[173341] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Muni Fiber and Politics - ENDGAME
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jay Ashworth)
Tue Jul 22 12:30:05 2014
X-Original-To: nanog@nanog.org
Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2014 12:29:51 -0400 (EDT)
From: Jay Ashworth <jra@baylink.com>
To: NANOG <nanog@nanog.org>
In-Reply-To: <53CE82D4.6080803@wholesaleinternet.net>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces@nanog.org
----- Original Message -----
> From: "Aaron" <aaron@wholesaleinternet.net>
> So let me throw out a purely hypothetical scenario to the collective:
>
> What do you think the consequences to a municipality would be if they
> laid fiber to every house in the city and gave away internet access for
> free? Not the WiFi builds we have today but FTTH at gigabit speeds for
> free?
>
> Do you think the LECs would come unglued?
Of course they would.
But the real problem is *this shit's expensive*.
You can assume $8-1200 per passing, if you fiber the entire town at once
(my example was 12000 passings, 3-pr, in 2.3 sqmi). Then you're going to
have to operate the core, which will take power and at least 5 people to
man it 24/7. And finally, figure on at least 4-6 multi-10GE uplinks,
and those things don't exactly grow on trees -- there's no sense in
providing 1G/1G if people can't actually use it.
So there's a bunch of sunk cost, and a bigger bunch of recurring costs.
And where's that money come from? Yup: local taxes, mostly property.
So you're charging everyone anyway; TANSTAAFL.
Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth Baylink jra@baylink.com
Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates http://www.bcp38.info 2000 Land Rover DII
St Petersburg FL USA BCP38: Ask For It By Name! +1 727 647 1274
