JC Dill wrote:
> IMHO the biggest obstacle to defining broadband is figuring out how to
> describe how it is used in a way that prevents an ILEC from installing
> it so that only the ILEC can use it. If the customer doesn't have at
Oh, that's easy. If the government pays for 90% of the plant cost, I'm
sure ILECs would love to share it with everyone else. Until then, put
your own plant in. As an added bonus, when you put your own plant in as
a CLEC, you can just serve the profitable areas and leave the poor ILEC
having to serve the barn 15 miles from the nearest neighbor.
Huh? Wait, don't drink anymore of that, guys!
We've *already* subsidized the telcos $200 billion for a next generation
broadband-capable plant, that was supposed to be LEC-neutral...
So, we've *already* paid the plant cost, and we've gotten nothing much in
return.
... JG
Joe Greco wrote:
We've *already* subsidized the telcos $200 billion for a next generation
broadband-capable plant, that was supposed to be LEC-neutral...
Yeah, not every telco participated, though the RBOCs sure did.
So, we've *already* paid the plant cost, and we've gotten nothing much in
return.
Looking at just Oklahoma, I'm not sure AT&T could get even 200kb to every household for $200b.
More interesting, I'd be curious to see how well NSP's could handle the increase in traffic if every house support 45mb of Internet (not local video/voice). I'd love to see some good data on how the average throughput changes as the rates go up, especially with the continued increase of higher bandwidth video.
Jack
In a message written on Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 09:19:50AM -0500, Jack Bates wrote:
Looking at just Oklahoma, I'm not sure AT&T could get even 200kb to
every household for $200b.
For an interesting set of cost comparisons....
In most locations every home has electrical service. What's the
cost per household?
Most houses have a statem maintained road in front of them, what
is the cost per household?
Many (although a lower number) of "city" water and sewer, what is
the cost per household?
For a number of reasons I would expect Broadband to be cheaper than any
of those, per household; but should definately not exceed any of them in
cost.
Leo Bicknell wrote:
In most locations every home has electrical service. What's the
cost per household?
$20/mo electric bill. That would so rock.
Most houses have a statem maintained road in front of them, what
is the cost per household?
Paid for by City/County or more commonly by the land owner. New development in Lone Grove, for example requires the developer to put the road in, and then it's wrapped into the house cost. The city will not take over the roads otherwise. Lots of gravel roads here.
Many (although a lower number) of "city" water and sewer, what is
the cost per household?
Way lower number. I'd be surprised if the "city" water and sewer here covers 25% of the city. Most water is cover by a rural water company.
For a number of reasons I would expect Broadband to be cheaper than any
of those, per household; but should definately not exceed any of them in
cost.
A friend has a well and there is a water pipe running just outside their property. They were quoted $20k to "hook on" to the water and they would still have to run the line themselves. A lot of residential services are paid for by the home owners by virtue of the developer.
It is easier and more cost efficient to build out during new construction of homes than to retrofit plant after the fact.
Jack
In a message written on Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 10:00:32AM -0500, Jack Bates wrote:
Leo Bicknell wrote:
>In most locations every home has electrical service. What's the
>cost per household?
$20/mo electric bill. That would so rock.
There is the cost to put the line in to your house, and then the cost
for the 100Kva of servers you have in your basement. 
Now, $20/month plus $1 per megabit, 95% for a GigE line....that would
rock.
>Most houses have a statem maintained road in front of them, what
>is the cost per household?
Paid for by City/County or more commonly by the land owner. New
development in Lone Grove, for example requires the developer to put the
road in, and then it's wrapped into the house cost. The city will not
take over the roads otherwise. Lots of gravel roads here.
Unless I'm mistaken, in new construction the developer pays for the
electrical install, the cable install, the telephone install, and
the road install. In some cases these are subsidized, and in some
the costs are spread around (e.g. when an entire neighborhood is
being developed).
I don't see why Broadband should be any different.
It is easier and more cost efficient to build out during new
construction of homes than to retrofit plant after the fact.
In most areas of the country you can't get a permit to build a house
without electrical service (something solar and other off the grid
people are fighting). Since it is so much more cost effective to
install with new construction, why don't we have codes requring
Cat5 drops in every room, and fiber to the home for all new
construction?
And where does that fiber go to? Home runs from a central point in the
development, so any provider can hook up to any house at the street?
Deregulation means those lines should be accessible to any company for a
fee. How do you give House A Verizon and House B Cox, especially if Cox
doesn't support fiber?
Granted, I don't do residential broadband deployments, maybe all of those
issues are trivial, but something that needs to be considered. Just
because there is only one player in a certain market now doesn't mean we
shouldn't plan now for 10 players 10 years from now in the same market.
This sounds like some of the scenarios that Bill St Arnaud worked through at CANARIE. I think they got as far as some test deployments in or around Ottawa.
His general idea was that the homeowner owns conduit and fibre from the house to a shared neighbourhood colo facility, and has rights to some space in that facility.
The facility then acts as a junction point between houses in the neighbourhood (if the neighbours want to connect) or as a place where a service provider could build to in order to deliver service to the homeowner.
It has been some time since I read the material, but my memory is that the model was at its essence one of moving the provider/subscriber demarcation point from the house to a central neighbourhood location.
Joe
I like that idea, except for the problem that I don't want my neighbors to
have access to the colo, or at least my feed, but I want access to my feed
to I can reboot whatever device is connected there. There would have to
be individual locked cages of some standard size so I could access and
reboot or change my router out, but could not disconnect or modify my
neighbors connection.
It would really suck if my router locked up and it was locked in the colo
room and I had to wait for someone to let me in to powercycle it. It
would also really suck if my neighbor hated me and simply loosened my
connection when they felt like it.
I'm sure there are solutions to that problem, but moving the demarc line
outside the home does bring up new and interesting challenges.
Peter Beckman wrote:
I like that idea, except for the problem that I don't want my neighbors to
have access to the colo, or at least my feed, but I want access to my feed
to I can reboot whatever device is connected there. There would have to
be individual locked cages of some standard size so I could access and
reboot or change my router out, but could not disconnect or modify my
neighbors connection.
And then there's the matter of who's paying for it. Even if initial cost is covered by the home owners in a new development project, there is maintenance costs associated with such a setup. If the ILEC is responsible, but doesn't subsidize costs by controlling all customers or billing out to the other ISPs, it creates an unfair disadvantage on the ILEC.
Jack
Once upon a time, Peter Beckman <beckman@angryox.com> said:
And where does that fiber go to? Home runs from a central point in the
development, so any provider can hook up to any house at the street?
Deregulation means those lines should be accessible to any company for a
fee. How do you give House A Verizon and House B Cox, especially if Cox
doesn't support fiber?
I have two cable TV providers available at my house. They each have
their own cable plant in my neighborhood; there are two runs in each
easment, two sets of pylons for access (although they mostly alternate
yards, so they aren't digging at the same place when burying new wires).
If you switch from one to the other, the new one runs a new wire from
their nearest tap and sends somebody else around in a few weeks to
"bury" (under maybe 2" of dirt) the wire.
On my block, the cable lines are at the back edge of the yard, running
between the houses (down the middle of the block), while the phone
company wires run along the easment at the front edge of the yard with
the utility (power/water/sewer) lines. Not sure why it was done that
way, except maybe to keep the cable guys from digging up important stuff
on a regular basis (since people switch cable a lot).
However, I've seen pictures of the old power lines in New York City and
such, when there were a dozen or more power companies. I sure wouldn't
want to see anything like that again.
IMHO, we'd be better off with a public utility that manages nothing but
the cable plant, running one set of wires (a few copper pairs, a coax or
two, and a couple of fiber pairs) to each house, and then selling equal
access to all takers (ILEC, CLEC, cable TV, direct to ISPs, etc.). The
utility would be banned from selling any kind of service themselves, and
would be a non-profit; they'd charge everybody the same fees for access
to the same type of cable and they'd maintain the plant and colo
facilities.
Since the features/function/success of the service is so intimately tied to
the control/maintenance of that last mile/alley/drop, how do the takers make
sure they get what they need? Or that it uses the technology they want?
It's an attractive idea from the surface, but one that erodes competitive
differentiation.
Frank