[173289] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Muni Fiber and Politics
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Owen DeLong)
Mon Jul 21 18:39:42 2014
X-Original-To: nanog@nanog.org
From: Owen DeLong <owen@delong.com>
In-Reply-To: <CAMfXtQztXAQeKav9fT10T2F3MYCC5fCRp-hB=Cc=MDrecawk+Q@mail.gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 21 Jul 2014 15:31:13 -0700
To: Gary Buhrmaster <gary.buhrmaster@gmail.com>
Cc: NANOG <nanog@nanog.org>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces@nanog.org
On Jul 21, 2014, at 14:41 , Gary Buhrmaster <gary.buhrmaster@gmail.com> =
wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 21, 2014 at 8:34 PM, Owen DeLong <owen@delong.com> wrote:
> .....
>> 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.
>=20
> I take it that on principal you would have petitioned against the
> proposed Google Fiber roll-out in the San Jose area and would
> have spoken out against it at the public hearing on June 17th
> in favor of an alternative municipal funded project if you were not
> otherwise engaged (the synopsis indicates no public comments
> from the floor from that meeting)? You may have missed an
> opportunity to be the one to stop Google Fiber in San Jose in
> preference to muni fiber, although there is never just one meeting
> for such large scale projects. I am sure you will have other
> chances to offer your opinion, and encourage the council to
> just say no.
Nope... I would strongly support it.
Why?
Because until we have regulation that does what I am proposing, we have =
ridiculous monopolies with all kinds of negative consumer impact. While =
Google as a new monopoly wouldn't be the ideal competitive environment, =
it would, at least, be better than what we have today.
While I believe, on principle that we need to move forward towards what =
I described above, I also recognize the reality on the ground and the =
need not to cut off one's nose to spite one's face.
Owen
