[173264] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Muni Fiber and Politics
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Owen DeLong)
Mon Jul 21 16:54:30 2014
X-Original-To: nanog@nanog.org
From: Owen DeLong <owen@delong.com>
In-Reply-To: <CAP-guGWjUeX8oVaRFbGY2ycNZy7kHyMHtX=YHBznbM3pT-pDAQ@mail.gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 21 Jul 2014 13:34:58 -0700
To: William Herrin <bill@herrin.us>
Cc: NANOG <nanog@nanog.org>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces@nanog.org
On Jul 21, 2014, at 11:38 , 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
>=20
> Hi Jay,
>=20
> 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.
Actually, in all of the places that have Muni fiber, things seem to be =
much
better for consumers than where it does not exist. Of the people I've =
talked
to (admittedly not a statistically valid sample), I've heard no reports =
of slow
installations, problematic situations, or bad service anywhere near the =
levels
offered by the various commercial broadband providers.
> 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.
Whoever installs fiber first and gets any significant fraction of =
subscribers in any
but the densest of population centers is a competition killer, _IF_ you =
let them
parlay that physical infrastructure into an anti-competitive environment =
for higher
layer services.
OTOH, if we prohibit layer one facilities based operators from being =
service
providers, you create an environment well suited to rich competition for =
the
higher layer services while providing an opportunity for higher-layer =
service
operators to increase accountability among the physical facilities =
operator.
I'm not saying we grant legal monopolies to layer one providers or =
mandate
that they be run by municipalities. I am saying that we should not =
prohibit
municipalities from operating fiber systems, but, instead, we should =
prohibit
anyone installing new facilities from also selling services over those =
facilities.
Instead, facilities operators should be required to lease those physical =
plant
elements to any service providers on an equal footing on a =
first-come-first
serve basis.
If a layer one provider does a bad enough job, the service providers can =
create
demand for an alternative layer one provider much more easily than =
consumers.
> 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
Yes... This is absolutely the right answer, but they should only be able =
to provide
physical link, not higher layer services.
> 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.
I will point out that in my experience, private roads do not tend to be =
as well
maintained overall as public roads with some notable exceptions in very =
wealthy
gated communities.
Owen
