On Jul 21, 2014, at 1:13 PM, Jay Ashworth <jra@baylink.com> wrote:

Is anyone else cynical enough to say FiOS going symmetrical is an attempt to blunt the pro-NetFlix argument on that point?

I certainly don’t think it hurts.. but in general I’ll say the FiOS going symmetrical is very pro-consumer and pro-internet and in that part I suspect we will both agree. - Jared

On 21/07/14 18:19, Jay Ashworth wrote:

Well, if they are provisioned for it, and if they don't (continue to) impose the silly "you can't run a server on a consumer circuit" crap they traditionally have.

It might improve their ratios if they did relax that... Eventually.

I just have no faith that all the dominos are lined up in the proper direction...

Indeed; quite hard to be trusting at this point. Tom

On Mon, Jul 21, 2014 at 10:28 AM, Scott Helms <khelms@zcorum.com> wrote:

In an organization as large as Verizon there are many reasons why a policy gets changed. I'm certain that there are product guys who were saying our customers want this. I'm sure there were marketing folks saying we can build a marketing campaign around it. I am equally certain that some there were some folks, perhaps lawyers, who said this gives us a better position to argue from if we need to against Netflix.

Interestingly enough, this seems to be coupled with a statement that Verizon will be deploying Netflix CDN boxes into their network: http://publicpolicy.verizon.com/blog/entry/level-3s-selective-amnesia-on-pee... "Fortunately, Verizon and Netflix have found a way to avoid the congestion problems that Level 3 is creating by its refusal to find “alternative commercial terms.” We are working diligently on directly connecting Netflix content servers into Verizon’s network so that we both can keep the interests of our mutual customers paramount." Kudos to Netflix for getting Verizon to agree to host openconnect boxes internally! This beats the business plan I was formulating to sell $1/month VPN connections to Netflix users on Verizon to bypass the congested links. ^_^; Matt

Scott Helms Vice President of Technology ZCorum (678) 507-5000 -------------------------------- http://twitter.com/kscotthelms --------------------------------

On Mon, Jul 21, 2014 at 1:28 PM, Scott Helms <khelms@zcorum.com> wrote:

I am equally certain that some there were some folks, perhaps lawyers, who said this gives us a better position to argue from if we need to against Netflix.

wasn't this part of the verizon network specifically NOT the red part in the verizon blog? (so I'm unclear how this change is in any way related to verizon/netflix issues)

Jay, I really doubt that the guys who designed Verizon's access network had anything to do or say about their peering nor do I believe there was a cross departmental design meeting to talk about optimal peering to work with the access technology. The group responsible for peering and other transit operations and planning probably pre-dated FiOS being at scale by decades. Asymmetrical networks from telecom operators is and has been the norm world wide for a very long time. We're only now getting to a place where that consideration is even being talked about and even now none of the "common" approaches for access give symmetrical traffic except for Ethernet. I'd like to see EPON more common, but the traditional telco vendors either don't offer it or its just now becoming available. Again, I have no doubt that _after the fact_ someone at Verizon said that this is a good because it helps with the Netflix flap, but drawing causality between their prior asymmetrical offering and the way they went after transit is a mistake IMO. Scott Helms Vice President of Technology ZCorum (678) 507-5000 -------------------------------- http://twitter.com/kscotthelms -------------------------------- On Mon, Jul 21, 2014 at 3:31 PM, Jay Ashworth <jra@baylink.com> wrote:

----- Original Message -----

...

From: "Christopher Morrow" <morrowc.lists@gmail.com>

...

On Mon, Jul 21, 2014 at 1:28 PM, Scott Helms <khelms@zcorum.com> wrote:

...

I am equally certain that some there were some folks, perhaps lawyers, who said this gives us a better position to argue from if we need to against Netflix.

wasn't this part of the verizon network specifically NOT the red part in the verizon blog? (so I'm unclear how this change is in any way related to verizon/netflix issues)

I made the argument, so I'll clarify.

One of the arguments which was put up for why this was Verizontal's problem was that they should have *understood* that if they deployed an eyeball network which was *by design* asymmetrical downhill, that that's how their peering would look too -- asymmetrical incoming; the thing they're complaining about now.

Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth Baylink jra@baylink.com Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100 Ashworth & Associates http://www.bcp38.info 2000 Land Rover DII St Petersburg FL USA BCP38: Ask For It By Name! +1 727 647 1274

Lots of blame to go around. Verizon isn't an eyeball only network (Comcast would have a more difficult time describing itself as anything but), so a reasonable peering policy should apply. In Verizon's case, 1.8:1. I speculate that without Netflix, Cogent and L3 are largely within the specifications of their peering agreements. Netflix knows how much traffic it sends. If its transit is doing their due diligence, they'll also know. It didn't come as a surprise to either transit provider that they were going to fill their pipes into at least some eyeball provider peers. Cogent is notoriously hard nosed when it comes to disputes, and Level3 caved very early in the fight. Anyway, this is a simple peering dispute between carriers that almost certainly knew they were participating with the internet's number one traffic generator and eyeballs wanting to get back into the contractual green. Also, I don't think it's out of line for anyone to ask for free stuff. On Mon, Jul 21, 2014 at 1:31 PM, Jay Ashworth <jra@baylink.com> wrote:

----- Original Message -----

...

From: "Christopher Morrow" <morrowc.lists@gmail.com>

...

On Mon, Jul 21, 2014 at 1:28 PM, Scott Helms <khelms@zcorum.com> wrote:

...

I am equally certain that some there were some folks, perhaps lawyers, who said this gives us a better position to argue from if we need to against Netflix.

wasn't this part of the verizon network specifically NOT the red part in the verizon blog? (so I'm unclear how this change is in any way related to verizon/netflix issues)

I made the argument, so I'll clarify.

One of the arguments which was put up for why this was Verizontal's problem was that they should have *understood* that if they deployed an eyeball network which was *by design* asymmetrical downhill, that that's how their peering would look too -- asymmetrical incoming; the thing they're complaining about now.

Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth Baylink jra@baylink.com Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100 Ashworth & Associates http://www.bcp38.info 2000 Land Rover DII St Petersburg FL USA BCP38: Ask For It By Name! +1 727 647 1274

Maybe I am narrow minded in my reading of all of this information. But it seems to me that Verizon customers want to use their service to the internet(Verizon), and Verizon's connection to the internet(L3, cogent, etc) is not a thick enough pipe. This sounds like UPS telling you that the reason your next day package hasn't arrived is because they refuse to buy an airplane and insist on sending it by truck... On Mon, Jul 21, 2014 at 4:28 PM, Jay Ashworth <jra@baylink.com> wrote:

----- Original Message -----

...

From: "Jason Iannone" <jason.iannone@gmail.com>

...

Lots of blame to go around. Verizon isn't an eyeball only network (Comcast would have a more difficult time describing itself as anything but), so a reasonable peering policy should apply. In Verizon's case, 1.8:1. I speculate that without Netflix, Cogent and L3 are largely within the specifications of their peering agreements. Netflix knows how much traffic it sends. If its transit is doing their due diligence, they'll also know. It didn't come as a surprise to either transit provider that they were going to fill their pipes into at least some eyeball provider peers. Cogent is notoriously hard nosed when it comes to disputes, and Level3 caved very early in the fight. Anyway, this is a simple peering dispute between carriers that almost certainly knew they were participating with the internet's number one traffic generator and eyeballs wanting to get back into the contractual green. Also, I don't think it's out of line for anyone to ask for free stuff.

I might be misreading your posting here, Jason, but it sounds as if you are playing into Verizon's argument that this traffic is somehow Netflix's *fault*/"responsibility", rather than merely being the other side of flows *initiated by Verizon FiOS customers*.

Did I misunderstand you?

Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth Baylink jra@baylink.com Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100 Ashworth & Associates http://www.bcp38.info 2000 Land Rover DII St Petersburg FL USA BCP38: Ask For It By Name! +1 727 647 1274

So you're actually saying that it's *Cogent's* fault for not taking into account that Netflix was going to be horribly asymmetric, in taking them on as a client? I'm fine with that, but what's their solution? ----- Original Message -----

From: "Jason Iannone" <jason.iannone@gmail.com> To: "Jay Ashworth" <jra@baylink.com> Cc: "NANOG" <nanog@nanog.org> Sent: Monday, July 21, 2014 5:25:49 PM Subject: Re: Muni Fiber and Politics You didn't misunderstand me. But that's not the only point I was making. Yes, Netflix pays Cogent for access to the networks it doesn't have interconnections with. Cogent and Verizon have a 1.8:1 peering agreement. Cogent sends more than that and as such is in breach of contract. It's not unfair for the breaching party to accept penalties. So it's not exactly Netflix's responsibility, it's Cogent's. They're responsible for providing their customer, Netflix, with the service they purchased.

Netflix's problem is that their application generates a third of the internet's traffic. That leads to special considerations for Netflix as it makes its transit and interconnection contracts. Anyone promising anything to Netflix should consider its bitweight.

On Mon, Jul 21, 2014 at 2:28 PM, Jay Ashworth <jra@baylink.com> wrote:

...

----- Original Message -----

...

From: "Jason Iannone" <jason.iannone@gmail.com>

...

Lots of blame to go around. Verizon isn't an eyeball only network (Comcast would have a more difficult time describing itself as anything but), so a reasonable peering policy should apply. In Verizon's case, 1.8:1. I speculate that without Netflix, Cogent and L3 are largely within the specifications of their peering agreements. Netflix knows how much traffic it sends. If its transit is doing their due diligence, they'll also know. It didn't come as a surprise to either transit provider that they were going to fill their pipes into at least some eyeball provider peers. Cogent is notoriously hard nosed when it comes to disputes, and Level3 caved very early in the fight. Anyway, this is a simple peering dispute between carriers that almost certainly knew they were participating with the internet's number one traffic generator and eyeballs wanting to get back into the contractual green. Also, I don't think it's out of line for anyone to ask for free stuff.

I might be misreading your posting here, Jason, but it sounds as if you are playing into Verizon's argument that this traffic is somehow Netflix's *fault*/"responsibility", rather than merely being the other side of flows *initiated by Verizon FiOS customers*.

Did I misunderstand you?

Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth Baylink jra@baylink.com Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100 Ashworth & Associates http://www.bcp38.info 2000 Land Rover DII St Petersburg FL USA BCP38: Ask For It By Name! +1 727 647 1274

-- Jay R. Ashworth Baylink jra@baylink.com Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100 Ashworth & Associates http://www.bcp38.info 2000 Land Rover DII St Petersburg FL USA BCP38: Ask For It By Name! +1 727 647 1274

On Wed, Jul 23, 2014 at 4:08 PM, Shawn Morris <shawn@smorris.com> wrote:

What responsibility does Verizon have to maintain this ratio?

Anybody else think peering ratios miss the point? Netflix is theoretically in a position to have their app generate empty back-traffic at a rate that maintains any necessary peering ratios, but surely Verizon would scream bloody murder if they did. Regards, Bill Herrin -- William Herrin ................ herrin@dirtside.com bill@herrin.us Owner, Dirtside Systems ......... Web: <http://www.dirtside.com/> Can I solve your unusual networking challenges?

On Wed, Jul 23, 2014 at 03:50:40PM -0500, Blake Hudson wrote:

I would love to see the Verizon blog response on that...

I would love to see Verizon invest the resources (both financial and personnel) that are being deployed to update their blog, lobby Congress, lobby the FCC, astroturf, issue press releases, etc. in actual real live engineering that would -- and I know this is a ridiculous concept, so bear with me -- fix the root cause of the problem. ---rsk

On 07/23/2014 06:05 PM, Scott Helms wrote:

The problem is marketing/spin/lobbying is both cheaper and more effective in most scenarios.

No, the problem is that those companies don't define "the problem" the same way that we do. :) Doug

On Jul 23, 2014, at 4:33 PM, William Herrin <bill@herrin.us> wrote:

On Wed, Jul 23, 2014 at 4:08 PM, Shawn Morris <shawn@smorris.com> wrote:

...

What responsibility does Verizon have to maintain this ratio?

Anybody else think peering ratios miss the point? Netflix is theoretically in a position to have their app generate empty back-traffic at a rate that maintains any necessary peering ratios, but surely Verizon would scream bloody murder if they did.

I would love to see the process improve here. Ratios are one way to measure value, but when networks are dissimilar it’s hard to compare them. Regional ASN vs Global ASN, wholesale vs consumer vs enterprise vs CDN and datacenter all make a difference. I’m wondering if the change at vz when it comes to upload:download ratio is going to cause broader changes in the marketplace. I suspect it will and those in the US consumer/SMB space may see benefits. I’d love to see symmetric services from my home carrier. - Jared

On Jul 30, 2014, at 1:47 AM, Mark Tinka <mark.tinka@seacom.mu> wrote:

Symmetrical would be tough to do unless you're doing Active- E.

I'm an outlier in my thinking, but I believe the best world would be where the muni offered L1 fiber, and leased access to it on a non-discrimatory basis. That would necessitate an Active-E solution since L1 would not have things like GPON splitters in it, but it enables things like buying a dark fiber pair from your home to your business, and lighting it with your own optics. That to me is a huge win. It also means future upgrades are unencumbered. Want to run 10GE? 100GE? 50x100GE WDM? Please do. You leased a dark fiber. If the muni has "gear" (even just splitters) in the path they will gatekeeper upgrades. It may be a smidge more expensive up front, but in the long run I think it will be cheaper, more reliable, and most importantly hugely more flexible. -- Leo Bicknell - bicknell@ufp.org - CCIE 3440 PGP keys at http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/

Subject: Re: Muni Fiber and Politics Date: Wed, Jul 30, 2014 at 06:56:40PM -0500 Quoting Leo Bicknell (bicknell@ufp.org):

On Jul 30, 2014, at 1:47 AM, Mark Tinka <mark.tinka@seacom.mu> wrote:

...

Symmetrical would be tough to do unless you're doing Active- E.

I'm an outlier in my thinking, but I believe the best world would be where the muni offered L1 fiber, and leased access to it on a non-discrimatory basis. That would necessitate an Active-E solution since L1 would not have things like GPON splitters in it, but it enables things like buying a dark fiber pair from your home to your business, and lighting it with your own optics. That to me is a huge win.

It also means future upgrades are unencumbered. Want to run 10GE? 100GE? 50x100GE WDM? Please do. You leased a dark fiber. If the muni has "gear" (even just splitters) in the path they will gatekeeper upgrades.

It may be a smidge more expensive up front, but in the long run I think it will be cheaper, more reliable, and most importantly hugely more flexible.

GPON is basically unheard of in Sweden. All "fiber" access is either copper to a switch in the basement/similar in multi-tenant houses or direct pairs to CO. Some middle solutions exist where there's a rugged switch in a pole or roadside cabinet, but they are exceptions. I think the Amsterdam buildout is similar. It is better, both for the customer and the provider. The only "loser" is a potential third party acting as comms provider on L1, possibly L2. -- Måns Nilsson primary/secondary/besserwisser/machina MN-1334-RIPE +46 705 989668 DON'T go!! I'm not HOWARD COSELL!! I know POLISH JOKES ... WAIT!! Don't go!! I AM Howard Cosell! ... And I DON'T know Polish jokes!!

This would be my humble suggestion: - lines provider runs fibre pair from each home to co. By default the lines provider installs a simple consumer terminal, with gigabit Ethernet outputs and POTS. - lines provider provides a reasonably oversubscribed service to soft hand over to ISPs (think 96 Gbps lines to 2 10gbps ports). Perhaps upgrading so such a ratio never becomes congested could be a requirement? - lines provider also rents individual lines to ISPs which they can use directly. Rent should be lower than soft handover. This way ISPs can easily offer services. POTS over VoIP can be setup on installation of the terminal (so handover to the ISP is seamless). Finally business and residential services can also be provided over the fibre directly (this will be attractive to ISPs with many ports, to reduce costs, and premium/business ISPs to add control). - ideally the lines provider would aid in providing cheap backhaul from the co (while still allowing 3rd party users to bring fibre in). Sorry for the engrish, I'm on a mobile device :(. On 1 Aug 2014 17:43, "Mark Tinka" <mark.tinka@seacom.mu> wrote:

On Thursday, July 31, 2014 02:01:28 PM Måns Nilsson wrote:

...

It is better, both for the customer and the provider.

If the provider is able to deliver 1Gbps to every home (either on copper or fibre) with little to no uplink oversubscription (think 44x customer-facing Gig-E ports + 4x 10Gbps uplink ports), essentially, there is no limit to what services a provider and its partners can offer to its customers.

Mark.

Govt controlled, please. We have tried both in NZ. Before telecom provided internet and ran lines. They were equally shit at both and apparently there were many issues for other ISPs using the lines. Now Chorus owns the and they insist that $40+/mo for wholesale DSL is fair. I think this is a sector the government would do well in. Unlike being an actual ISP there's no ambiguity (oversubscription, customer service, etc). Just provide a gigabit line with no congestion and solid uptime, or a fibre pair with solid uptime. End of story. On 1 Aug 2014 19:08, "Mark Tinka" <mark.tinka@seacom.mu> wrote:

On Friday, August 01, 2014 08:54:07 AM mcfbbqroast . wrote:

...

This would be my humble suggestion:

- lines provider runs fibre pair from each home to co. By default the lines provider installs a simple consumer terminal, with gigabit Ethernet outputs and POTS.

- lines provider provides a reasonably oversubscribed service to soft hand over to ISPs (think 96 Gbps lines to 2 10gbps ports). Perhaps upgrading so such a ratio never becomes congested could be a requirement?

- lines provider also rents individual lines to ISPs which they can use directly. Rent should be lower than soft handover.

This way ISPs can easily offer services. POTS over VoIP can be setup on installation of the terminal (so handover to the ISP is seamless). Finally business and residential services can also be provided over the fibre directly (this will be attractive to ISPs with many ports, to reduce costs, and premium/business ISPs to add control).

- ideally the lines provider would aid in providing cheap backhaul from the co (while still allowing 3rd party users to bring fibre in).

Wholesale mode. Doable.

Works best if the lines provider is not a service provider; or regulation in your market ensures a service provider who is also a lines provider is mandated to unbundle at reasonable cost.

Mark.

Anyone know how to summarize this end game well enough for state/federal legislators? Or raise enough money and direction to provide sufficient "lobbying?" Wasn't KC asking for a dept of the Internet at the NANOG 20 in DC? On Fri, Aug 01, 2014 at 09:44:28AM +0200, Mark Tinka wrote:

On Friday, August 01, 2014 09:30:57 AM mcfbbqroast . wrote:

...

I think this is a sector the government would do well in. Unlike being an actual ISP there's no ambiguity (oversubscription, customer service, etc). Just provide a gigabit line with no congestion and solid uptime, or a fibre pair with solid uptime. End of story.

Couldn't agree more :-).

Mark.

Not really, the law can say must provide standards compliant access for interconnections with a agreed upon base set of features it must support. Any provider that wants something extra can negotiate the reasonable costs of implementation. On 8/1/14, 8:44 AM, "Owen DeLong" <owen@delong.com> wrote:

On Aug 1, 2014, at 12:08 AM, Mark Tinka <mark.tinka@seacom.mu> wrote:

...

On Friday, August 01, 2014 08:54:07 AM mcfbbqroast . wrote:

...

This would be my humble suggestion:

- lines provider runs fibre pair from each home to co. By default the lines provider installs a simple consumer terminal, with gigabit Ethernet outputs and POTS.

The problem with this is it allows the lines provider to dictate the technology to be used by all higher-layer service providers.

IMHO, this is undesirable, because it blocks innovation and service differentiation on this basis.

Ideally, the lines provider is simply a lines provider and provides a number of dark fiber pairs between the serving wire center (what you called a CO) and each premise served by the SWC.

Termination at the customer end should be a box in which a customer terminal can be installed and the fibers should all be terminated on some standard form of patch panel (ST or LC probably preferred, but others may be acceptable).

It would then be up to the service provider(s) to provide the terminals and decide between customer self-install and truck-rolls for service turn-up.

...

...

- lines provider provides a reasonably oversubscribed service to soft hand over to ISPs (think 96 Gbps lines to 2 10gbps ports). Perhaps upgrading so such a ratio never becomes congested could be a requirement?

Putting the lines provider into this part of the equation preserves many of the problems with the existing model.

...

...

- lines provider also rents individual lines to ISPs which they can use directly. Rent should be lower than soft handover.

Now you¹ve got competition operating at a disadvantage to the incumbent lines provider, preserving this aspect of the problems with the current system. IMHO, this should be the only service the lines provider is allowed to sell. In that way, the lines provider is not in competition with its wholesale customers.

If you want examples of how well the model you propose tends to work, look no further than the incredible problematic nature of MCI¹s attempt to offer local phone service over Pacific Bell/SBC/AT&T circuits.

...

...

This way ISPs can easily offer services. POTS over VoIP can be setup on installation of the terminal (so handover to the ISP is seamless). Finally business and residential services can also be provided over the fibre directly (this will be attractive to ISPs with many ports, to reduce costs, and premium/business ISPs to add control).

This is also true of dark fiber pairs, with the added advantage that the service providers can differentiate themselves on chosen technology, can offer innovative services and can leverage existing infrastructure to deploy newer technologies as they develop.

...

...

- ideally the lines provider would aid in providing cheap backhaul from the co (while still allowing 3rd party users to bring fibre in).

I don¹t think this is so ideal. Again, it creates an opportunity for the lines provider to leverage their infrastructure in a way that it can become a barrier to competition. This is, IMHO, the opposite of good.

...

Wholesale mode. Doable.

Works best if the lines provider is not a service provider; or regulation in your market ensures a service provider who is also a lines provider is mandated to unbundle at reasonable cost.

Even when mandated to unbundle at a reasonable cost, often other games are played (trouble ticket for service billed by lines provider resolved in a day, trouble ticket for service on unbundled element resolved in 14 days, etc.).

IMHO, experience has taught us that the lines provider (or as I prefer to call them, the Layer 1 infrastructure provider) must be prohibited from playing at the higher layers.

Owen

On Fri, Aug 1, 2014 at 10:44 AM, Owen DeLong <owen@delong.com> wrote:

MHO, experience has taught us that the lines provider (or as I prefer to call them, the Layer 1 infrastructure provider) must be prohibited from playing at the higher layers

A few years back Fred Goldstein proposed defining a Layer 1 infrastructure provider as a "LoopCo", where the local loop is passively provided to service providers to light it as they see fit. He even wrote draft legislation, where the incumbent LEC is divided into a "Facilities Entity" and a "Services Entity": http://www.ionary.com/separationbillproposal.htm That proposal generally requires something like a CLEC to light the wire locally, and makes CLECs viable again. He has also proposed requiring ILECs (and cablecos) to provide low-layer (layer 2, mostly) common carriage on an open basis; as filed in the current NN docket: http://www.ionary.com/separationbillproposal.htm j -- --------------------------------------------------------------- Joly MacFie 218 565 9365 Skype:punkcast WWWhatsup NYC - http://wwwhatsup.com http://pinstand.com - http://punkcast.com VP (Admin) - ISOC-NY - http://isoc-ny.org -------------------------------------------------------------- -

On Aug 1, 2014, at 9:44 AM, Owen DeLong <owen@delong.com> wrote:

If you want examples of how well the model you propose tends to work, look no further than the incredible problematic nature of MCI’s attempt to offer local phone service over Pacific Bell/SBC/AT&T circuits.

[snip]

IMHO, experience has taught us that the lines provider (or as I prefer to call them, the Layer 1 infrastructure provider) must be prohibited from playing at the higher layers.

Owen has some really good points here, but may be overstating his case a smidge. If a private company is the Layer 1 (“lines provider”) entity, there will always be a temptation into moving up the stack, and up the value chain. The issue in his first example is that the companies involved compete for higher layer services. Municipalities can be different. It’s possible to write into law that they can offer L1 and L2 services, but never anything higher. There’s also a built in disincentive to risk tax dollars more speculative, but possibly more profitable ventures. So while I agree with Owen that a dark fiber model is preferred, and should be offered, I don’t have a problem with a municipal network also offering Layer 2. In fact, I see some potential wins, imagine a network where you could chose to buy dark fiber access, or a channel on a GPON system? If the customer wants GE/10GE, you get dark fiber, and if they want 50Mbps, you get a GPON channel for less (yes, that’s an assumption) cost. I can also see how some longer-distance links, imagine a link from home to office across 30-40 miles, might be cheaper to deliver as 100M VLAN than raw dark fiber and having to buy long reach optics. I can never see a case where letting them play at Layer 3 or above helps. That’s bad news, stay away. But I think some well crafted L2 services could actually _expand_ consumer choice. I mean running a dark fiber GigE to supply voice only makes no sense, but a 10M channel on a GPON serving a VoIP box may… -- Leo Bicknell - bicknell@ufp.org - CCIE 3440 PGP keys at http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/

On Aug 1, 2014, at 3:32 PM, Scott Helms <khelms@zcorum.com> wrote:

Even in those cases where there isn't a layer 3 operator nor a chance for a viable resale of layer 1/2 services.

I have a very hard time believing that if a city (no matter what size) had a FTTH deployment, sold on a non-discriminatory basis to any providers, that there would ever be zero layer 3 operators. Maybe it’s a corner case that will occur in one small town somewhere that the long haul is crazy expensive to reach, but it’s not a general problem that policy needs to optimize to handle. -- Leo Bicknell - bicknell@ufp.org - CCIE 3440 PGP keys at http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/

Happens all the time, which is why I asked Leo about that scenario. There are large swarths of the US and even more in Canada where that's the norm. On Aug 2, 2014 1:29 PM, "Owen DeLong" <owen@delong.com> wrote:

Such a case is unlikely.

On Aug 1, 2014, at 13:32, Scott Helms <khelms@zcorum.com> wrote:

...

I can never see a case where letting them play at Layer 3 or above helps. That’s bad news, stay away. But I think some well crafted L2 services could actually _expand_ consumer choice. I mean running a dark fiber GigE to supply voice only makes no sense, but a 10M channel on a GPON serving a VoIP box may…

Even in those cases where there isn't a layer 3 operator nor a chance for a viable resale of layer 1/2 services.

But in the cases of small rural communities it¹s perfectly reasonable to just setup wifi to cover the town and backhaul a DS3 back to a more connected location. There¹s plenty of small wireless companies out there trying to serve these folks. On 8/2/14, 3:15 PM, "Leo Bicknell" <bicknell@ufp.org> wrote:

There are plenty of cities with zero ISP's interested in serving them today, I can't argue that point. However I believe the single largest reason why that is true is that the ISP today has to bear the capital cost of building out the physical plant to serve the customers. 15-20 year ROI's don't work for small businesses or wall street.

But if those cities were to build a municipal fiber network like we've described, and pay for it with 15-20 year municipal bonds the ISP's wouldn't have to bear those costs. They could come in drop one box in a central location and start offering service.

Which is why I said, if municipalities did this, I am very skeptical there would be more than a handful without a L3 operator. You can imagine a city of 50 people in North Dakota or the Northern Territories might have this issue because the long haul cost to reach the town is so high, but it's going to be a rare case. I firmly believe the municipal fiber networks presence would bring L3 operators to 90-95% of cities.

On Aug 2, 2014, at 2:04 PM, Scott Helms <khelms@zcorum.com> wrote:

...

Happens all the time, which is why I asked Leo about that scenario. There are large swarths of the US and even more in Canada where that's the norm.

On Aug 2, 2014 1:29 PM, "Owen DeLong" <owen@delong.com> wrote: Such a case is unlikely.

On Aug 1, 2014, at 13:32, Scott Helms <khelms@zcorum.com> wrote:

...

I can never see a case where letting them play at Layer 3 or above helps. That¹s bad news, stay away. But I think some well crafted L2 services could actually _expand_ consumer choice. I mean running a dark fiber GigE to supply voice only makes no sense, but a 10M channel on a GPON serving a VoIP box mayŠ

Even in those cases where there isn't a layer 3 operator nor a chance for a viable resale of layer 1/2 services.

-- Leo Bicknell - bicknell@ufp.org - CCIE 3440 PGP keys at http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/

Is it, or is it the norm because it is the result of a lack of facilities in those locations? Show me even one area where there is a rich fiber infrastructure available on an equal footing to multiple competitors to provide L3 services and there are no L3 providers offering service to those residential customers. I bet I can get a provider going there pretty quick. Owen

On Aug 2, 2014, at 12:04 PM, Scott Helms <khelms@zcorum.com> wrote:

Happens all the time, which is why I asked Leo about that scenario. There are large swarths of the US and even more in Canada where that's the norm.

...

On Aug 2, 2014 1:29 PM, "Owen DeLong" <owen@delong.com> wrote: Such a case is unlikely.

...

On Aug 1, 2014, at 13:32, Scott Helms <khelms@zcorum.com> wrote:

...

I can never see a case where letting them play at Layer 3 or above helps. That’s bad news, stay away. But I think some well crafted L2 services could actually _expand_ consumer choice. I mean running a dark fiber GigE to supply voice only makes no sense, but a 10M channel on a GPON serving a VoIP box may…

Even in those cases where there isn't a layer 3 operator nor a chance for a viable resale of layer 1/2 services.

On Fri, Aug 1, 2014 at 4:25 PM, Leo Bicknell <bicknell@ufp.org> wrote:

On Aug 1, 2014, at 9:44 AM, Owen DeLong <owen@delong.com> wrote:

...

IMHO, experience has taught us that the lines provider (or as I prefer to call them, the Layer 1 infrastructure provider) must be prohibited from playing at the higher layers.

Owen has some really good points here, but may be overstating his case a smidge. [...]

Municipalities can be different. It’s possible to write into law that they can offer L1 and L2 services, but never anything higher. There’s also a built in disincentive to risk tax dollars more speculative, but possibly more profitable ventures.

Hi Leo, I can think of issues that arise when the municipality provides layer 2 services. 1. Enthusiasm (hence funding) for public works projects waxes and wanes. Generally it waxes long enough to get some portion of the original works project built, then it wanes until the project is in major disrepair, then it waxes again long enough to more or less fix it up. Acting as a layer-2 service provider will tend to exacerbate this effect. Let's all build gig-e to the homes! Great. And in 10 years when gige is passe there won't be any money for the 10 gig upgrade but the municipality will still have 20 years to go on the 30 year bond they floated to pay for the gige deployment. And no money for the equipment that corrects the IPv6 glitchiness or supports the brand new LocalVideoProtocol which would allow ultra high def super interactive television or whatever the rage is 10 year out. Single mode fiber's usefulness doesn't expire within any funding horizon applicable to a municipality. Gige service and any other lit service you can come up with today does. 2. It is in government's nature to expand. New big city service not arriving fast enough? We'll do it ourselves! Dear county commissioners, it'll only take a little bit of money (to do it badly), come on approve it, let's do it. You know you want it.

I can also see how some longer-distance links, imagine a link from home to office across 30-40 miles, might be cheaper to deliver as 100M VLAN than raw dark fiber and having to buy long reach optics.

Long-reach optics are relatively cheap, or at least they can be if you optimize for expense. The better example is when you want ISP #1, phone company #2, TV service #3, data warehouse service #4, etc. With a lit service, you only have to buy the last-mile component once.

I can never see a case where letting them play at Layer 3 or above helps.

Layers 2 and 3 are fuzzy these days. I think that's a bad place to draw a line. Rather draw the line between providing a local interconnect versus providing services and out-system communications. With a multi-service provider network there are, IMO, major advantages to implementing it with private-IP IPv4 instead of a layer 2 solution. No complicated vlans, PPoE or gpon channels. Just normal IP routing and normal access control filters available in even the cheap equipment. Then run your various virtual wire technologies (e.g. VPNs) over the IP network. Everybody is a peer on the network, so the infrastructure provider doesn't need to know anything about customer-service provider relationships and doesn't need to implement any special configurations in their network to serve them. Regards, Bill Herrin -- William Herrin ................ herrin@dirtside.com bill@herrin.us Owner, Dirtside Systems ......... Web: <http://www.dirtside.com/> Can I solve your unusual networking challenges?

On Mon, Aug 4, 2014 at 12:35 PM, Owen DeLong <owen@delong.com> wrote:

...

...

I can never see a case where letting them play at Layer 3 or above helps.

Layers 2 and 3 are fuzzy these days. I think that's a bad place to draw a line.

Rather draw the line between providing a local interconnect versus providing services and out-system communications.

I think the best line to draw is between passive facilities and active components.

Hi Owen, You've convinced me. However, I think it's still worth talking about where you draw the second line -- if the infrastructure provider implements a network with active components and some kind of digital data passing protocol, what should the scope of that capability be limited to?

...

With a multi-service provider network there are, IMO, major advantages to implementing it with private-IP IPv4 instead of a layer 2 solution. No complicated vlans, PPoE or gpon channels. Just normal IP routing and normal access control filters available in even the cheap equipment. Then run your various virtual wire technologies (e.g. VPNs) over the IP network. Everybody is a peer on the network, so the infrastructure provider doesn't need to know anything about customer-service provider relationships and doesn't need to implement any special configurations in their network to serve them.

In an already-sunk equipment cost environment, this might be a necessary tradeoff. In a greenfield deployment, there's no reason whatsoever not to use IPv6 GUA in place of RFC-1918 with the added advantage that you are not limited to ~17 million managed entries per management domain.

Cost and availability of tools, equipment and personnel still strongly favors IPv4. Presumably that will eventually change, but it won't change for the equipment you can purchase today. The only point of providing lit service is to suppress the initial consumer-level cost, so let's not suggest choices that increase it. If the local infrastructure provider has a million customers in a single domain, it is too large to have implemented itself cost-effectively (they'll be using the super-expensive high-capacity low-production-run core equipment) and is straying into that undesirable territory where the infrastructure provider becomes a general service provider. Regards, Bill Herrin -- William Herrin ................ herrin@dirtside.com bill@herrin.us Owner, Dirtside Systems ......... Web: <http://www.dirtside.com/> Can I solve your unusual networking challenges?

Owen DeLong wrote:

...

Single mode fiber's usefulness doesn't expire within any funding horizon applicable to a municipality. Gige service and any other lit service you can come up with today does. Well, not in the foreseeable future, anyway. I'm sure there was a time when that claim could have been made about copper. I would not make that claim about copper today (or even 10 years ago).

Assuming the rodents don't eat your fiber. Miles Fidelman

----- Original Message -----

From: "William Herrin" <bill@herrin.us>

I can think of issues that arise when the municipality provides layer 2 services.

1. Enthusiasm (hence funding) for public works projects waxes and wanes. Generally it waxes long enough to get some portion of the original works project built, then it wanes until the project is in major disrepair, then it waxes again long enough to more or less fix it up.

Acting as a layer-2 service provider will tend to exacerbate this effect. Let's all build gig-e to the homes! Great. And in 10 years when gige is passe there won't be any money for the 10 gig upgrade but the municipality will still have 20 years to go on the 30 year bond they floated to pay for the gige deployment. And no money for the equipment that corrects the IPv6 glitchiness or supports the brand new LocalVideoProtocol which would allow ultra high def super interactive television or whatever the rage is 10 year out.

You have forgotten here, Bill (I am feeling charitable, so I will not add ... no, I said I wouldn't add it) "MRC". Unlike some things for which bonds would be floated, this sort of service *would be being charged to someone, every month*. Sure, you won't get 100% take, but we factor that in. And, the number of times it's been said notwithstanding, I think a resaonably defensible case can be made that consumer services are pretty close to as good as they need to be at this point; for the *average* consumer, you're pretty hard pressed to run out of space on GigE downhill; uphill even moreso. Sure, there are edge cases, but we call them that for a reason.

Single mode fiber's usefulness doesn't expire within any funding horizon applicable to a municipality. Gige service and any other lit service you can come up with today does.

Stipulated.

2. It is in government's nature to expand. New big city service not arriving fast enough? We'll do it ourselves! Dear county commissioners, it'll only take a little bit of money (to do it badly), come on approve it, let's do it. You know you want it.

Was there an argument there?

...

I can also see how some longer-distance links, imagine a link from home to office across 30-40 miles, might be cheaper to deliver as 100M VLAN than raw dark fiber and having to buy long reach optics.

Long-reach optics are relatively cheap, or at least they can be if you optimize for expense. The better example is when you want ISP #1, phone company #2, TV service #3, data warehouse service #4, etc. With a lit service, you only have to buy the last-mile component once.

That sounds like an argument in *favor* of the Muni providing backstop service at L2, rather than the position against I thought you took.

...

I can never see a case where letting them play at Layer 3 or above helps.

Layers 2 and 3 are fuzzy these days. I think that's a bad place to draw a line.

Rather draw the line between providing a local interconnect versus providing services and out-system communications.

Ah. Then we *are* singing the same song, or most of it.

With a multi-service provider network there are, IMO, major advantages to implementing it with private-IP IPv4 instead of a layer 2 solution. No complicated vlans, PPoE or gpon channels. Just normal IP routing and normal access control filters available in even the cheap equipment. Then run your various virtual wire technologies (e.g. VPNs) over the IP network. Everybody is a peer on the network, so the infrastructure provider doesn't need to know anything about customer-service provider relationships and doesn't need to implement any special configurations in their network to serve them.

Hmmm. This isn't the view I'd been getting from you on this, I don't believe. Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth Baylink jra@baylink.com Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100 Ashworth & Associates http://www.bcp38.info 2000 Land Rover DII St Petersburg FL USA BCP38: Ask For It By Name! +1 727 647 1274

On Wed, Aug 06, 2014 at 10:23:55AM -0500, Leo Bicknell wrote: [...]

By drawing an (admittedly somewhat arbitrary) boundary between L1/L2 and L3-L7, I think a situation can be created where there is maximum flexibility on both sides of that boundary, and the least chance of "stupidity" from players on either side.

I know of areas where multiple ISPs would welcome lit layer 2 services, because of unfamiliarity with provisioning such. So a mixed L1/L2 service where providers can "grow into" things could be very attractive in creating competition.

That's why I want legislation requiring the operator to be one or the other and not both. Most L1 gets built with tax dollars or subsidies anyway. Owen

On Aug 2, 2014, at 0:34, Mark Tinka <mark.tinka@seacom.mu> wrote:

...

On Friday, August 01, 2014 04:44:29 PM Owen DeLong wrote:

Even when mandated to unbundle at a reasonable cost, often other games are played (trouble ticket for service billed by lines provider resolved in a day, trouble ticket for service on unbundled element resolved in 14 days, etc.).

IMHO, experience has taught us that the lines provider (or as I prefer to call them, the Layer 1 infrastructure provider) must be prohibited from playing at the higher layers.

Agree.

In reality, though, we've seen Layer 1-only providers becoming service providers (even when they previously promised the market it would never happen), due to wanting to stay "relevant".

I suppose if a Layer 1 provider were a government entity, there is a higher chance they would never enter the Layer 2 or 3 space, but even then, there is strong lobbying in politics that this could become a reality.

I've seen it happen a great deal in south east Asia, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Kenya, and now even South Africa, particularly with Layer 1 providers that were government entities built to enable fibre connectivity for management of utility services (power, for example) and were then tasked to offer Layer 1 services with the remaining fibre, but currently find themselves now playing in Layer 2 and above to make extra cash for the government.

It's hard...

Mark.

Today, somewhere around $6,000 or more depending on provider, location, etc. That’s with IP transit included. Owen On Aug 1, 2014, at 9:09 AM, Jay Ashworth <jra@baylink.com> wrote:

What is the MRC of a 10GE port?

On August 1, 2014 1:40:50 AM EDT, Mark Tinka <mark.tinka@seacom.mu> wrote:

...

On Thursday, July 31, 2014 02:01:28 PM Måns Nilsson wrote:

...

It is better, both for the customer and the provider.

If the provider is able to deliver 1Gbps to every home (either on copper or fibre) with little to no uplink oversubscription (think 44x customer-facing Gig-E ports + 4x 10Gbps uplink ports), essentially, there is no limit to what services a provider and its partners can offer to its customers.

Mark.

-- Sent from my Android phone with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.

On Friday, August 01, 2014 07:17:24 PM Jay Ashworth wrote:

So we'll assume we could get 4 for 22k to make the arithmetic easy, and that means if we can put 44 people on that, that the MRC cost is 500 dollars a month for a gigabit. That is clearly not consumer pricing. Was consumer pricing the assertion?

I think Owen's pricing is based on 10Gbps router ports (Owen, correct me if I'm wrong). This is not the only way to sell 10Gbps services. Having said that, in context of home broadband, I was referring to AN's (Access Nodes), particularly based on Active-E (you don't generally place consumer customers directly on to 10Gbps router ports). The 10Gbps ports on an Active-E AN are in the same 1U chassis as the 44x Gig-E ports. And depending on how many you buy from vendors for your Access network, you can get pretty decent deals with good return if you get great uptake and have a sweet price point. Mark.

----- Original Message -----

...

On Aug 2, 2014, at 0:43, Mark Tinka <mark.tinka@seacom.mu> wrote:

...

On Friday, August 01, 2014 07:17:24 PM Jay Ashworth wrote:

So we'll assume we could get 4 for 22k to make the arithmetic easy, and that means if we can put 44 people on that, that the MRC cost is 500 dollars a month for a gigabit. That is clearly not consumer pricing. Was consumer pricing the assertion?

I think Owen's pricing is based on 10Gbps router ports (Owen, correct me if I'm wrong).

This is not the only way to sell 10Gbps services.

Having said that, in context of home broadband, I was referring to AN's (Access Nodes), particularly based on Active-E (you don't generally place consumer customers directly on to 10Gbps router ports).

The 10Gbps ports on an Active-E AN are in the same 1U chassis as the 44x Gig-E ports. And depending on how many you buy from vendors for your Access network, you can get pretty decent deals with good return if you get great uptake and have a sweet price point.

That's the assertion Mark made, right there: that you could hook 44 GigE's to 4 10G's, and get "pretty decent deals". Specifically, Mark said (at top of thread): """ If the provider is able to deliver 1Gbps to every home (either on copper or fibre) with little to no uplink oversubscription (think 44x customer-facing Gig-E ports + 4x 10Gbps uplink ports), essentially, there is no limit to what services a provider and its partners can offer to its customers. """ So that implies he really did mean 44x GigE to end-prem, from 4 $5500 10G ports -- or, $500/home in MRC *cost* to the provider. I'm confused. Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth Baylink jra@baylink.com Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100 Ashworth & Associates http://www.bcp38.info 2000 Land Rover DII St Petersburg FL USA BCP38: Ask For It By Name! +1 727 647 1274

----- Original Message -----

From: "Mark Tinka" <mark.tinka@seacom.mu>

On Monday, August 04, 2014 04:38:39 PM Jay Ashworth wrote:

...

So that implies he really did mean 44x GigE to end-prem, from 4 $5500 10G ports -- or, $500/home in MRC *cost* to the provider.

I'm confused.

With an edge router chassis filled with 10Gbps ports for various things, they quickly become a lot cheaper than US$5,500 a pop :-).

I realize that this may not be a universal case.

Given the context of the conversation, I was hoping it was clear I meant a *wet* port, not just a jack on a card... Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth Baylink jra@baylink.com Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100 Ashworth & Associates http://www.bcp38.info 2000 Land Rover DII St Petersburg FL USA BCP38: Ask For It By Name! +1 727 647 1274

On Friday, August 01, 2014 06:34:00 PM Owen DeLong wrote:

Today, somewhere around $6,000 or more depending on provider, location, etc.

That’s with IP transit included.

With IP Transit included, perhaps. But 10Gbps ports are not expensive these days. Depends on whether you selling 10Gbps ports off a router line card or an Ethernet switch. Mark.

On Aug 2, 2014, at 8:10 AM, Vlade Ristevski <vristevs@ramapo.edu> wrote:

I might be misunderstanding this, but are you guys saying 10G Internet access to a tier 1 costs around $6,000 a month? I ask because I run a network for a small college and the best price I could get on 1Gbps Internet is about $5,500 a month with the fiber loop included which itself costs $2000-$2500. Or are you guys discussing a different type connection?

The quotes I got were from Cogent, Lightpath, Level 3, Verizon ($8,000) and I think even ATT a few years back. I'm out in the NJ suburbs about 30 miles from Manhattan. If there is a cheaper way to get good bandwidth, I'm all ears. We're in Mahwah , NJ.

I think a 10GE for $6,000 in bandwidth charges is possible, if you meet the provider. What that means is if you are in an Equinix, Coresite, Telehouse, or other sort of carrier neutral colocation point, and you're willing to make the cross connect appear at the providers cage, you can get bandwidth for that price. Basically it's the price when the provider has to do zero other work, already has a large pop, and is selling large wholesale chunks. Add in a local loop, cost for a smaller pop they have to maintain, engineering and so on and your price for 1GE 30 miles away from such places seems perfectly reasonable to me. It's kind of the difference between driving your pickup to the quarry to get a truck load of sand, vrs buying prepackaged sand at the local home improvement store. -- Leo Bicknell - bicknell@ufp.org - CCIE 3440 PGP keys at http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/

Subject: Re: Muni Fiber and Politics Date: Fri, Aug 01, 2014 at 07:40:50AM +0200 Quoting Mark Tinka (mark.tinka@seacom.mu):

On Thursday, July 31, 2014 02:01:28 PM Måns Nilsson wrote:

...

It is better, both for the customer and the provider.

If the provider is able to deliver 1Gbps to every home (either on copper or fibre) with little to no uplink oversubscription (think 44x customer-facing Gig-E ports + 4x 10Gbps uplink ports), essentially, there is no limit to what services a provider and its partners can offer to its customers.

Oh, yes, there is. Multicast? IPv6? Both CAN be done, but probably won't. Dark fibre to CO is the only way to be sure. As long as that is possible, perhaps mandated by regulation, there's no major issue with providing a packaged service. In the end, though, if we get the quality of Internet access up to sensible levels (today minimum of a /56 and 100Mbit symmetric and no stupid peering wars ;-) there are few reasons not to bundle L1-L3. However, given the nature of monopolies and their tendency to underperform and overcharge, that is an optimisation dream... -- Måns Nilsson primary/secondary/besserwisser/machina MN-1334-RIPE +46 705 989668 Hello. Just walk along and try NOT to think about your INTESTINES being almost FORTY YARDS LONG!!

Subject: Re: Muni Fiber and Politics Date: Sun, Aug 03, 2014 at 05:11:09AM +0200 Quoting Mark Tinka (mark.tinka@seacom.mu):

On Sunday, August 03, 2014 01:31:17 AM Måns Nilsson wrote:

...

Oh, yes, there is. Multicast? IPv6? Both CAN be done, but probably won't.

I'm talking about the opportunities large bandwidth presents, non-technical issues aside.

Certainly, IPv6 and Multicast have a place on a 1Gbps link into the customer's home.

Unless I misunderstand what you're trying to say...

My point is that "involving active electronics on a link lease may limit the ways that link can be used" and that there is a very high probability -- guesstimated from current "unbundling" infrastructure landscape -- that there will be severe constraints in services possible to provide if you as provider aren't lighting the path yourself. The constraints multiply with every OSI layer that is included in the unbundling offer, of course. A typical Swedish example is the solution with a "communications operator" -- a separate entity that owns and operates a layer 2 environment over which several different providers can sell IP connectivity. In most, if not all, cases in Sweden, the provisioning and management systems installed simply do not have any idea of an IPv6 address. Shortsighted? Yes, but driven by bad decisions and market needs NOW. (FSVO "NOW" that is embarrasingly recent...) A PITA to upgrade? Yes, of course, and the incentives aren't there, because the communications operator is a monopoly, so if you want to sell connections, you have to use them. The limits imposed on unbundled infrastructure are at the core 100% business-related; and as long as they are present, there must be regulated access to passive infrastructure, perhaps even including things like ducting/manholes/etc. -- Måns Nilsson primary/secondary/besserwisser/machina MN-1334-RIPE +46 705 989668 I'm shaving!! I'M SHAVING!!

On Mon, Jul 21, 2014 at 1:29 PM, Jason Iannone <jason.iannone@gmail.com> wrote:

Seems like as good at time as any for Netflix to go distributed peer to peer.

Sure, because what paying customer would object to his vendor consuming his bandwidth to service other customers and what content provider would object to storing their content for redistribution on random client machines? Regards, Bill Herrin -- William Herrin ................ herrin@dirtside.com bill@herrin.us Owner, Dirtside Systems ......... Web: <http://www.dirtside.com/> Can I solve your unusual networking challenges?

Ask Skype just how easy it is to do that with a dual-stacked service. Owen On Jul 21, 2014, at 10:29 , Jason Iannone <jason.iannone@gmail.com> wrote:

Seems like as good at time as any for Netflix to go distributed peer to peer.

On Mon, Jul 21, 2014 at 11:13 AM, Jay Ashworth <jra@baylink.com> wrote:

...

Is anyone else cynical enough to say FiOS going symmetrical is an attempt to blunt the pro-NetFlix argument on that point? - jra

On July 21, 2014 12:46:27 PM EDT, Jason Iannone <jason.iannone@gmail.com> wrote:

...

There was a muni case in my neck of the woods a couple of years ago. Comcast spent an order of magnitude more than the municipality but still lost.

Anyway, follow the money. "Blackburn’s largest career donors are .. PACs affiliated with AT&T ... ($66,750) and Comcast ... ($36,600). ... Blackburn has also taken $56,000 from the National Cable & Telecommunications Association."

http://www.muninetworks.org/content/media-roundup-blackburn-amendment-lights...

In other news, FIOS has gone symmetrical.

http://newscenter.verizon.com/corporate/news-articles/2014/07-21-fios-upload...

On Mon, Jul 21, 2014 at 8:20 AM, Jay Ashworth <jra@baylink.com> wrote:

...

Over the last decade, 19 states have made it illegal for municipalities to own fiber networks -- encouraged largely, I am told, by Verizon and other cable companies/MSOs[1].

Verizon, of course, isn't doing any new FiOS deployments, per a 2010 press release[2].

FCC Chair Tom Wheeler has been making noises lately that he wants the FCC to preempt the field on this topic, making such deployments legal.

Congressional Republicans think that's a bad idea:

http://www.vox.com/2014/7/20/5913363/house-republicans-and-obamas-fcc-are-at...

[ and here's the backgrounder on the amendment:

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/news/washington/blackburn-bill-would-block-... ]

While I generally try to avoid bringing up topics on NANOG that are political; this one seems to be directly in our wheelhouse, and unavoidably political. My apologies in advance; let's all try to be grownups, shall we?

Cheers, -- jra

[1] http://motherboard.vice.com/read/hundreds-of-cities-are-wired-with-fiberbut-... [2] https://secure.dslreports.com/shownews/Verizon-Again-Confirms-FiOS-Expansion... -- Jay R. Ashworth Baylink jra@baylink.com Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100 Ashworth & Associates http://www.bcp38.info 2000 Land Rover DII St Petersburg FL USA BCP38: Ask For It By Name! +1 727 647 1274

-- Sent from my Android phone with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.

Greg Walden (R-OR) is similarly funded by the cable and telecom folks, and is also loud and clear that he thinks we should forget about net neutrality and let the companies do what is best. H

On Mon, 21 Jul 2014, William Herrin wrote:

The only exception I see to this would be if localities were constrained to providing point to point and point to multipoint communications infrastructure within the locality on a reasonable and non-discriminatory basis. The competition that would foster on the services side might outweigh the damage on the infrastructure side. Like public roads facilitate efficient transportation and freight despite the cost and potholes, though that's an imperfect simile.

While I might not agree with the parts of your email you cut out, I would definitely like to chime in on this part. Muni fiber should be exactly that, muni *fiber*. Point to point fiber optic single mode fiber cabling, aggregating thousands of households per location, preferrably tens of thousands. It's hard to go wrong in this area, it either works or it doesn't, and in these aggregation nodes people can compete with several different technologies, they can use PON, they can use active ethernet, they can provide corporate 10GE connections if they need to, they can run hybrid/fiber coax, they can run point-to-point 1GE for residential. Anything is possible and the infrastructure is likely to be as viable in 30 years as it is day 1 after installation. -- Mikael Abrahamsson email: swmike@swm.pp.se

On 7/21/2014 2:58 PM, Mikael Abrahamsson wrote:

On Mon, 21 Jul 2014, William Herrin wrote:

...

The only exception I see to this would be if localities were constrained to providing point to point and point to multipoint communications infrastructure within the locality on a reasonable and non-discriminatory basis. The competition that would foster on the services side might outweigh the damage on the infrastructure side. Like public roads facilitate efficient transportation and freight despite the cost and potholes, though that's an imperfect simile.

While I might not agree with the parts of your email you cut out, I would definitely like to chime in on this part. Muni fiber should be exactly that, muni *fiber*. Point to point fiber optic single mode fiber cabling, aggregating thousands of households per location, preferrably tens of thousands.

It's hard to go wrong in this area, it either works or it doesn't, and in these aggregation nodes people can compete with several different technologies, they can use PON, they can use active ethernet, they can provide corporate 10GE connections if they need to, they can run hybrid/fiber coax, they can run point-to-point 1GE for residential. Anything is possible and the infrastructure is likely to be as viable in 30 years as it is day 1 after installation.

Agree 100%. Layer-1 infrastructure is a high-cost, long term investment with little 'value-add' You don't see too many companies clamoring to put in new water or sewer pipes. Treat fiber the same way. The money is in content, which is why we're seeing ISP and media consolidation.

On Mon, Jul 21, 2014 at 2:58 PM, Mikael Abrahamsson <swmike@swm.pp.se> wrote:

On Mon, 21 Jul 2014, William Herrin wrote:

...

The only exception I see to this would be if localities were constrained to providing point to point and point to multipoint communications infrastructure within the locality on a reasonable and non-discriminatory basis. The competition that would foster on the services side might outweigh the damage on the infrastructure side. Like public roads facilitate efficient transportation and freight despite the cost and potholes, though that's an imperfect simile.

While I might not agree with the parts of your email you cut out, I would definitely like to chime in on this part. Muni fiber should be exactly that, muni *fiber*. Point to point fiber optic single mode fiber cabling, aggregating thousands of households per location, preferrably tens of thousands.

Howdy, I hold out hope it could also be done with a local lit multipoint service. Here's your RFC 6598 address, here's the RFC 6598 addresses of these 20 service providers, pay whichever one you want for general purpose Internet connectivity, video over IP or whatever the heck it is they sell and they'll provide the VPN client you need. But either way, constrain the locality to providing local point to point and point to multipoint connectivity. Don't allow it to provide general services over the link unless you intend to keep all commercial service providers out.

It's hard to go wrong in this area, it either works or it doesn't, and in these aggregation nodes people can compete with several different technologies, they can use PON, they can use active ethernet, they can provide corporate 10GE connections if they need to, they can run hybrid/fiber coax, they can run point-to-point 1GE for residential. Anything is possible and the infrastructure is likely to be as viable in 30 years as it is day 1 after installation.

You're not wrong. And a locality providing dark fiber as at least one of the buyable services is doing things right. Regards, Bill Herrin -- William Herrin ................ herrin@dirtside.com bill@herrin.us Owner, Dirtside Systems ......... Web: <http://www.dirtside.com/> Can I solve your unusual networking challenges?

William Herrin wrote:

On Mon, Jul 21, 2014 at 10:20 AM, Jay Ashworth <jra@baylink.com> wrote:

...

Over the last decade, 19 states have made it illegal for municipalities to own fiber networks Hi Jay,

Everything government does, it does badly. Without exception. There are many things government does better than any private organization is likely to sustain, but even those things it does slowly and at an exorbitant price.

Muni fiber is a competition killer. You can't beat city hall; once built it's not practical to compete, even with better service, so residents are stuck with only the overpriced (either directly or via taxes), usually underpowered and always one-size-fits-all network access which results. As an ISP I watched something similar happen in Altoona PA a decade and a half ago. It was a travesty.

The only exception I see to this would be if localities were constrained to providing point to point and point to multipoint communications infrastructure within the locality on a reasonable and non-discriminatory basis. The competition that would foster on the services side might outweigh the damage on the infrastructure side. Like public roads facilitate efficient transportation and freight despite the cost and potholes, though that's an imperfect simile.

Let's see: - municipal water supplies work just fine - about 20% of US power is supplied by municipally owned electric utilities, for about 18% less cost (statistics might be a little stale, I haven't checked recently) - about the only gigabit FTTH in the country comes from muni networks - the anti-muni laws hurt small localities the most, where none of the big players have any intent of deploying anything Miles Fidelman -- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. .... Yogi Berra

goemon@anime.net wrote:

On Mon, 21 Jul 2014, Miles Fidelman wrote:

...

- the anti-muni laws hurt small localities the most, where none of the big players have any intent of deploying anything

This is exacatly why ashland fiber network came to be. Because no provider was willing to step up and provide service. So the city did it.

If there were laws against it there, then ashland would still have no service at all to this day.

Is that Ashland, Oregon? I did some consulting on that project. The way it started was: - They needed to run a pair of fibers from City Hall to an out-building - US West (I think) quoted $5k/month/fiber, at which point, - the Mayor asked the director of the muni electric utility "what would it cost to run some fiber" - after some head scratching and some research, it came down to $100,000, one time - mostly for the tooling and some training (they had the poles, bucket trucks, linesman who were rated to work near live electric wires who were sitting around waiting for the next storm to hit) - after that, it was a no-brainer to start expanding the network The cool thing about the project: - Ashland has a bunch of places that do Hollywood post-production - they eat up tons of bandwidth shipping stuff around - really great for that segment Cheers, Miles -- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. .... Yogi Berra

Owen DeLong wrote:

On Jul 21, 2014, at 18:25 , Miles Fidelman <mfidelman@meetinghouse.net> wrote:

...

goemon@anime.net wrote:

...

On Mon, 21 Jul 2014, Miles Fidelman wrote:

...

- the anti-muni laws hurt small localities the most, where none of the big players have any intent of deploying anything This is exacatly why ashland fiber network came to be. Because no provider was willing to step up and provide service. So the city did it.

If there were laws against it there, then ashland would still have no service at all to this day.

Is that Ashland, Oregon? I did some consulting on that project. The way it started was: - They needed to run a pair of fibers from City Hall to an out-building - US West (I think) quoted $5k/month/fiber, at which point, - the Mayor asked the director of the muni electric utility "what would it cost to run some fiber" - after some head scratching and some research, it came down to $100,000, one time - mostly for the tooling and some training (they had the poles, bucket trucks, linesman who were rated to work near live electric wires who were sitting around waiting for the next storm to hit) - after that, it was a no-brainer to start expanding the network

The cool thing about the project: - Ashland has a bunch of places that do Hollywood post-production - they eat up tons of bandwidth shipping stuff around - really great for that segment No to mention a wonderful Shakespeare festival, a number of very nice restaurants with good food and a pretty neat downtown to explore.

And a wonderful park designed by Olmsted!

Need to get back up there... It's been a few years, but it's a lovely place to visit.

Likewise! Cheers, Miles -- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. .... Yogi Berra

On Mon, 21 Jul 2014, Constantine A. Murenin wrote:

Cool story, however,

http://www.ashlandfiber.net/productcenter.aspx#residential

... is nothing to brag home about. 5Mbps uploads max? Meh, I get more with mobile phone, plus my data is actually unlimited.

Consider that AFN was setup when the majority of people were still on dialup, and was originally geared toward providing cable TV service with IP as an afterthought. Back then it was really something. They are definitely overdue for a hardware/service refresh. -Dan

I think the difference is when the municipality starts throwing in free or highly subsidized layer 3 connectivity "free with every layer 1 connection" Matthew Kaufman (Sent from my iPhone)

On Jul 21, 2014, at 12:08 PM, Blake Dunlap <ikiris@gmail.com> wrote:

My power is pretty much always on, my water is pretty much always on and safe, my sewer system works, etc etc...

Why is layer 1 internet magically different from every other utility?

-Blake

...

On Mon, Jul 21, 2014 at 1:38 PM, William Herrin <bill@herrin.us> wrote:

...

On Mon, Jul 21, 2014 at 10:20 AM, Jay Ashworth <jra@baylink.com> wrote: Over the last decade, 19 states have made it illegal for municipalities to own fiber networks

Hi Jay,

Everything government does, it does badly. Without exception. There are many things government does better than any private organization is likely to sustain, but even those things it does slowly and at an exorbitant price.

Muni fiber is a competition killer. You can't beat city hall; once built it's not practical to compete, even with better service, so residents are stuck with only the overpriced (either directly or via taxes), usually underpowered and always one-size-fits-all network access which results. As an ISP I watched something similar happen in Altoona PA a decade and a half ago. It was a travesty.

The only exception I see to this would be if localities were constrained to providing point to point and point to multipoint communications infrastructure within the locality on a reasonable and non-discriminatory basis. The competition that would foster on the services side might outweigh the damage on the infrastructure side. Like public roads facilitate efficient transportation and freight despite the cost and potholes, though that's an imperfect simile.

Regards, Bill Herrin

-- William Herrin ................ herrin@dirtside.com bill@herrin.us Owner, Dirtside Systems ......... Web: <http://www.dirtside.com/> Can I solve your unusual networking challenges?

My municipality (Loma Linda, CA) doesn't offer anything free, but does provide fiber connectivity (Layer 3) to residents in some portions of the city. There were plans at one point to make it available more broadly, but nearly eight years later I still am not in an area which has access nor do I think there has been great progress in the build-out efforts for whatever reasons (costs, lack of demand, etc.). Ray On Mon, Jul 21, 2014 at 03:26:54PM -0500, Aaron wrote:

Do you have an example of a municipality that gives free internet access to it's residents?

On 7/21/2014 2:26 PM, Matthew Kaufman wrote:

...

I think the difference is when the municipality starts throwing in free or highly subsidized layer 3 connectivity "free with every layer 1 connection"

Matthew Kaufman

(Sent from my iPhone)

...

On Jul 21, 2014, at 12:08 PM, Blake Dunlap <ikiris@gmail.com> wrote:

My power is pretty much always on, my water is pretty much always on and safe, my sewer system works, etc etc...

Why is layer 1 internet magically different from every other utility?

-Blake

...

On Mon, Jul 21, 2014 at 1:38 PM, William Herrin <bill@herrin.us> wrote:

...

On Mon, Jul 21, 2014 at 10:20 AM, Jay Ashworth <jra@baylink.com> wrote: Over the last decade, 19 states have made it illegal for municipalities to own fiber networks Hi Jay,

Everything government does, it does badly. Without exception. There are many things government does better than any private organization is likely to sustain, but even those things it does slowly and at an exorbitant price.

Muni fiber is a competition killer. You can't beat city hall; once built it's not practical to compete, even with better service, so residents are stuck with only the overpriced (either directly or via taxes), usually underpowered and always one-size-fits-all network access which results. As an ISP I watched something similar happen in Altoona PA a decade and a half ago. It was a travesty.

The only exception I see to this would be if localities were constrained to providing point to point and point to multipoint communications infrastructure within the locality on a reasonable and non-discriminatory basis. The competition that would foster on the services side might outweigh the damage on the infrastructure side. Like public roads facilitate efficient transportation and freight despite the cost and potholes, though that's an imperfect simile.

Regards, Bill Herrin

Thank you. Search gives me examples of small to medium municipal wireless deployments but what I'm particularly interested in is an example(s) of a municipal fiber build that was used to deliver free internet access to said municipality's residents. The post I originally responded to would lead me to believe that such an entity exists and if so, information on it would be super timely to a project I'm working on. Aaron On 7/21/2014 3:47 PM, Ryan Wilkins wrote:

On Jul 21, 2014, at 4:26 PM, Aaron <aaron@wholesaleinternet.net> wrote:

...

Do you have an example of a municipality that gives free internet access to it's residents?

Cleveland, OH Ward 13. http://oldbrooklynconnected.com

Nearly every street in the ward has multiple wireless access points serving Internet access to the residents at 2.4 GHz. 5 GHz is used for backhaul. Ubiquity networks wireless gear is used with a smattering of Mikrotik routers throughout. It’s not terribly reliable but then maybe that’s on purpose to discourage lawsuits. If there is a problem with the system on a Friday at 5:30 PM, it’ll be down until the following Tuesday. The bandwidth also isn’t anything to write home about, but for free (meaning I don’t directly send these folks a check every month) it’s not too bad. I can get 6 Mbps down and 2-4 Mbps up, sometimes more up and down but that’s fairly rare.. I’ve used it for Netflix and it worked reasonably well. HD content would stream but often would jump back to SD. Rarely would it stop entirely. I ended up having to setup an account with Time Warner for their Internet service because I work from home and the wireless interruptions were enough that it was causing problems. AT&T also serves the area but only with 1.5 Mbps DSL. No other wired carriers serve the area aside from dialup.

Ryan Wilkins

-- ================================================================ Aaron Wendel Chief Technical Officer Wholesale Internet, Inc. (AS 32097) (816)550-9030 http://www.wholesaleinternet.com ================================================================

I've seen various communities attempt to hand out free wifi - usually in limited areas, but in some cases community-wide (Brookline, MA comes to mind). The limited ones (e.g., in tourist hotspots) have been city funded, or donated. The community-wide ones, that I've seen, have been public-private partnerships - the City provides space on light poles and such - the private firm provides limited access, in hopes of selling expanded service. I haven't seen it work successfully - 4G cell service beats the heck out of WiFi as a metropolitan area service. When it comes to municipal fiber and triple-play projects, I've generally seen them capitalized with revenue bonds -- hence, a need for revenue to pay of the financing. Lower cost than commercial services because municipal bonds are low-interest, long-term, and they operate on a cost-recovery basis. Miles Fidelman Aaron wrote:

Do you have an example of a municipality that gives free internet access to it's residents?

On 7/21/2014 2:26 PM, Matthew Kaufman wrote:

...

I think the difference is when the municipality starts throwing in free or highly subsidized layer 3 connectivity "free with every layer 1 connection"

Matthew Kaufman

(Sent from my iPhone)

...

On Jul 21, 2014, at 12:08 PM, Blake Dunlap <ikiris@gmail.com> wrote:

My power is pretty much always on, my water is pretty much always on and safe, my sewer system works, etc etc...

Why is layer 1 internet magically different from every other utility?

-Blake

...

On Mon, Jul 21, 2014 at 1:38 PM, William Herrin <bill@herrin.us> wrote:

...

On Mon, Jul 21, 2014 at 10:20 AM, Jay Ashworth <jra@baylink.com> wrote: Over the last decade, 19 states have made it illegal for municipalities to own fiber networks Hi Jay,

Everything government does, it does badly. Without exception. There are many things government does better than any private organization is likely to sustain, but even those things it does slowly and at an exorbitant price.

Muni fiber is a competition killer. You can't beat city hall; once built it's not practical to compete, even with better service, so residents are stuck with only the overpriced (either directly or via taxes), usually underpowered and always one-size-fits-all network access which results. As an ISP I watched something similar happen in Altoona PA a decade and a half ago. It was a travesty.

The only exception I see to this would be if localities were constrained to providing point to point and point to multipoint communications infrastructure within the locality on a reasonable and non-discriminatory basis. The competition that would foster on the services side might outweigh the damage on the infrastructure side. Like public roads facilitate efficient transportation and freight despite the cost and potholes, though that's an imperfect simile.

Regards, Bill Herrin

-- William Herrin ................ herrin@dirtside.com bill@herrin.us Owner, Dirtside Systems ......... Web: <http://www.dirtside.com/> Can I solve your unusual networking challenges?

-- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. .... Yogi Berra

Well yeah, the LECs would definitely come unglued. But... first off, what do you mean by "free?" Someone has to pay the capital and operating budgets - so if not from user fees, then from taxes. So.. it's a nice thought, but not likely to happen. Heck, have you ever seen a water utility that doesn't charge? Now... having said that -- I could see something like this happen in California: - California allows (maybe requires) that developers pay "impact fees" when building new houses -- i.e., the cost of a house, in a new development, may include $20,000+ to pay for new infrastructure - roads, waterworks, police and fire substations, schools, you name it - if you buy a new house, you pay for the full cost of the infrastructure behind it (built into the financing of course - first the construction financing, then the bridge financing, then ultimately the mortgage) - I have seen some California communities at least toy with including conduit and fiber in master plans and requirements placed on developers - after all, it's needed to feed municipal buildings, street light control, and so forth - and better to have common-user conduit and fiber in the ground than have multiple people digging up the streets later - fyi: a street cut typically takes 1 year off pavement lifetime, unless very carefully repaved - practically nobody does a good job of permitting street cuts to avoid this - San Antonio being a really notable exception (I worked for a GIS firm that built their right-of-way management system - they were a real rarity in good right-of-way management practices) - so I could see building the capital cost of a FTTH network into new housing (the same way water and phone wiring is standard) - but that's not free, and that still begs the question of who lights the fiber - still, the LECs would come unglued (and have)! Miles Fidelman Aaron wrote:

So let me throw out a purely hypothetical scenario to the collective:

What do you think the consequences to a municipality would be if they laid fiber to every house in the city and gave away internet access for free? Not the WiFi builds we have today but FTTH at gigabit speeds for free?

Do you think the LECs would come unglued?

Aaron

On 7/21/2014 8:33 PM, Miles Fidelman wrote:

...

I've seen various communities attempt to hand out free wifi - usually in limited areas, but in some cases community-wide (Brookline, MA comes to mind). The limited ones (e.g., in tourist hotspots) have been city funded, or donated. The community-wide ones, that I've seen, have been public-private partnerships - the City provides space on light poles and such - the private firm provides limited access, in hopes of selling expanded service. I haven't seen it work successfully - 4G cell service beats the heck out of WiFi as a metropolitan area service.

When it comes to municipal fiber and triple-play projects, I've generally seen them capitalized with revenue bonds -- hence, a need for revenue to pay of the financing. Lower cost than commercial services because municipal bonds are low-interest, long-term, and they operate on a cost-recovery basis.

Miles Fidelman

Aaron wrote:

...

Do you have an example of a municipality that gives free internet access to it's residents?

On 7/21/2014 2:26 PM, Matthew Kaufman wrote:

...

I think the difference is when the municipality starts throwing in free or highly subsidized layer 3 connectivity "free with every layer 1 connection"

Matthew Kaufman

(Sent from my iPhone)

...

On Jul 21, 2014, at 12:08 PM, Blake Dunlap <ikiris@gmail.com> wrote:

My power is pretty much always on, my water is pretty much always on and safe, my sewer system works, etc etc...

Why is layer 1 internet magically different from every other utility?

-Blake

...

On Mon, Jul 21, 2014 at 1:38 PM, William Herrin <bill@herrin.us> wrote: > On Mon, Jul 21, 2014 at 10:20 AM, Jay Ashworth <jra@baylink.com> > wrote: > Over the last decade, 19 states have made it illegal for > municipalities > to own fiber networks Hi Jay,

Everything government does, it does badly. Without exception. There are many things government does better than any private organization is likely to sustain, but even those things it does slowly and at an exorbitant price.

Muni fiber is a competition killer. You can't beat city hall; once built it's not practical to compete, even with better service, so residents are stuck with only the overpriced (either directly or via taxes), usually underpowered and always one-size-fits-all network access which results. As an ISP I watched something similar happen in Altoona PA a decade and a half ago. It was a travesty.

The only exception I see to this would be if localities were constrained to providing point to point and point to multipoint communications infrastructure within the locality on a reasonable and non-discriminatory basis. The competition that would foster on the services side might outweigh the damage on the infrastructure side. Like public roads facilitate efficient transportation and freight despite the cost and potholes, though that's an imperfect simile.

Regards, Bill Herrin

-- William Herrin ................ herrin@dirtside.com bill@herrin.us Owner, Dirtside Systems ......... Web: <http://www.dirtside.com/> Can I solve your unusual networking challenges?

-- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. .... Yogi Berra

----- Original Message -----

From: "Aaron" <aaron@wholesaleinternet.net>

So let me throw out a purely hypothetical scenario to the collective:

What do you think the consequences to a municipality would be if they laid fiber to every house in the city and gave away internet access for free? Not the WiFi builds we have today but FTTH at gigabit speeds for free?

Do you think the LECs would come unglued?

Of course they would. But the real problem is *this shit's expensive*. You can assume $8-1200 per passing, if you fiber the entire town at once (my example was 12000 passings, 3-pr, in 2.3 sqmi). Then you're going to have to operate the core, which will take power and at least 5 people to man it 24/7. And finally, figure on at least 4-6 multi-10GE uplinks, and those things don't exactly grow on trees -- there's no sense in providing 1G/1G if people can't actually use it. So there's a bunch of sunk cost, and a bigger bunch of recurring costs. And where's that money come from? Yup: local taxes, mostly property. So you're charging everyone anyway; TANSTAAFL. Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth Baylink jra@baylink.com Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100 Ashworth & Associates http://www.bcp38.info 2000 Land Rover DII St Petersburg FL USA BCP38: Ask For It By Name! +1 727 647 1274

On Tue, 2014-07-22 at 20:34 +0200, Mikael Abrahamsson wrote:

On Tue, 22 Jul 2014, Jay Ashworth wrote:

...

And where's that money come from? Yup: local taxes, mostly property.

Stockholm municipal fiber (L1 only) has been operating fiber network since 1994, they're doing ~20MUSD profit on ~100MUSD turnover per year.

How often do they refresh and/or forklift their infrastructure? They're not still running on mid90s optical gear, I hope? -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Bruce H. McIntosh bhm@ufl.edu Senior Network Engineer http://net-services.ufl.edu University of Florida CNS/Network Services 352-273-1066

----- Original Message -----

From: "Mikael Abrahamsson" <swmike@swm.pp.se>

On Tue, 22 Jul 2014, Jay Ashworth wrote:

...

You can assume $8-1200 per passing, if you fiber the entire town at once (my example was 12000 passings, 3-pr, in 2.3 sqmi). Then you're going to have to operate the core, which will take power and at least 5 people to man it 24/7. And finally, figure on at least 4-6 multi-10GE uplinks, and those things don't exactly grow on trees -- there's no sense in providing 1G/1G if people can't actually use it.

We only want them to run the L1 network, not L2.

You and I do -- well, I think there's value in running L2 on the same terms, but that's orthogonal to this conversation. The OP from whom I branched, though, appeared to be talking pretty clearly about doing L3 for free as a city service; that's the jumping-off point from which I'm working here.

...

And where's that money come from? Yup: local taxes, mostly property.

Stockholm municipal fiber (L1 only) has been operating fiber network since 1994, they're doing ~20MUSD profit on ~100MUSD turnover per year.

Yup; no news to me there's a way to make money and pay off bonds. Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth Baylink jra@baylink.com Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100 Ashworth & Associates http://www.bcp38.info 2000 Land Rover DII St Petersburg FL USA BCP38: Ask For It By Name! +1 727 647 1274

IMHO the way to go here is to have the physical fiber plant separate. FTTH is a big investment. Easy for a municipality to absorb, but not attractive for a commercial ISP to do. A business will want to realize an ROI much faster than the life of the fiber plant, and will need assurance of having a monopoly and dense deployment to achieve that. None of those conditions apply in the majority of the US, so we're stuck with really old infrastructure delivering really slow service. Municipal FTTH needs to be a regulated public utility (ideally at a state or regional level). It should have an open access policy at published rates and be forbidden from offering lit service on the fiber (conflict of interest). This covers the fiber box in the house to the communications hut to patch in equipment. Think of it like the power company and the separation between generation and transmission. That's Step #1. Step #2 is finding an ISP to make use of the fiber. Having a single municipal ISP is not really what I think is needed. Having the infrastructure in place to eliminate the huge investment needed for an ISP to service a community is. Hopefully, enough people jump at the idea and offer service over the fiber, but if they don't, you need to get creative. The important thing is that the fiber stays open. I'm not a fan of having a town or city be an ISP because I know how the budgets work. I trust a town to make sure my fiber is passing light; I don't trust it to make sure I have the latest and greatest equipment to light the fiber, or bandwidth from the best sources. I certainly don't trust the town to allow competition if it's providing its own service. This is were the line really needs to be drawn IMHO. Municipal FTTH is about layer 1, not layer 2 or layer 3. That said, there are communities where just having the fiber plant won't be enough. In these situations, the municipality can do things like create an incentive program to guarantee a minimum income for an ISP to reach the community which get's trimmed back as the ISP gains subscribers. I don't think a public option is bad on the ISP side of things; as long as the fiber is open and people can choose which ISP they want. The public option might be necessary for very rural communities that can't get service elsewhere or to simply serve as a price-check, but most of us here know that a small community likely won't be able to find the staff to run its own ISP, either. TL;DR Municipal FTTH should be about fixing the infrastructure issues and promoting innovation and competition, not creating a government-run ISP to oust anyone from the market. Think about it: If you're an ISP, and you can lease fiber and equipment space (proper hut, secured, with backup power and cooling etc) for a subsidized rate; for cheaper than anything you could afford to build out; how much arm twisting would it take for you to invest in installing a switch or two to deliver service? If you're a smaller ISP, you were likely already doing this in working with telephone companies in the past (until they started trying to oust you). On Tue, Jul 22, 2014 at 11:27 AM, Aaron <aaron@wholesaleinternet.net> wrote:

So let me throw out a purely hypothetical scenario to the collective:

What do you think the consequences to a municipality would be if they laid fiber to every house in the city and gave away internet access for free? Not the WiFi builds we have today but FTTH at gigabit speeds for free?

Do you think the LECs would come unglued?

Aaron

On 7/21/2014 8:33 PM, Miles Fidelman wrote:

...

I've seen various communities attempt to hand out free wifi - usually in limited areas, but in some cases community-wide (Brookline, MA comes to mind). The limited ones (e.g., in tourist hotspots) have been city funded, or donated. The community-wide ones, that I've seen, have been public-private partnerships - the City provides space on light poles and such - the private firm provides limited access, in hopes of selling expanded service. I haven't seen it work successfully - 4G cell service beats the heck out of WiFi as a metropolitan area service.

When it comes to municipal fiber and triple-play projects, I've generally seen them capitalized with revenue bonds -- hence, a need for revenue to pay of the financing. Lower cost than commercial services because municipal bonds are low-interest, long-term, and they operate on a cost-recovery basis.

Miles Fidelman

Aaron wrote:

...

Do you have an example of a municipality that gives free internet access to it's residents?

On 7/21/2014 2:26 PM, Matthew Kaufman wrote:

...

I think the difference is when the municipality starts throwing in free or highly subsidized layer 3 connectivity "free with every layer 1 connection"

Matthew Kaufman

(Sent from my iPhone)

...

On Jul 21, 2014, at 12:08 PM, Blake Dunlap <ikiris@gmail.com> wrote:

My power is pretty much always on, my water is pretty much always on and safe, my sewer system works, etc etc...

Why is layer 1 internet magically different from every other utility?

-Blake

...

On Mon, Jul 21, 2014 at 1:38 PM, William Herrin <bill@herrin.us> wrote: > > On Mon, Jul 21, 2014 at 10:20 AM, Jay Ashworth <jra@baylink.com> > wrote: > Over the last decade, 19 states have made it illegal for > municipalities > to own fiber networks

Hi Jay,

Everything government does, it does badly. Without exception. There are many things government does better than any private organization is likely to sustain, but even those things it does slowly and at an exorbitant price.

Muni fiber is a competition killer. You can't beat city hall; once built it's not practical to compete, even with better service, so residents are stuck with only the overpriced (either directly or via taxes), usually underpowered and always one-size-fits-all network access which results. As an ISP I watched something similar happen in Altoona PA a decade and a half ago. It was a travesty.

The only exception I see to this would be if localities were constrained to providing point to point and point to multipoint communications infrastructure within the locality on a reasonable and non-discriminatory basis. The competition that would foster on the services side might outweigh the damage on the infrastructure side. Like public roads facilitate efficient transportation and freight despite the cost and potholes, though that's an imperfect simile.

Regards, Bill Herrin

-- William Herrin ................ herrin@dirtside.com bill@herrin.us Owner, Dirtside Systems ......... Web: <http://www.dirtside.com/> Can I solve your unusual networking challenges?

-- ================================================================ Aaron Wendel Chief Technical Officer Wholesale Internet, Inc. (AS 32097) (816)550-9030 http://www.wholesaleinternet.com ================================================================

-- Ray Patrick Soucy Network Engineer University of Maine System T: 207-561-3526 F: 207-561-3531 MaineREN, Maine's Research and Education Network www.maineren.net

On Tue, 22 Jul 2014, Scott Helms wrote:

One of the main problems with trying to draw the line at layer 1 is that its extremely inefficient in terms of the gear. Now, this is in large part a function of how gear is built and if a significant number of locales went in this direction we _might_ see changes, but today each ISP would have to purchase their own OLTs and that leads to many more shelves than the total number of line cards would otherwise dictate. There are certainly many other issues, some of which have been discussed on this list before, but I've done open access networks for several cities and _today_ the cleanest situations by far (that I've seen) had the city handling layer 1 and 2 with the layer 2 hand off being Ethernet regardless of the access technology used.

Stop doing PON then. Use point to point fiber, you get 40-48 active customers per 1U. I'd imagine there might be newer platforms with even higher densities. Yes, there are many examples of L2 being used but in order to deliver triple play the L2 network won't be purely L2, also BCP38 needs it to start doing L2.5+ functions, meaning it's harder to deploy new servies such as IPv6 because now the local network needs to support it. It's cleaner just to do L1 and aggregate thousands or tens of thousands of residential properties in the same place. -- Mikael Abrahamsson email: swmike@swm.pp.se

On Tue, 22 Jul 2014, Scott Helms wrote:

BCP38 (and BCP64) have nothing to do with who is doing layer 2 since neither of those technologies pay any attention to the layer 2 network anyway. I'd be curious to see your reasoning as to why it needs to be done between layer 2 and layer 3 given that all of the access gear, including the Ethernet equipment, has layer 2 enforcement of layer 3 information like DHCP and static assignments of IP addresses.

I don't know where to start. Either you do one vlan per customer and use very expensive gear that scales this way, or you do several customers per vlan and do DHCPv4/DHCPv6 inspection (see for instance http://tools.ietf.org/wg/savi/ documents). Does this answer your question?

Keep in mind that in most places a muni network is currently feasible that muni doesn't have a telco quality wiring center in place already and where cities have the resources to build one the market usually doesn't need them to.

If you're aggregating 10-20k apartments in the same place, I think this warrants proper space and trained engineers to do the cabling. This worked for the PSTN companies, why wouldn't it work for municipalities? -- Mikael Abrahamsson email: swmike@swm.pp.se

On Tue, 22 Jul 2014, Scott Helms wrote:

The chances that a muni network in North America has both 10-20k apartments and needs to build its own fiber are pretty much non-existent. We don't have the population density that exists in much of Europe and our cities are much less dense.

I don't get it. Single mode fiber can easily go 10-20km with low cost optics that do single-strand. You're saying it's rare in the US to have 10-20k households within 10-20km radius from an aggregation place? Yes, I'm sure there are places where this is the case, but then you aggregate hundreds instead (this works even in sparsely populated areas I'd say) and you're going to have less competition, but you still have the possibility to get competition. In these cases I though agree that L2 backhaul by the fiber operator might make sense. -- Mikael Abrahamsson email: swmike@swm.pp.se

On Tue, 22 Jul 2014, Jay Ashworth wrote:

I believe you've misunderstood Scott's point.

The goal of layer-restriction is to encourage competition.

I am well aware of this.

The underlying goal is "reducing the barrier to entry of a new ISP".

Yes, but you also want to encourage entry of new technology.

The less equipment such a new ISP has to provision, the lower that barrier is. If all you have to provision is a couple GE/10GE ports on your core switch, that's an order of magnitude easier than any type of optical termination equipment, for you as a potential ISP customer.

To make this work, the fiber operator *has to make it easy for ISPs to become their clients* as well...

I have no problem with the fiber owner operating L2 equipment as long as they also offer L1 access at lower prices than the L2 access. Also, it's complicated to properly handle L2 access termination as well, so by your reasoning the provider wants to do L3 access where they handle everything and the ISP only routes a /20 IPv4 block and /43 IPv6 to the muni network, and all their customers needs in form of DHCPv4/v6(-PD) etc is handled by the fiber operator. -- Mikael Abrahamsson email: swmike@swm.pp.se

----- Original Message -----

From: "Scott Helms" <khelms@zcorum.com>

I've done open access networks for several cities and _today_ the cleanest situations by far (that I've seen) had the city handling layer 1 and 2 with the layer 2 hand off being Ethernet regardless of the access technology used.

Yes; when we did this back in '12, that was my proposal: city handles layer 2 aggregation and the ONTs, and we'll hand you off 1q ethernet... or, if you really *want* to put gear in our rack room, we'll cross-connect you to the relevant fibers, and let you handle layer 2 yourself. Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth Baylink jra@baylink.com Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100 Ashworth & Associates http://www.bcp38.info 2000 Land Rover DII St Petersburg FL USA BCP38: Ask For It By Name! +1 727 647 1274

On Jul 22, 2014, at 12:04 , Jay Ashworth <jra@baylink.com> wrote:

----- Original Message -----

...

From: "Scott Helms" <khelms@zcorum.com>

...

I've done open access networks for several cities and _today_ the cleanest situations by far (that I've seen) had the city handling layer 1 and 2 with the layer 2 hand off being Ethernet regardless of the access technology used.

Yes; when we did this back in '12, that was my proposal: city handles layer 2 aggregation and the ONTs, and we'll hand you off 1q ethernet... or, if you really *want* to put gear in our rack room, we'll cross-connect you to the relevant fibers, and let you handle layer 2 yourself.

I'd be sort of OK with that approach, though I'd actually rather see the default reversed. Owen

Owen, This specific issue has nothing to do with splitters versus all the fiber in home runs. If you buy a shelf that can support 16 ports of PON or 96 ports of Ethernet you will pay more per port than if you buy a shelf that supports 160 PON ports or 576 ports of Ethernet. If every ISP has to buy their own layer 2 gear that's what happens. If that gear has to all be hosted in a central meet point then that room will need much more power, space, and cooling. "Not really... You buy OLTs on a per N subscribers basis, not on a per N potential subscribers, so while you'd have possibly Y additional shelves per area served where Y = Number of ISPs competing for that area, I don't see that as a huge problem." There are scenarios where it doesn't matter, mainly where the number of ISPs is very low. If we only have 4 service providers trying to offer services in city then the extra power and heat isn't that big of an issue and the wasted money in chassis and management cards is only in the 10s of thousands of dollars. The problem is that you very quickly, as the city, run out of a location that has suitable space, cooling, and power. Remember that each extra shelf has the same power supply and heat dissipation. "OTOH, if the municipality provides only L1 concentration (dragging L1 facilities back to centralized locations where access providers can connect to large numbers of customers), then access providers have to compete to deliver what consumers actually want. They can't ignore the need for newer L2 technologies because their competitor(s) will leap frog them and take away their customers. This is what we, as consumers, want, isn't it?" No, what we as consumers want is inexpensive and reliable bandwidth. How that happens very few consumers actually care about. What they do care about is the city saying we have to raise $300,000 extra dollars in bond money to build a new facility to house the ISPs who might want to collocate with us. Scott Helms Vice President of Technology ZCorum (678) 507-5000 -------------------------------- http://twitter.com/kscotthelms -------------------------------- On Tue, Jul 22, 2014 at 4:05 PM, Owen DeLong <owen@delong.com> wrote:

On Jul 22, 2014, at 11:26 , Scott Helms <khelms@zcorum.com> wrote:

...

One of the main problems with trying to draw the line at layer 1 is that its extremely inefficient in terms of the gear. Now, this is in large part

It's not, actually.

The same GPON gear can be centrally located and has the same loss characteristics as it would if you put the splitters farther out.

...

a function of how gear is built and if a significant number of locales went in this direction we _might_ see changes, but today each ISP would have to purchase their own OLTs and that leads to many more shelves than the total number of line cards would otherwise dictate. There are certainly many

Not really... You buy OLTs on a per N subscribers basis, not on a per N potential subscribers, so while you'd have possibly Y additional shelves per area served where Y = Number of ISPs competing for that area, I don't see that as a huge problem.

...

other issues, some of which have been discussed on this list before, but I've done open access networks for several cities and _today_ the cleanest situations by far (that I've seen) had the city handling layer 1 and 2 with the layer 2 hand off being Ethernet regardless of the access technology used.

The problem with this approach is that it is great today, but it's a recipe for exactly the kinds of criticisms that were leveled against Ashland in earlier comments in this thread... The aging L2 setup will not be upgraded nearly as quickly as it should because there's no competitive pressure for that to happen.

OTOH, if the municipality provides only L1 concentration (dragging L1 facilities back to centralized locations where access providers can connect to large numbers of customers), then access providers have to compete to deliver what consumers actually want. They can't ignore the need for newer L2 technologies because their competitor(s) will leap frog them and take away their customers. This is what we, as consumers, want, isn't it?

Owen

...

Scott Helms Vice President of Technology ZCorum (678) 507-5000 -------------------------------- http://twitter.com/kscotthelms --------------------------------

On Tue, Jul 22, 2014 at 2:13 PM, Ray Soucy <rps@maine.edu> wrote:

...

IMHO the way to go here is to have the physical fiber plant separate.

FTTH is a big investment. Easy for a municipality to absorb, but not attractive for a commercial ISP to do. A business will want to realize an ROI much faster than the life of the fiber plant, and will need assurance of having a monopoly and dense deployment to achieve that. None of those conditions apply in the majority of the US, so we're stuck with really old infrastructure delivering really slow service.

Municipal FTTH needs to be a regulated public utility (ideally at a state or regional level). It should have an open access policy at published rates and be forbidden from offering lit service on the fiber (conflict of interest). This covers the fiber box in the house to the communications hut to patch in equipment.

Think of it like the power company and the separation between generation and transmission.

That's Step #1.

Step #2 is finding an ISP to make use of the fiber.

Having a single municipal ISP is not really what I think is needed.

Having the infrastructure in place to eliminate the huge investment needed for an ISP to service a community is. Hopefully, enough people jump at the idea and offer service over the fiber, but if they don't, you need to get creative.

The important thing is that the fiber stays open. I'm not a fan of having a town or city be an ISP because I know how the budgets work. I trust a town to make sure my fiber is passing light; I don't trust it to make sure I have the latest and greatest equipment to light the fiber, or bandwidth from the best sources. I certainly don't trust the town to allow competition if it's providing its own service.

This is were the line really needs to be drawn IMHO. Municipal FTTH is about layer 1, not layer 2 or layer 3.

That said, there are communities where just having the fiber plant won't be enough. In these situations, the municipality can do things like create an incentive program to guarantee a minimum income for an ISP to reach the community which get's trimmed back as the ISP gains subscribers.

I don't think a public option is bad on the ISP side of things; as long as the fiber is open and people can choose which ISP they want. The public option might be necessary for very rural communities that can't get service elsewhere or to simply serve as a price-check, but most of us here know that a small community likely won't be able to find the staff to run its own ISP, either.

TL;DR Municipal FTTH should be about fixing the infrastructure issues and promoting innovation and competition, not creating a government-run ISP to oust anyone from the market.

Think about it: If you're an ISP, and you can lease fiber and equipment space (proper hut, secured, with backup power and cooling etc) for a subsidized rate; for cheaper than anything you could afford to build out; how much arm twisting would it take for you to invest in installing a switch or two to deliver service? If you're a smaller ISP, you were likely already doing this in working with telephone companies in the past (until they started trying to oust you).

On Tue, Jul 22, 2014 at 11:27 AM, Aaron <aaron@wholesaleinternet.net> wrote:

...

So let me throw out a purely hypothetical scenario to the collective:

What do you think the consequences to a municipality would be if they laid fiber to every house in the city and gave away internet access for

free?

...

...

...

Not the WiFi builds we have today but FTTH at gigabit speeds for free?

Do you think the LECs would come unglued?

Aaron

On 7/21/2014 8:33 PM, Miles Fidelman wrote:

...

I've seen various communities attempt to hand out free wifi - usually

in

...

limited areas, but in some cases community-wide (Brookline, MA comes to mind). The limited ones (e.g., in tourist hotspots) have been city funded, or donated. The community-wide ones, that I've seen, have been public-private partnerships - the City provides space on light poles and such - the private firm provides limited access, in hopes of selling expanded service. I haven't seen it work successfully - 4G cell service beats the heck out of WiFi as a metropolitan area service.

When it comes to municipal fiber and triple-play projects, I've generally seen them capitalized with revenue bonds -- hence, a need for revenue to pay of the financing. Lower cost than commercial services because municipal bonds are low-interest, long-term, and they operate on a cost-recovery basis.

Miles Fidelman

Aaron wrote:

...

Do you have an example of a municipality that gives free internet

access

...

to it's residents?

On 7/21/2014 2:26 PM, Matthew Kaufman wrote: > > I think the difference is when the municipality starts throwing in free > or highly subsidized layer 3 connectivity "free with every layer 1 > connection" > > Matthew Kaufman > > (Sent from my iPhone) > >> On Jul 21, 2014, at 12:08 PM, Blake Dunlap <ikiris@gmail.com> wrote: >> >> My power is pretty much always on, my water is pretty much always on >> and safe, my sewer system works, etc etc... >> >> Why is layer 1 internet magically different from every other utility? >> >> -Blake >> >>> On Mon, Jul 21, 2014 at 1:38 PM, William Herrin <bill@herrin.us> >>> wrote: >>>> >>>> On Mon, Jul 21, 2014 at 10:20 AM, Jay Ashworth <jra@baylink.com> >>>> wrote: >>>> Over the last decade, 19 states have made it illegal for >>>> municipalities >>>> to own fiber networks >>> >>> Hi Jay, >>> >>> Everything government does, it does badly. Without exception. There >>> are many things government does better than any private organization >>> is likely to sustain, but even those things it does slowly and at an >>> exorbitant price. >>> >>> Muni fiber is a competition killer. You can't beat city hall; once >>> built it's not practical to compete, even with better service, so >>> residents are stuck with only the overpriced (either directly or via >>> taxes), usually underpowered and always one-size-fits-all network >>> access which results. As an ISP I watched something similar happen in >>> Altoona PA a decade and a half ago. It was a travesty. >>> >>> The only exception I see to this would be if localities were >>> constrained to providing point to point and point to multipoint >>> communications infrastructure within the locality on a reasonable and >>> non-discriminatory basis. The competition that would foster on the >>> services side might outweigh the damage on the infrastructure side. >>> Like public roads facilitate efficient transportation and freight >>> despite the cost and potholes, though that's an imperfect simile. >>> >>> Regards, >>> Bill Herrin >>> >>> >>> -- >>> William Herrin ................ herrin@dirtside.com bill@herrin.us >>> Owner, Dirtside Systems ......... Web: <http://www.dirtside.com/> >>> Can I solve your unusual networking challenges?

-- ================================================================ Aaron Wendel Chief Technical Officer Wholesale Internet, Inc. (AS 32097) (816)550-9030 http://www.wholesaleinternet.com ================================================================

-- Ray Patrick Soucy Network Engineer University of Maine System

T: 207-561-3526 F: 207-561-3531

MaineREN, Maine's Research and Education Network www.maineren.net

You're assuming that this would all be free for the ISP, I think. The ISP would lease the fiber they use AND rack units for equipment (with use justification to prevent squatting). If someone wants to tie up a rack unit for one connection that's their business, but there would be a financial incentive to be efficient. Since revenue is generated for the location; if there is need for expanding capacity then there would be a business interest in the utility responsible for maintaining it to accommodate that. If the power company needs a bigger substation, they don't stop selling power. It might take a few months, but the upgrade does happen ... because there are both business and regulatory reasons to do so. On Tue, Jul 22, 2014 at 4:55 PM, Scott Helms <khelms@zcorum.com> wrote:

Owen,

This specific issue has nothing to do with splitters versus all the fiber in home runs. If you buy a shelf that can support 16 ports of PON or 96 ports of Ethernet you will pay more per port than if you buy a shelf that supports 160 PON ports or 576 ports of Ethernet. If every ISP has to buy their own layer 2 gear that's what happens. If that gear has to all be hosted in a central meet point then that room will need much more power, space, and cooling.

"Not really... You buy OLTs on a per N subscribers basis, not on a per N potential subscribers, so while you'd have possibly Y additional shelves per area served where Y = Number of ISPs competing for that area, I don't see that as a huge problem."

There are scenarios where it doesn't matter, mainly where the number of ISPs is very low. If we only have 4 service providers trying to offer services in city then the extra power and heat isn't that big of an issue and the wasted money in chassis and management cards is only in the 10s of thousands of dollars. The problem is that you very quickly, as the city, run out of a location that has suitable space, cooling, and power. Remember that each extra shelf has the same power supply and heat dissipation.

"OTOH, if the municipality provides only L1 concentration (dragging L1 facilities back to centralized locations where access providers can connect to large numbers of customers), then access providers have to compete to deliver what consumers actually want. They can't ignore the need for newer L2 technologies because their competitor(s) will leap frog them and take away their customers. This is what we, as consumers, want, isn't it?"

No, what we as consumers want is inexpensive and reliable bandwidth. How that happens very few consumers actually care about. What they do care about is the city saying we have to raise $300,000 extra dollars in bond money to build a new facility to house the ISPs who might want to collocate with us.

Scott Helms Vice President of Technology ZCorum (678) 507-5000 -------------------------------- http://twitter.com/kscotthelms --------------------------------

On Tue, Jul 22, 2014 at 4:05 PM, Owen DeLong <owen@delong.com> wrote:

...

On Jul 22, 2014, at 11:26 , Scott Helms <khelms@zcorum.com> wrote:

...

One of the main problems with trying to draw the line at layer 1 is that its extremely inefficient in terms of the gear. Now, this is in large part

It's not, actually.

The same GPON gear can be centrally located and has the same loss characteristics as it would if you put the splitters farther out.

...

a function of how gear is built and if a significant number of locales went in this direction we _might_ see changes, but today each ISP would have to purchase their own OLTs and that leads to many more shelves than the total number of line cards would otherwise dictate. There are certainly many

Not really... You buy OLTs on a per N subscribers basis, not on a per N potential subscribers, so while you'd have possibly Y additional shelves per area served where Y = Number of ISPs competing for that area, I don't see that as a huge problem.

...

other issues, some of which have been discussed on this list before, but I've done open access networks for several cities and _today_ the cleanest situations by far (that I've seen) had the city handling layer 1 and 2 with the layer 2 hand off being Ethernet regardless of the access technology used.

The problem with this approach is that it is great today, but it's a recipe for exactly the kinds of criticisms that were leveled against Ashland in earlier comments in this thread... The aging L2 setup will not be upgraded nearly as quickly as it should because there's no competitive pressure for that to happen.

OTOH, if the municipality provides only L1 concentration (dragging L1 facilities back to centralized locations where access providers can connect to large numbers of customers), then access providers have to compete to deliver what consumers actually want. They can't ignore the need for newer L2 technologies because their competitor(s) will leap frog them and take away their customers. This is what we, as consumers, want, isn't it?

Owen

...

Scott Helms Vice President of Technology ZCorum (678) 507-5000 -------------------------------- http://twitter.com/kscotthelms --------------------------------

On Tue, Jul 22, 2014 at 2:13 PM, Ray Soucy <rps@maine.edu> wrote:

...

IMHO the way to go here is to have the physical fiber plant separate.

FTTH is a big investment. Easy for a municipality to absorb, but not attractive for a commercial ISP to do. A business will want to realize an ROI much faster than the life of the fiber plant, and will need assurance of having a monopoly and dense deployment to achieve that. None of those conditions apply in the majority of the US, so we're stuck with really old infrastructure delivering really slow service.

Municipal FTTH needs to be a regulated public utility (ideally at a state or regional level). It should have an open access policy at published rates and be forbidden from offering lit service on the fiber (conflict of interest). This covers the fiber box in the house to the communications hut to patch in equipment.

Think of it like the power company and the separation between generation and transmission.

That's Step #1.

Step #2 is finding an ISP to make use of the fiber.

Having a single municipal ISP is not really what I think is needed.

Having the infrastructure in place to eliminate the huge investment needed for an ISP to service a community is. Hopefully, enough people jump at the idea and offer service over the fiber, but if they don't, you need to get creative.

The important thing is that the fiber stays open. I'm not a fan of having a town or city be an ISP because I know how the budgets work. I trust a town to make sure my fiber is passing light; I don't trust it to make sure I have the latest and greatest equipment to light the fiber, or bandwidth from the best sources. I certainly don't trust the town to allow competition if it's providing its own service.

This is were the line really needs to be drawn IMHO. Municipal FTTH is about layer 1, not layer 2 or layer 3.

That said, there are communities where just having the fiber plant won't be enough. In these situations, the municipality can do things like create an incentive program to guarantee a minimum income for an ISP to reach the community which get's trimmed back as the ISP gains subscribers.

I don't think a public option is bad on the ISP side of things; as long as the fiber is open and people can choose which ISP they want. The public option might be necessary for very rural communities that can't get service elsewhere or to simply serve as a price-check, but most of us here know that a small community likely won't be able to find the staff to run its own ISP, either.

TL;DR Municipal FTTH should be about fixing the infrastructure issues and promoting innovation and competition, not creating a government-run ISP to oust anyone from the market.

Think about it: If you're an ISP, and you can lease fiber and equipment space (proper hut, secured, with backup power and cooling etc) for a subsidized rate; for cheaper than anything you could afford to build out; how much arm twisting would it take for you to invest in installing a switch or two to deliver service? If you're a smaller ISP, you were likely already doing this in working with telephone companies in the past (until they started trying to oust you).

On Tue, Jul 22, 2014 at 11:27 AM, Aaron <aaron@wholesaleinternet.net> wrote:

...

So let me throw out a purely hypothetical scenario to the collective:

What do you think the consequences to a municipality would be if they laid fiber to every house in the city and gave away internet access for free? Not the WiFi builds we have today but FTTH at gigabit speeds for free?

Do you think the LECs would come unglued?

Aaron

On 7/21/2014 8:33 PM, Miles Fidelman wrote:

...

I've seen various communities attempt to hand out free wifi - usually in limited areas, but in some cases community-wide (Brookline, MA comes to mind). The limited ones (e.g., in tourist hotspots) have been city

funded,

...

or donated. The community-wide ones, that I've seen, have been public-private partnerships - the City provides space on light poles and such - the private firm provides limited access, in hopes of selling expanded service. I haven't seen it work successfully - 4G cell service beats the heck out of WiFi as a metropolitan area service.

When it comes to municipal fiber and triple-play projects, I've generally seen them capitalized with revenue bonds -- hence, a need for revenue to pay of the financing. Lower cost than commercial services because municipal bonds are low-interest, long-term, and they operate on a cost-recovery basis.

Miles Fidelman

Aaron wrote: > > Do you have an example of a municipality that gives free internet access > to it's residents? > > > On 7/21/2014 2:26 PM, Matthew Kaufman wrote: >> >> I think the difference is when the municipality starts throwing in free >> or highly subsidized layer 3 connectivity "free with every layer 1 >> connection" >> >> Matthew Kaufman >> >> (Sent from my iPhone) >> >>> On Jul 21, 2014, at 12:08 PM, Blake Dunlap <ikiris@gmail.com> >>> wrote: >>> >>> My power is pretty much always on, my water is pretty much always >>> on >>> and safe, my sewer system works, etc etc... >>> >>> Why is layer 1 internet magically different from every other >>> utility? >>> >>> -Blake >>> >>>> On Mon, Jul 21, 2014 at 1:38 PM, William Herrin <bill@herrin.us> >>>> wrote: >>>>> >>>>> On Mon, Jul 21, 2014 at 10:20 AM, Jay Ashworth <jra@baylink.com> >>>>> wrote: >>>>> Over the last decade, 19 states have made it illegal for >>>>> municipalities >>>>> to own fiber networks >>>> >>>> Hi Jay, >>>> >>>> Everything government does, it does badly. Without exception. >>>> There >>>> are many things government does better than any private >>>> organization >>>> is likely to sustain, but even those things it does slowly and at >>>> an >>>> exorbitant price. >>>> >>>> Muni fiber is a competition killer. You can't beat city hall; >>>> once >>>> built it's not practical to compete, even with better service, so >>>> residents are stuck with only the overpriced (either directly or >>>> via >>>> taxes), usually underpowered and always one-size-fits-all network >>>> access which results. As an ISP I watched something similar >>>> happen in >>>> Altoona PA a decade and a half ago. It was a travesty. >>>> >>>> The only exception I see to this would be if localities were >>>> constrained to providing point to point and point to multipoint >>>> communications infrastructure within the locality on a reasonable and >>>> non-discriminatory basis. The competition that would foster on >>>> the >>>> services side might outweigh the damage on the infrastructure >>>> side. >>>> Like public roads facilitate efficient transportation and freight >>>> despite the cost and potholes, though that's an imperfect simile. >>>> >>>> Regards, >>>> Bill Herrin >>>> >>>> >>>> -- >>>> William Herrin ................ herrin@dirtside.com >>>> bill@herrin.us >>>> Owner, Dirtside Systems ......... Web: <http://www.dirtside.com/> >>>> Can I solve your unusual networking challenges? > >

-- ================================================================ Aaron Wendel Chief Technical Officer Wholesale Internet, Inc. (AS 32097) (816)550-9030 http://www.wholesaleinternet.com ================================================================

-- Ray Patrick Soucy Network Engineer University of Maine System

T: 207-561-3526 F: 207-561-3531

MaineREN, Maine's Research and Education Network www.maineren.net

-- Ray Patrick Soucy Network Engineer University of Maine System T: 207-561-3526 F: 207-561-3531 MaineREN, Maine's Research and Education Network www.maineren.net

----- Original Message -----

From: "Eugeniu Patrascu" <eugen@imacandi.net>

In my neck of the woods, the city hall decided that no more fiber cables running all over the poles in the city and somehow combined with some EU regulations that communication links need to be buried, they created a project whereby a 3rd party company would dig the whole city, put in some tubes in which microfibres would be installed by ISPs that reach every street number and ISP would pay per the kilometer from point A to point B (where point A was either a PoP or ISP HQ or whatever; point B is the customer).

To be clear, this is single-mode dark fiber so the ISPs can run it at whatever speeds they like between two points.

The only drawback is that the 3rd party company has a monopoly on the prices for the leasing of the tubes, but from my understanding this is kept under control by regulation.

This one is a bad idea cause you have lots of people pushing fiber through pipes with active fiber in them... and their incentives not to screw up other people's glass are... unclear? :-) Oh, wait: the conduit installer isn't a contractor, they're a monopoly? No, that's even worse. Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth Baylink jra@baylink.com Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100 Ashworth & Associates http://www.bcp38.info 2000 Land Rover DII St Petersburg FL USA BCP38: Ask For It By Name! +1 727 647 1274

...

This one is a bad idea cause you have lots of people pushing fiber through pipes with active fiber in them... and their incentives not to screw up other people's glass are... unclear? :-)

Not really, if one company starts making mistakes, the other will also mistake their cables. It's like a working mexican standoff :)

In reality, Mexican standoffs are often fatal.

...

Oh, wait: the conduit installer isn't a contractor, they're a monopoly? The people pushing fiber through the conduits are contractors. There are a handful of companies licensed to operate this.

May be workable, but seems more expensive than operating cross connects in a serving wire center with little or no plausible benefit.

...

No, that's even worse.

It's not perfect, but it works.

People say that about windows. I don't use it, either. Owen

On Tue, Aug 5, 2014 at 1:56 PM, Eugeniu Patrascu <eugen@imacandi.net> wrote:

So how is blowing microfibre in some tubes more expensive? You pay a one off installation fee and then a small monthly rate for the circuit (payable yearly).

The really nice and geeky part is that you can actually choose how your fiber will run, so if you want diverse paths to a location you can achieve that with certainty.

Hi Eugeniu, The word you're searching for is "microduct." I'm a big fan of Microduct. There's even some wicked cool equipment which will force the core out of in-place coax plant, converting it to microduct suitable for a fiber installation. But here are some of the places you may run in to trouble using it for a municipal fiber installation: 1. 10 miles of fiber optic cable is expensive (from a consumer perspective) even when you're able to float it through a series of ducts instead of having to trench. Who covers the cost? If the service provider amortizes it for the consumer (instead of the municipal infrastructure provider) then you're right back to the consumer lock-in that damages competition. 2. While microduct supports 12 or 24 fibers in a single duct, it does not support adding or removing fibers from a duct. To install a different quantity, you have to remove all the existing fiber and then blow a completely new set of fibers. Obviously service provider A is not motivated to install extra fibers that service provider B can subsequently sell you service on. Only a bare infrastructure provider would have that motivation. 3. Structure is good. It facilitates reuse. If you permit the fiber to be run between arbitrary points you end up with the same cruft as an office without structured cabling. Even if you use microduct, future-proofing requires central cross-connect points where folks patch. 4. I'm not sure how far you can float fiber down a microduct but I'm pretty sure you don't do it miles at a stretch. So, if you build your system with microduct and fiber-blown-later, you'll have a *lot* of points where the ducts have to be joined. Regards, Bill Herrin -- William Herrin ................ herrin@dirtside.com bill@herrin.us Owner, Dirtside Systems ......... Web: <http://www.dirtside.com/> Can I solve your unusual networking challenges?

On Aug 5, 2014, at 10:56, Eugeniu Patrascu <eugen@imacandi.net> wrote:

...

On Tue, Aug 5, 2014 at 8:26 PM, Owen DeLong <owen@delong.com> wrote:

...

...

This one is a bad idea cause you have lots of people pushing fiber through pipes with active fiber in them... and their incentives not to screw up other people's glass are... unclear? :-)

Not really, if one company starts making mistakes, the other will also mistake their cables. It's like a working mexican standoff :)

In reality, Mexican standoffs are often fatal.

If you blink.

...

...

...

Oh, wait: the conduit installer isn't a contractor, they're a monopoly? The people pushing fiber through the conduits are contractors. There are a handful of companies licensed to operate this.

May be workable, but seems more expensive than operating cross connects in a serving wire center with little or no plausible benefit.

So how is blowing microfibre in some tubes more expensive? You pay a one off installation fee and then a small monthly rate for the circuit (payable yearly).

And then when you switch providers, you pay all of that again instead of a quick move of a cross connect inside a building.

The really nice and geeky part is that you can actually choose how your fiber will run, so if you want diverse paths to a location you can achieve that with certainty.

Not particularly important to 99.999+% of residential users.

...

...

...

No, that's even worse.

It's not perfect, but it works.

People say that about windows. I don't use it, either.

:) It works because it's very cheap to get high speed internet into all kinds of areas, especially residential ones.

So is what I am proposing. In fact, I'm pretty sure my proposal is cheaper, especially in the long run.

On Aug 4, 2014, at 3:01 PM, Eugeniu Patrascu <eugen@imacandi.net> wrote:

On Tue, Jul 22, 2014 at 11:05 PM, Owen DeLong <owen@delong.com> wrote:

OTOH, if the municipality provides only L1 concentration (dragging L1 facilities back to centralized locations where access providers can connect to large numbers of customers), then access providers have to compete to deliver what consumers actually want. They can't ignore the need for newer L2 technologies because their competitor(s) will leap frog them and take away their customers. This is what we, as consumers, want, isn't it?

In my neck of the woods, the city hall decided that no more fiber cables running all over the poles in the city and somehow combined with some EU regulations that communication links need to be buried, they created a project whereby a 3rd party company would dig the whole city, put in some tubes in which microfibres would be installed by ISPs that reach every street number and ISP would pay per the kilometer from point A to point B (where point A was either a PoP or ISP HQ or whatever; point B is the customer).

To be clear, this is single-mode dark fiber so the ISPs can run it at whatever speeds they like between two points.

The only drawback is that the 3rd party company has a monopoly on the prices for the leasing of the tubes, but from my understanding this is kept under control by regulation.

As long as the price is regulated at a reasonable level and is available on equal footing to all comers, that’s about as good as it will get whether run by private enterprise or by the city itself. Owen

On Aug 4, 2014, at 10:34 PM, mcfbbqroast . <bbqroast@gmail.com> wrote:

I agree with this, a monopoly is ok if the government regulates it properly and effectively.

I'm a fan of either:

Dark fibre to every house.

Fiber to every house with a soft handover to the ISP.

The problem with soft handover is that the monopoly provider is in a place to stifle innovation and creativity by creating a limitation on what kinds of handoffs/protocols/etc. can be supported.

All ran by an entity forbidden from retail.

Ideally a mix of both, soft handover for no thrills ISPs (reduced labour to connect user, reduced maintenance) and dark fibre for others (reduced costs, increased control).

I don’t mind an optional soft handover, but dark fiber MUST be a required service. Owen

On 5 Aug 2014 14:11, "Owen DeLong" <owen@delong.com> wrote:

...

On Aug 4, 2014, at 3:01 PM, Eugeniu Patrascu <eugen@imacandi.net> wrote:

...

On Tue, Jul 22, 2014 at 11:05 PM, Owen DeLong <owen@delong.com> wrote:

OTOH, if the municipality provides only L1 concentration (dragging L1 facilities back to centralized locations where access providers can connect to large numbers of customers), then access providers have to compete to deliver what consumers actually want. They can't ignore the need for newer L2 technologies because their competitor(s) will leap frog them and take away their customers. This is what we, as consumers, want, isn't it?

In my neck of the woods, the city hall decided that no more fiber cables running all over the poles in the city and somehow combined with some EU regulations that communication links need to be buried, they created a project whereby a 3rd party company would dig the whole city, put in some tubes in which microfibres would be installed by ISPs that reach every street number and ISP would pay per the kilometer from point A to point B (where point A was either a PoP or ISP HQ or whatever; point B is the customer).

To be clear, this is single-mode dark fiber so the ISPs can run it at whatever speeds they like between two points.

The only drawback is that the 3rd party company has a monopoly on the prices for the leasing of the tubes, but from my understanding this is kept under control by regulation.

As long as the price is regulated at a reasonable level and is available on equal footing to all comers, that’s about as good as it will get whether run by private enterprise or by the city itself.

Owen

----- Original Message -----

From: "William Herrin" <bill@herrin.us>

...

All ran by an entity forbidden from retail.

Nonononono, bad plan. I want a fiber from my home to my storefront on main street, but I'm a consumer not a retailer so I can't buy just one? Or hey, so sorry but the cable MuniFiber ran to your home is under contract to XYZ corp. They have to release it before we at ABC corp can provide you service.

Well, yeah; I actually agree with most of that. My plan, to recap it from '12, was this: You can rent, for an MRC (probably plus a deposit): 1) L2 connectivity to a property, talking to an ONT supplied by the utility, that is a virtual circuit to the prem, and delivered to you as (I think) QinQ. That is: you get a completely clean Ethernet connection, over which you can run IPv4 or IPv6, with whatever addressing you want, to a GigE port on the ONT, as long as the customer has one free. If the customer wants their 4 ports to go to 4 different ISPs? Fine. 2) L1 connectivity to a property, over any available pair provisioned to that address -- I was planning on 3 pair drops for 1-3 unit properties, and a declining overbuild from 2 down to about 1.2 pairs per unit for stripcenters and apartment buildings and the like. Obviously, this will cost more, as it's a more limited resource. This would allow you to plug the fiber directly into your switch at both ends, and we'll just xconn the two drops in the fiber room. 3) If you're really motivated for some reason, with an even larger deposit, we will have our contractor pull your fiber into our conduits, running from wherever you need to go to wherever else you need to go. This would be a contractual setup, I suspect, as it needs to handle title in case of abandonment, and like that. Presumably, it would not carry an MRC, unless it appears in our fiber room (which it probably should), in which case a nominal charge for the jumper and any NRCs for special work. I can't see why anyone would actually need this, but I mention it for completeness sake -- I plan to preprovision additional trunking in strategic places, so we can get more than 3 pairs someplace should we really need it; fiber's (mostly) cheap; crews are expensive. As I noted originally, I think providing L2 service is useful as it (sharply) reduces the barrier-to-entry to smaller "boutique" ISP services, at the cost of their perhaps being at our mercy for upgrades and such. If we do our job properly, I don't think too many such speed bumps would affect such people. We're pretty far along the development curve now; anyone who thinks symmetrical gigabit isn't enough either has never used it (with a good backhaul), or needs to be on Internet2. :-) Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth Baylink jra@baylink.com Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100 Ashworth & Associates http://www.bcp38.info 2000 Land Rover DII St Petersburg FL USA BCP38: Ask For It By Name! +1 727 647 1274

Matthew Kaufman <matthew@matthew.at> writes:

In the meantime, I'd like to see the city where an ISP can buy as many of the microducts as they want. I'd like to buy them all, please... though I have no intention of running anything though them, as I'm an investor in the local cable TV company.

The fire ants have beaten you to it and they don't take kindly to people running fiber through their living room. (SFW but kind of disgusting): http://www.rainbowtech.net/products/docs/c51ce4107047eb1b2dc/Ants%20in%20OSP... -r

I was mentally where you were a few years ago with the idea of having switching and L2 covered by a public utility but after seeing some instances of it I'm more convinced that different ISPs should use their own equipment. The equipment is what makes the speed and quality of service. If you have shared infrastructure for L2 then what exactly differentiates a service? More to the point; if that equipment gets oversubscribed or gets neglected who is responsible for it? I don't think the municipality or public utility is a good fit. Just give us the fiber and we'll decided what to light it up with. BTW I don't know why I would have to note this, but of course I'm talking about active FTTH. PON is basically throwing money away if you look at the long term picture. Sure, having one place switch everything and just assign people to the right VLAN keeps trucks from rolling for individual ISPs, but I don't think giving up control over the quality of the service is in the interest of an ISP. What you're asking for is basically to have a "competitive" environment where everyone delivers the same service. If your service is slow and it's because of L2 infrastructure, no change in provider will fix that the way you're looking to do it. On Tue, Jul 22, 2014 at 2:26 PM, Scott Helms <khelms@zcorum.com> wrote:

One of the main problems with trying to draw the line at layer 1 is that its extremely inefficient in terms of the gear. Now, this is in large part a function of how gear is built and if a significant number of locales went in this direction we _might_ see changes, but today each ISP would have to purchase their own OLTs and that leads to many more shelves than the total number of line cards would otherwise dictate. There are certainly many other issues, some of which have been discussed on this list before, but I've done open access networks for several cities and _today_ the cleanest situations by far (that I've seen) had the city handling layer 1 and 2 with the layer 2 hand off being Ethernet regardless of the access technology used.

Scott Helms Vice President of Technology ZCorum (678) 507-5000 -------------------------------- http://twitter.com/kscotthelms --------------------------------

On Tue, Jul 22, 2014 at 2:13 PM, Ray Soucy <rps@maine.edu> wrote:

...

IMHO the way to go here is to have the physical fiber plant separate.

FTTH is a big investment. Easy for a municipality to absorb, but not attractive for a commercial ISP to do. A business will want to realize an ROI much faster than the life of the fiber plant, and will need assurance of having a monopoly and dense deployment to achieve that. None of those conditions apply in the majority of the US, so we're stuck with really old infrastructure delivering really slow service.

Municipal FTTH needs to be a regulated public utility (ideally at a state or regional level). It should have an open access policy at published rates and be forbidden from offering lit service on the fiber (conflict of interest). This covers the fiber box in the house to the communications hut to patch in equipment.

Think of it like the power company and the separation between generation and transmission.

That's Step #1.

Step #2 is finding an ISP to make use of the fiber.

Having a single municipal ISP is not really what I think is needed.

Having the infrastructure in place to eliminate the huge investment needed for an ISP to service a community is. Hopefully, enough people jump at the idea and offer service over the fiber, but if they don't, you need to get creative.

The important thing is that the fiber stays open. I'm not a fan of having a town or city be an ISP because I know how the budgets work. I trust a town to make sure my fiber is passing light; I don't trust it to make sure I have the latest and greatest equipment to light the fiber, or bandwidth from the best sources. I certainly don't trust the town to allow competition if it's providing its own service.

This is were the line really needs to be drawn IMHO. Municipal FTTH is about layer 1, not layer 2 or layer 3.

That said, there are communities where just having the fiber plant won't be enough. In these situations, the municipality can do things like create an incentive program to guarantee a minimum income for an ISP to reach the community which get's trimmed back as the ISP gains subscribers.

I don't think a public option is bad on the ISP side of things; as long as the fiber is open and people can choose which ISP they want. The public option might be necessary for very rural communities that can't get service elsewhere or to simply serve as a price-check, but most of us here know that a small community likely won't be able to find the staff to run its own ISP, either.

TL;DR Municipal FTTH should be about fixing the infrastructure issues and promoting innovation and competition, not creating a government-run ISP to oust anyone from the market.

Think about it: If you're an ISP, and you can lease fiber and equipment space (proper hut, secured, with backup power and cooling etc) for a subsidized rate; for cheaper than anything you could afford to build out; how much arm twisting would it take for you to invest in installing a switch or two to deliver service? If you're a smaller ISP, you were likely already doing this in working with telephone companies in the past (until they started trying to oust you).

On Tue, Jul 22, 2014 at 11:27 AM, Aaron <aaron@wholesaleinternet.net> wrote:

...

So let me throw out a purely hypothetical scenario to the collective:

What do you think the consequences to a municipality would be if they laid fiber to every house in the city and gave away internet access for free? Not the WiFi builds we have today but FTTH at gigabit speeds for free?

Do you think the LECs would come unglued?

Aaron

On 7/21/2014 8:33 PM, Miles Fidelman wrote:

...

I've seen various communities attempt to hand out free wifi - usually in limited areas, but in some cases community-wide (Brookline, MA comes to mind). The limited ones (e.g., in tourist hotspots) have been city funded, or donated. The community-wide ones, that I've seen, have been public-private partnerships - the City provides space on light poles and such - the private firm provides limited access, in hopes of selling expanded service. I haven't seen it work successfully - 4G cell service beats the heck out of WiFi as a metropolitan area service.

When it comes to municipal fiber and triple-play projects, I've generally seen them capitalized with revenue bonds -- hence, a need for revenue to pay of the financing. Lower cost than commercial services because municipal bonds are low-interest, long-term, and they operate on a cost-recovery basis.

Miles Fidelman

Aaron wrote:

...

Do you have an example of a municipality that gives free internet access to it's residents?

On 7/21/2014 2:26 PM, Matthew Kaufman wrote:

...

I think the difference is when the municipality starts throwing in free or highly subsidized layer 3 connectivity "free with every layer 1 connection"

Matthew Kaufman

(Sent from my iPhone)

> On Jul 21, 2014, at 12:08 PM, Blake Dunlap <ikiris@gmail.com> wrote: > > My power is pretty much always on, my water is pretty much always on > and safe, my sewer system works, etc etc... > > Why is layer 1 internet magically different from every other > utility? > > -Blake > >> On Mon, Jul 21, 2014 at 1:38 PM, William Herrin <bill@herrin.us> >> wrote: >>> >>> On Mon, Jul 21, 2014 at 10:20 AM, Jay Ashworth <jra@baylink.com> >>> wrote: >>> Over the last decade, 19 states have made it illegal for >>> municipalities >>> to own fiber networks >> >> Hi Jay, >> >> Everything government does, it does badly. Without exception. There >> are many things government does better than any private >> organization >> is likely to sustain, but even those things it does slowly and at >> an >> exorbitant price. >> >> Muni fiber is a competition killer. You can't beat city hall; once >> built it's not practical to compete, even with better service, so >> residents are stuck with only the overpriced (either directly or >> via >> taxes), usually underpowered and always one-size-fits-all network >> access which results. As an ISP I watched something similar happen >> in >> Altoona PA a decade and a half ago. It was a travesty. >> >> The only exception I see to this would be if localities were >> constrained to providing point to point and point to multipoint >> communications infrastructure within the locality on a reasonable >> and >> non-discriminatory basis. The competition that would foster on the >> services side might outweigh the damage on the infrastructure side. >> Like public roads facilitate efficient transportation and freight >> despite the cost and potholes, though that's an imperfect simile. >> >> Regards, >> Bill Herrin >> >> >> -- >> William Herrin ................ herrin@dirtside.com bill@herrin.us >> Owner, Dirtside Systems ......... Web: <http://www.dirtside.com/> >> Can I solve your unusual networking challenges?

-- ================================================================ Aaron Wendel Chief Technical Officer Wholesale Internet, Inc. (AS 32097) (816)550-9030 http://www.wholesaleinternet.com ================================================================

-- Ray Patrick Soucy Network Engineer University of Maine System

T: 207-561-3526 F: 207-561-3531

MaineREN, Maine's Research and Education Network www.maineren.net

-- Ray Patrick Soucy Network Engineer University of Maine System T: 207-561-3526 F: 207-561-3531 MaineREN, Maine's Research and Education Network www.maineren.net

I'll be there when I see it can be done practically in the US. I agree with you from a philosophical standpoint, but I don't see it being there yet. Scott Helms Vice President of Technology ZCorum (678) 507-5000 -------------------------------- http://twitter.com/kscotthelms -------------------------------- On Tue, Jul 22, 2014 at 5:00 PM, Owen DeLong <owen@delong.com> wrote:

The beauty is that if you have a L1 infrastructure of star-topology fiber from a serving "wire center" each ISP can decide active E or PON or whatever on their own.

That's why I think it's so critical to build out colo facilities with SWCs on the other side of the MMR as the architecture of choice. Let anyone who wants to be an "ANYTHING" service provider (internet, TV, phone, whatever else they can imagine) install the optical term at the customer prem and whatever they want in the colo and XC the fiber to them on a flat per-subscriber strand fee basis that applies to all comers with a per-rack price for the colo space.

So I think we are completely on the same page now.

Owen

On Jul 22, 2014, at 13:37 , Ray Soucy <rps@maine.edu> wrote:

...

I was mentally where you were a few years ago with the idea of having switching and L2 covered by a public utility but after seeing some instances of it I'm more convinced that different ISPs should use their own equipment.

The equipment is what makes the speed and quality of service. If you have shared infrastructure for L2 then what exactly differentiates a service? More to the point; if that equipment gets oversubscribed or gets neglected who is responsible for it? I don't think the municipality or public utility is a good fit.

Just give us the fiber and we'll decided what to light it up with.

BTW I don't know why I would have to note this, but of course I'm talking about active FTTH. PON is basically throwing money away if you look at the long term picture.

Sure, having one place switch everything and just assign people to the right VLAN keeps trucks from rolling for individual ISPs, but I don't think giving up control over the quality of the service is in the interest of an ISP. What you're asking for is basically to have a "competitive" environment where everyone delivers the same service. If your service is slow and it's because of L2 infrastructure, no change in provider will fix that the way you're looking to do it.

...

One of the main problems with trying to draw the line at layer 1 is

On Tue, Jul 22, 2014 at 2:26 PM, Scott Helms <khelms@zcorum.com> wrote: that its

...

extremely inefficient in terms of the gear. Now, this is in large part a function of how gear is built and if a significant number of locales went in this direction we _might_ see changes, but today each ISP would have to purchase their own OLTs and that leads to many more shelves than the total number of line cards would otherwise dictate. There are certainly many other issues, some of which have been discussed on this list before, but I've done open access networks for several cities and _today_ the cleanest situations by far (that I've seen) had the city handling layer 1 and 2 with the layer 2 hand off being Ethernet regardless of the access technology used.

Scott Helms Vice President of Technology ZCorum (678) 507-5000 -------------------------------- http://twitter.com/kscotthelms --------------------------------

On Tue, Jul 22, 2014 at 2:13 PM, Ray Soucy <rps@maine.edu> wrote:

...

IMHO the way to go here is to have the physical fiber plant separate.

FTTH is a big investment. Easy for a municipality to absorb, but not attractive for a commercial ISP to do. A business will want to realize an ROI much faster than the life of the fiber plant, and will need assurance of having a monopoly and dense deployment to achieve that. None of those conditions apply in the majority of the US, so we're stuck with really old infrastructure delivering really slow service.

Municipal FTTH needs to be a regulated public utility (ideally at a state or regional level). It should have an open access policy at published rates and be forbidden from offering lit service on the fiber (conflict of interest). This covers the fiber box in the house to the communications hut to patch in equipment.

Think of it like the power company and the separation between generation and transmission.

That's Step #1.

Step #2 is finding an ISP to make use of the fiber.

Having a single municipal ISP is not really what I think is needed.

Having the infrastructure in place to eliminate the huge investment needed for an ISP to service a community is. Hopefully, enough people jump at the idea and offer service over the fiber, but if they don't, you need to get creative.

The important thing is that the fiber stays open. I'm not a fan of having a town or city be an ISP because I know how the budgets work. I trust a town to make sure my fiber is passing light; I don't trust it to make sure I have the latest and greatest equipment to light the fiber, or bandwidth from the best sources. I certainly don't trust the town to allow competition if it's providing its own service.

This is were the line really needs to be drawn IMHO. Municipal FTTH is about layer 1, not layer 2 or layer 3.

That said, there are communities where just having the fiber plant won't be enough. In these situations, the municipality can do things like create an incentive program to guarantee a minimum income for an ISP to reach the community which get's trimmed back as the ISP gains subscribers.

I don't think a public option is bad on the ISP side of things; as long as the fiber is open and people can choose which ISP they want. The public option might be necessary for very rural communities that can't get service elsewhere or to simply serve as a price-check, but most of us here know that a small community likely won't be able to find the staff to run its own ISP, either.

TL;DR Municipal FTTH should be about fixing the infrastructure issues and promoting innovation and competition, not creating a government-run ISP to oust anyone from the market.

Think about it: If you're an ISP, and you can lease fiber and equipment space (proper hut, secured, with backup power and cooling etc) for a subsidized rate; for cheaper than anything you could afford to build out; how much arm twisting would it take for you to invest in installing a switch or two to deliver service? If you're a smaller ISP, you were likely already doing this in working with telephone companies in the past (until they started trying to oust you).

On Tue, Jul 22, 2014 at 11:27 AM, Aaron <aaron@wholesaleinternet.net> wrote:

...

So let me throw out a purely hypothetical scenario to the collective:

What do you think the consequences to a municipality would be if they laid fiber to every house in the city and gave away internet access for

free?

...

...

Not the WiFi builds we have today but FTTH at gigabit speeds for free?

Do you think the LECs would come unglued?

Aaron

On 7/21/2014 8:33 PM, Miles Fidelman wrote:

...

I've seen various communities attempt to hand out free wifi - usually in limited areas, but in some cases community-wide (Brookline, MA comes

to

...

mind). The limited ones (e.g., in tourist hotspots) have been city funded, or donated. The community-wide ones, that I've seen, have been public-private partnerships - the City provides space on light poles and such - the private firm provides limited access, in hopes of selling expanded service. I haven't seen it work successfully - 4G cell service beats the heck out of WiFi as a metropolitan area service.

When it comes to municipal fiber and triple-play projects, I've generally seen them capitalized with revenue bonds -- hence, a need for revenue to pay of the financing. Lower cost than commercial services because municipal bonds are low-interest, long-term, and they operate on a cost-recovery basis.

Miles Fidelman

Aaron wrote: > > Do you have an example of a municipality that gives free internet > access > to it's residents? > > > On 7/21/2014 2:26 PM, Matthew Kaufman wrote: >> >> I think the difference is when the municipality starts throwing in >> free >> or highly subsidized layer 3 connectivity "free with every layer 1 >> connection" >> >> Matthew Kaufman >> >> (Sent from my iPhone) >> >>> On Jul 21, 2014, at 12:08 PM, Blake Dunlap <ikiris@gmail.com> wrote: >>> >>> My power is pretty much always on, my water is pretty much always on >>> and safe, my sewer system works, etc etc... >>> >>> Why is layer 1 internet magically different from every other >>> utility? >>> >>> -Blake >>> >>>> On Mon, Jul 21, 2014 at 1:38 PM, William Herrin <bill@herrin.us> >>>> wrote: >>>>> >>>>> On Mon, Jul 21, 2014 at 10:20 AM, Jay Ashworth <jra@baylink.com

...

...

...

...

>>>>> wrote: >>>>> Over the last decade, 19 states have made it illegal for >>>>> municipalities >>>>> to own fiber networks >>>> >>>> Hi Jay, >>>> >>>> Everything government does, it does badly. Without exception. There >>>> are many things government does better than any private >>>> organization >>>> is likely to sustain, but even those things it does slowly and at >>>> an >>>> exorbitant price. >>>> >>>> Muni fiber is a competition killer. You can't beat city hall; once >>>> built it's not practical to compete, even with better service, so >>>> residents are stuck with only the overpriced (either directly or >>>> via >>>> taxes), usually underpowered and always one-size-fits-all network >>>> access which results. As an ISP I watched something similar happen >>>> in >>>> Altoona PA a decade and a half ago. It was a travesty. >>>> >>>> The only exception I see to this would be if localities were >>>> constrained to providing point to point and point to multipoint >>>> communications infrastructure within the locality on a reasonable >>>> and >>>> non-discriminatory basis. The competition that would foster on the >>>> services side might outweigh the damage on the infrastructure side. >>>> Like public roads facilitate efficient transportation and freight >>>> despite the cost and potholes, though that's an imperfect simile. >>>> >>>> Regards, >>>> Bill Herrin >>>> >>>> >>>> -- >>>> William Herrin ................ herrin@dirtside.com bill@herrin.us >>>> Owner, Dirtside Systems ......... Web: <http://www.dirtside.com/

...

...

...

...

>>>> Can I solve your unusual networking challenges? > >

-- ================================================================ Aaron Wendel Chief Technical Officer Wholesale Internet, Inc. (AS 32097) (816)550-9030 http://www.wholesaleinternet.com ================================================================

-- Ray Patrick Soucy Network Engineer University of Maine System

T: 207-561-3526 F: 207-561-3531

MaineREN, Maine's Research and Education Network www.maineren.net

-- Ray Patrick Soucy Network Engineer University of Maine System

T: 207-561-3526 F: 207-561-3531

MaineREN, Maine's Research and Education Network www.maineren.net