[160150] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Muni fiber: L1 or L2?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Dan Armstrong)
Thu Jan 31 21:28:30 2013
X-beanfield-mta01-MailScanner-From: dan@beanfield.com
From: Dan Armstrong <dan@beanfield.com>
In-Reply-To: <EA31053B-6878-4A4C-8F27-310B0BDD21B6@delong.com>
Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2013 21:28:13 -0500
To: Owen DeLong <owen@delong.com>
Cc: NANOG <nanog@nanog.org>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
Sorry for jumping into this discussion so late=85. and I apologize if =
this has already been talked about (this has been a long thread)
But the most successful municipal undertaking to support telecom I have =
ever seen is a municipally owned conduit system=85. Any infrastructure =
L1, L2, or anything is too complex to be commercially viable if owned by =
one entity. =20
Putting everybody on a level playing field removes the value from =
everybody, and therefore removes the commercial interest to DO anything, =
so nothing happens.
Unless somebody is able to build a product that everybody can't just =
have without any obstacles, nobody is going to do anything, and we end =
up with nothing.
A city owned conduit system is the best balance between fairness for the =
consumer, and supporting a competitive environment for service providers =
to offer something John Q public can't get on his own.
On 2013-01-31, at 9:10 PM, Owen DeLong <owen@delong.com> wrote:
>=20
> On Jan 31, 2013, at 5:08 PM, Ray Soucy <rps@maine.edu> wrote:
>=20
>>> 1. Must sell dark fiber to any purchaser.
>>> 2. Must sell dark fiber to all purchasers on equal terms.
>>> (There must be a published price list and there cannot be =
deviations
>>> from that price list. If the price list is modified, existing =
customers
>>> receive the new pricing at the beginning of their next billing =
cycle.)
>>> 3. May provide value-added L2 services
>>> 4. If L2 services are provided, they are also subject to rule =
2.
>>> 5. May not sell L3 or higher level services.
>>> 6. May not hold ownership or build any form of alliance or =
affiliation with
>>> a provider of L3 or higher level services.
>>=20
>> I think rule #3 is the kind of thing that sounds like a good idea, =
but
>> ends up being abused in practice.
>>=20
>=20
> Certainly without rule 4, yes. However, with rules 4,5,6, I think that
> overcomes most of the issues that result from rule 3.
>=20
> If you don't have rule 3, there are a lot of areas where it simply =
won't
> be cost effective for ANYONE to come to the MMR and thus you don't get
> any benefit.
>=20
>> My personal view is that you really want that separation in place.
>> You don't want a situation where the dark fiber provider gives
>> priority to their L2 outages and get's around to their competitors
>> later.
>>=20
>=20
> Ideally, I agree with you, but to cover all cases, you also have to =
make
> sure that you have some set of L2 providers before you can do that.
>=20
> Further, I'm suggesting that the natural place for this in most cases
> is to be operated by the muni not a business.
>=20
>> Businesses are in the business of profit. Nothing wrong with that,
>> but if you want it to be a fair playing field you need to avoid this
>> kind of conflict of interest.
>=20
> Agreed.
>=20
>> We've seen the same behavior with ILECs and small ISPs. They were
>> required to open up their network to competing ISPs, but did
>> everything they could to make it as difficult as possible. You =
really
>> want to create a situation where that temptation isn't even there.
>=20
> Except this kind of chicanery has always involved L3+ services in the =
past.
>=20
>> We've also seen that when left up to the private sector even =
last-mile
>> solutions suffer from the same cherry-picking of "profitable"
>> locations to service: example would be an apartment complex having
>> fiber delivered vs. a house next door not having fiber delivered. =
You
>> can't really blame the private sector for it, but if you want the =
idea
>> of FTTH to be a universal service, you really need to apply the =
public
>> utility model to it.
>=20
> Yep.
>=20
> Owen
>=20
>=20
