That's not an excuse, its simply the political reality here in the US. There is a narrow place band on the size scale for a municipality where its politically acceptable in most places AND there is a true gap in coverage. In nearly all of the larger areas, though there are some exceptions, there is very little reason for a muni to go through the pain, and it is most certainly painful, any time a city considers any kinds of moves in this direction a certain percentage of the voters there will have the same position that Bill Herrin has written from. It takes a real need to exist in the minds of enough voters to get past that and get to a place where spending money is politically feasible. I would add that this is much harder in some parts of the country than in others and this is one of the reasons that you see muni's building layer 3 networks rather than going for a more open approach. The people involved in the bond arrangements almost invariably see having the city the layer 3 provider as more reliable path to getting repaid than an open system. On Wed, Jul 23, 2014 at 1:31 AM, mcfbbqroast . <bbqroast@gmail.com> 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'm tired of seeing these excuses in the US. New Zealand is much less dense than the US and has a good municipal style open access fiber network being built.
On Wed, 23 Jul 2014, Scott Helms wrote:
for a more open approach. The people involved in the bond arrangements almost invariably see having the city the layer 3 provider as more reliable path to getting repaid than an open system.
Another model is the one described for instance in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXYaAd5ubok . This has worked successfully in Sweden as well, people getting together and putting in ducts or fiber themselves. In the countryside, people (at least in Sweden) people are used to cooperating in maintenance of roads and other things, one neighbor has a backhoe, second one has a snowplow attachment and everybody helps out. It's a lot easier to accept digging on your property when it's your neighborhood people getting together in doing something, instead of $BIGTELCO that has screwed you before and will screw you again, wanting to do the same thing. Also, after putting it in, you own the infrastructure, so it might actually be a good investment and raise your property value. -- Mikael Abrahamsson email: swmike@swm.pp.se
Mikael, Its an interesting idea and I'd like to see some communities try it here. Having said that, I anticipate that B4RN style networks will run into some substantial maintenance and reliability issues over time. I love the quote in the economist from the farmer's wife who learned (assuming automated) fusion splicing, "It’s only like knitting,” but that doesn't make me confident about the quality of the splices nor the cabling in general. They are also running into serious problems trying to scale and while getting 400 homes wired up is laudable, having it take more than two years is not impressive at all. "B4RN is a case in point. In two years its volunteers have laid 200km of cable, and wired up around 400 homes, without any taxpayer money." http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21601265-frustrated-country-dwellers-b... Scott Helms Vice President of Technology ZCorum (678) 507-5000 -------------------------------- http://twitter.com/kscotthelms -------------------------------- On Wed, Jul 23, 2014 at 8:58 AM, Mikael Abrahamsson <swmike@swm.pp.se> wrote:
On Wed, 23 Jul 2014, Scott Helms wrote:
for a more open approach. The people involved in the bond arrangements
almost invariably see having the city the layer 3 provider as more reliable path to getting repaid than an open system.
Another model is the one described for instance in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXYaAd5ubok . This has worked successfully in Sweden as well, people getting together and putting in ducts or fiber themselves.
In the countryside, people (at least in Sweden) people are used to cooperating in maintenance of roads and other things, one neighbor has a backhoe, second one has a snowplow attachment and everybody helps out. It's a lot easier to accept digging on your property when it's your neighborhood people getting together in doing something, instead of $BIGTELCO that has screwed you before and will screw you again, wanting to do the same thing. Also, after putting it in, you own the infrastructure, so it might actually be a good investment and raise your property value.
-- Mikael Abrahamsson email: swmike@swm.pp.se
On Wed, 23 Jul 2014, Scott Helms wrote:
They are also running into serious problems trying to scale and while getting 400 homes wired up is laudable, having it take more than two years is not impressive at all.
I am impressed by it. 200km of fiber is not easy to do. -- Mikael Abrahamsson email: swmike@swm.pp.se
Mikael, Fiber length is least representative measure of work as it relates to putting fiber in the ground. Now, its impressive that they did anything but if a professional crew took more than a couple of months to do this they'd be out of a job. I 'd be much more impressed by a lower distance covered but more homes and businesses connected or the cabling being ready for connection (ie homes passed). Scott Helms Vice President of Technology ZCorum (678) 507-5000 -------------------------------- http://twitter.com/kscotthelms -------------------------------- On Wed, Jul 23, 2014 at 9:26 AM, Mikael Abrahamsson <swmike@swm.pp.se> wrote:
On Wed, 23 Jul 2014, Scott Helms wrote:
They are also running into serious problems trying to scale and while
getting 400 homes wired up is laudable, having it take more than two years is not impressive at all.
I am impressed by it. 200km of fiber is not easy to do.
-- Mikael Abrahamsson email: swmike@swm.pp.se
On 07/23/2014 07:58 AM, Mikael Abrahamsson wrote:
On Wed, 23 Jul 2014, Scott Helms wrote:
for a more open approach. The people involved in the bond arrangements almost invariably see having the city the layer 3 provider as more reliable path to getting repaid than an open system.
Another model is the one described for instance in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXYaAd5ubok . This has worked successfully in Sweden as well, people getting together and putting in ducts or fiber themselves.
In the countryside, people (at least in Sweden) people are used to cooperating in maintenance of roads and other things, one neighbor has a backhoe, second one has a snowplow attachment and everybody helps out. It's a lot easier to accept digging on your property when it's your neighborhood people getting together in doing something, instead of $BIGTELCO that has screwed you before and will screw you again, wanting to do the same thing. Also, after putting it in, you own the infrastructure, so it might actually be a good investment and raise your property value.
In the US, in midwest rural areas at least, you see do quite a few cooperatives in the realm of things like power distribution. It isn't quite the same as neighbors getting together to build a network, but it has some of the same elements. I live outside of the city and I am a member of a rural electric cooperative. Compared to when I was in the city on the local regulated monopoly grid, my rates are lower, the number of outages are fewer and the overall quality of service is better. I don't know if that is necessarily a common experience, but it is mine. It seems to me that in rural areas a cooperative framework could be ideal for networks as well. Now, it is tempting to suggest that the electric cooperative should take on the project. After all they have a network of electric poles, it doesn't seem that it would be that hard to hang fiber on them. However, I fear that it would be enough outside of the management's wheelhouse that it could end badly. Would probably need a completely separate management team to do it right. Steve -- -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Steven Saner <ssaner@hubris.net> Voice: 316-858-3000 Director of Network Operations Fax: 316-858-3001 Hubris Communications http://www.hubris.net
Steven Saner wrote:
In the US, in midwest rural areas at least, you see do quite a few cooperatives in the realm of things like power distribution. It isn't quite the same as neighbors getting together to build a network, but it has some of the same elements. I live outside of the city and I am a member of a rural electric cooperative. Compared to when I was in the city on the local regulated monopoly grid, my rates are lower, the number of outages are fewer and the overall quality of service is better. I don't know if that is necessarily a common experience, but it is mine. It seems to me that in rural areas a cooperative framework could be ideal for networks as well.
Funny story. There are a huge number of independent telcos in Iowa. The reason: early on, farmers discovered that you could turn pairs of barbed wired strands into party lines. Things developed from there.
Now, it is tempting to suggest that the electric cooperative should take on the project. After all they have a network of electric poles, it doesn't seem that it would be that hard to hang fiber on them. However, I fear that it would be enough outside of the management's wheelhouse that it could end badly. Would probably need a completely separate management team to do it right.
Don't kid yourselves - they ARE involved in telecom. Take a look at: http://www.nreca.coop/ http://www.nrtc.coop/pub/us/ Electric utilities are neck deep in telecom - what with SCADA and smart grid stuff to worry about. It's just that other than Boston Edison, which spawned RCN, it's the munis and coops that are the only ones going into retail telecom - essentially driven by the same motivations that created them in the first place ("the big guys aren't showing to provide <x> - we need to do it ourselves"). Electric utilities have a leg up, in that they have poles, trucks, people, billing, and everyone in town is a customer - telecom is an easy step. Looked at another way - municipal utilities are just coops writ large (or coops are munis write small) - either way its about user/community ownership and control of local infrastructure. Smaller communities seem to favor coops, larger ones seem to favor municipal utlities. Miles Fidelman -- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. .... Yogi Berra
On Wed, Jul 23, 2014 at 09:55:39AM -0500, Steven Saner wrote: [...]
Now, it is tempting to suggest that the electric cooperative should take on the project.
I've seen that exact scenario happen in rural New Mexico. The Co-op members wanted dial-up access, and couldn't get it. They asked the co-op board to build an ISP, and they did. They weren't great at the job, but no one else was putting in access ports within the local calling area. A few years later, we bought their customer base. The co-op was happy to sell to someone that "did Internet for a living." We gave them enough money to make the board and members happy with their investment. So, yeah. I'd say it's more than tempting to suggest that an electric co-op could take on broadband projects.
On 7/23/14 5:30 AM, Scott Helms wrote:
The people involved in the bond arrangements almost invariably see having the city the layer 3 provider as more reliable path to getting repaid than an open system.
I assumed this was true, that bonds with the revenue stream based upon rights-of-way lease only, or row+dark-fiber, or ... were each incrementally easier to sell, having incrementally larger per-customer revenue shares. If anyone has specific bonds, or bonding experiences they can point to I'd appreciate the pointers. TiA, Eric
participants (6)
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Eric Brunner-Williams -
John Osmon -
Mikael Abrahamsson -
Miles Fidelman -
Scott Helms -
Steven Saner