 ronpinImagine Reality
join:2002-12-06
Nirvana | Urgent-Broadband "CoGeneration" Policy Needed An urgent problem in FTTH broadband buildout is emerging as ILECs and CLECs generally ignore public and private broadband infrastructures -- where they've been constructed.
Cities like Palo Alto, Grant County, Cheny WA and others are finding that despite their heroic effort to build wholesale, open access, fiber optic networks for their citizens -- retail service providers (ILECs, CLECs,CableCo's) are largely unwilling to offer their services on the new, superior, networks. The service providers are unmoved by cheap fiber and reluctant to commit to even the cost of relatively cheap [per port] optical switchgear in what is viewed as a limited or spotty market in limited FTTH communities. One exception is local ISPs who do seem interested in providing service on new wholesale FTTH networks. Sacramento's SureWest is a notable exception as well.
A situation now exists wherein some municipalities and private enterprise have actually found ways to meet the critical need for wholesale broadband infrastructure in a Market with a clear demand and opportunity. Yet current ILECs and CLECs are unwilling to take advantage of the opportunity for its lack of critical-mass. ILECs and CLECs deal-in citywide rollouts -- FTTH deals-in neighborhood rollouts. Can our government serve a role in helping to resolve this stalemate in a fair and even handed manner? A precedent does exist.
The Energy Crisis of the 1970's faced a similar snafu. A clarion call for clean renewable energy sources went out from Government at all levels. Ingenious ways to deliver wind, solar and bio-mass electricity were soon developed. However, large electric companies were unmotivated to buy relatively small amounts of electricity from private producers. Sure, the environment might be incrementally improved -- but whats was in it for them and especially their shareholders?
So Congress passed a brilliant set of laws requiring and rewarding electric utilities to purchase electricity from more efficient "cogeneration" plants. This immediately guaranteed the viability of such ventures and an entire cogeneration industry followed -- even to this day.
We can and must do the same thing for the nascent FTTH infrastructure industry. To compensate for obvious ILEC and CLEC regulatory disincentives, citizens have now found efficient ways to resolve the primary FTTH infrastructure problem through municipal and entrepreneurial ventures. Now we desperately need a way to encourage and reward service providers to use that infrastructure so that the infrastructure buildout can become a viable, sustainable business unto itself. Thus the bright promise that we all share for broadband can become a reality -- in our lifetime.
Can you help get this policy proposal added to the FCC's forthcoming broadband agenda?
(here is random example of ongoing electric cogeneration legislation at the state level
»www.retailenergy.com/statelin/0102olsn.htm ) |
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 tschmidtPremium,MVM
join:2000-11-12
Milford, NH
kudos:5
 ·Fairpoint Commun..
 ·Hollis Hosting
| I don't understand how electricity cogeneration precedent applies to municipal high-speed networks? In the case of small electricity producers the problem was how to connect them to customers. The government required utilities to allow them to connect to the power grid and prior to electric deregulation set prices for the power the produced.
Your post indicates even though high-speed plumbing exists but they are unable to find companies that want to act as ISPs. I was unaware of that problem, could you post some links. As someone not intimately involved in this area I assumed the problems was one of lack of facilities and that once they exist so would interest in using them.
In the case you state the municipality owns the scarce resource. I can envision regulations that compel them to allow nondiscriminatory access but I don't see how one can compel companies to use infrastructure installed by the municipality.
The promise of municipal high-speed networks is the ability to bypass the stranglehold of legacy carriers on first-mile access to allow more nimble players to enter the market. The Telcos and Cablecos ignore this opportunity at their peril but I do not see any reason to compel them to use it. |
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ronpinImagine Reality
join:2002-12-06
Nirvana | said by tschmidt:
I don't understand how electricity cogeneration precedent applies to municipal high-speed networks? In the case of small electricity producers the problem was how to connect them to customers. The government required utilities to allow them to connect to the power grid and prior to electric deregulation set prices for the power the produced.
Work with me. In this analogy the customers have built a [FTTH] "grid" which has only minimal [local ISP] "juice". We want to motivate the [ILEC CLEC] real "power" producers to help fully power-up the grid and thus help make the private "grid" building business viable (since the 'LEC power producers won't build the new [FTTH] "grids" )
said by tschmidt:
Your post indicates even though high-speed plumbing exists but they are unable to find companies that want to act as ISPs. I was unaware of that problem, could you post some links. As someone not intimately involved in this area I assumed the problems was one of lack of facilities and that once they exist so would interest in using them.
I first noticed it last year while following the Palo Alto trial. They couldn't get ILEC or CLEC phone or cable service on their fiber. Lets allow some of our FTTH users to jump in here to verify the same problem. Local ISPs do seem to be interested -- but they can hardly replace the ILECs and Cable Co's -- on average. SureWest of course is actually a CLEC, vertically integrated company. We need more of 'em to do FTTH the way they've done it.
said by tschmidt:
In the case you state the municipality owns the scarce resource. I can envision regulations that compel them to allow nondiscriminatory access but I don't see how one can compel companies to use infrastructure installed by the municipality.
I'm a moderate who disdains the thought of Government fiat. We can "encourage" and "incent" ILECs and CLECs to service us in the manner we wish. Lets make sure its lucrative for them to do so.
said by tschmidt:
The promise of municipal high-speed networks is the ability to bypass the stranglehold of legacy carriers on first-mile access to allow more nimble players to enter the market. The Telcos and Cablecos ignore this opportunity at their peril but I do not see any reason to compel them to use it.
We are stuck in a rut. The nimble players lack the capital (I should know) and the Government correctly wants the private sector to solve the FTTH problem -- while the People lanquish for want of true broadband. Market forces are often not up to a total paradigm shift -- it needs some help and its not unprecedented to use Government -- wisely.
No reason to disallow anyone access to the fiber -- especially those that can put it to work for us now |
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| I want it NOW, too. But not at the expense of giving the RBOC's a monopoly position. Which they will surely have where they are first to market.
The real problem is that they will withhold bandwidth in order to insure their circuit switching cash cow.
Please read "The End of the Middle" for more insight. |
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ronpinImagine Reality
join:2002-12-06
Nirvana | reply to ronpin
At last I'm forced to address my initial misgivings about Isenberg.
Its not that he is wrong about anything -- its just that he fails to appreciate the reality of evolution vs. revolution. In my initial transition into the FTTH problem, some 6 years ago, it was clear that 100 Mbs data service would supercede all known or currently anticipated consumer media communication needs. Great -- lets just build a super-duper fiber network and tell the ILECs, CLECs and CableCo's "Thanks for the memories!". End of story (thats what I hear Isenberg touting).
Then I noticed various FTTH hardware vendors supporting legacy services (i.e. POTs, CATV) so I thought I'd better see why they spent their millions in capital the way they did. Without too much effort it became clear that the vast majority of us (i.e. the market-base) are ill prepared for a culture shock of the magnitude that VOIP and PC-Video will ultimately bring to us (you and I are not typical users).
There is little question that businesses have billions and billions of dollars directly tied to current ILEC technology. They couldn't totally switch over to pure VOIP tomorrow--even if it was free! Lets not forget that over 90% of the Internet backbone is tied into ILEC facilities. It may already be an intractable situation to totally dump the ILECs.
I wish we could just dump the old ILEC and CATV systems -- but we can't - we must nurture a smooth transition to a pure IP world. In the meantime we can encourage the ILECs to actually use our new wholesale open access FTTH networks. That will help encourage new FTTH builds and lay the groundwork for the ultimate "IP revolution" (even if the ILECs still remain as backbone carriers). |
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| I can't speak for Mr. Isenberg, but my communications with him lead me to believe that he's not in the "jump to the future" camp. I do believe he is a realist in his view of how the RBOC's will handle themselves if/when they get monopolistic control over their data lines.
Within his communications with one Kansas Senator this week, Mr. Isenberg responded: "In fact, fiber to the home (FTTH) is much, much more powerful than DSL. With today's technology, FTTH, at about the same cost per home as DSL, is about 100 times more powerful. In 2-3 years it will be 1000 times more powerful at the same price. This service, known as Gigabit Ethernet, will provide each home the capacity of a telephone office for a city of 100,000 people -- I repeat, for about the price of DSL.
If the telephone companies let this happen, they'll be dead. People will be their own telephone company. So the ILECs are desperately trying to keep people's attention focused on DSL.
If the ILEC is telling you that it needs fiber to provide DSL, it might be correct in a technical sense, but fiber can do much, much more, and the telephone company 'should' make all this additional power available to its customers. But it won't because it will kill itself. (meaning switched circuit technology)tz
This is the main reason that another entity must own and control the fiber. Then, if people really want DSL and not direct fiber service, the ILEC (along with the Cable TV guys, the mobile/cellular guys and the Internet service providers) can buy the fiber they need from this new entity."
But your are right Ronpin, the transition won't happen overnight and I surely don't want the RBOC's to have legislation that protects them with a FTTx buildout. That will certainly remove incentive for anything that resembles duplication.
We are in the same position as when Western Union was approached to buildout voice communication wires. They declined because it would kill their bits/per/second (data) incumbent technology. If they had gone to the RBOC school, they would have approached Congress and bought monopolistic legislation for the plan, drug their feet in construction, filed tons of paper with every judicial/legislative space that would hear it, bought countless dinners and drinks and when Bells patents expired: BING0! switched to voice traffic.
Who in their right mind would have challenged Western Union?
Thanks for the dialogue.
Respectfully,
TZ
P.S. Is anyone else having trouble with this server? |
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ronpinImagine Reality
join:2002-12-06
Nirvana | reply to ronpin
Yes -- good dialog and yes this server has been brutalized (I guess)
You and Isenberg have got me wavering back to at least considering that maybe pure IP is being forced on us now. If the big boys won't play-ball with their legacy systems, as far as a smooth transition to IP goes, then they're daring us to strike out on a bold venture - culture shock and all.
I'll be chewing on that for a while. |
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 macyhEx-IspPremium,MVM
join:2001-04-24
Medina, OH
 ·Armstrong Zoom ..
| reply to ronpin
It's very simple, really.
Most all cable and telco providers are built on the simple model of limited access to services. In other words, in their business model a consumer can only buy from the few companies who own the cables running down the street. Limited competion means they don't have to focus on quality of product or price, they just have to "pass your door" with their cables to have a 50/50 chance of getting your business.
These utilities simply are not prepared to deal with open competition. They do quite well with their present business model. ISP, on the other hand, have learned to compete for business based on marketing, support, price and customer satisfaction, not exclusion of other providers.
A few CLEC's and cable co's are smart enough to separate the ownership of plant from competing for business, but it's rare.
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Macy Hallock APK Net, Inc. Cleveland, Ohio
"640K ought to be enough for anybody." - Bill Gates (1955-Present) in 1981 |
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