way. End of.
With single star topology, that's fine.
However, with PON, only the provider with the largest share can win the initial competition, after which there is monopoly.
No. Most of the municipal proposals I see are open access, even with a PON design. If the network is not a "one fiber per customer" design, then the muni network will own the entire GPON/XGS-PON infrastructure (fiber, splitters and lit electronics). The ISP is just providing bits, customer service, billing, and maybe the inside install and CPE. Sometimes, the transport to the customer is a fee paid by the ISP to the network owner. In other cases the end-customer pays the fiber transport cost directly to the network owner, and then pays a separate bill just for their desired ISP service. This is all designed for open access with each ISP having their own NNIs and service VLANs on the lit network to connect back to their ISP service network. Often the muni owners are looking for a "network operator" that is usually one of the ISPs on the network, who will handle all the physical administration and connection work for the lit network, and is paid some sort of fee for doing this. They have to stay neutral as the operator, when dealing with other ISPs, with contract requirements and SLAs for maintaining the network for all involved. There are several successful municipal or utility district owned open access fiber infrastructure projects in the US. Some of the implementations even allow the customer to "self service" switch to a new ISP as desired, via a web portal and have several choices for providers. Occasionally a muni network will want a single ISP for the entire network. They will offer an ISP an exclusive contract for a fixed period of time, and negotiate for the lowest possible price for their residents for the bandwidth provided. I know of muni owned networks where the residents are paying $30/month for full 1GigE ISP service, and all the other costs are paid by their property taxes servicing a long term bond for the construction costs. -- Jim Troutman, jamesltroutman@gmail.com Pronouns: he/him/his 207-514-5676 (cell)