Test Selling "Last Mile" Fiber to Homeowners Under Way in Canada

Ars Technica is covering an interesting pilot program taking place in Ottawa, CA. 400 homes are being outfitted with fiber optic cables; however, the "last mile" of fiber is going to be sold outright to the homeowners rather than providing internet at a monthly fee. "In the future, it could become commonplace for homes to come with 'tails.' These customer-owned, fiber-optic connections would link them to a network peering point. Without the expense of rolling out last mile infrastructure to every home, many more ISPs could afford to serve a given neighborhood by running wiring to the peering point, leading to more competition and lower prices. Perhaps best of all, the growth of customer-owned fiber could make debates over 'open access' and network neutrality moot, as robust telecom competition should prevent the worst of the monopolistic behavior exhibited by telco and cable incumbents."

Comments

won't prevent anything

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember back in the day a wealthy friend of mine had a line to his house that he had actually paid for, a quarter T I believe it was -- he was still liable for all full payments (even more), and susceptible to shutoffs at a whim.

Re:won't prevent anything

[MickLinux]

Yes -- I can think of how this works at the hospital (well, you pay the hospital megabucks for being there--the same money you'd have paid for the full service; but you still find you're liable to the doctor's union, and to the radiologist, and the pharmacologist, and the pharmacist, and the food service provider, and the company that provides the little packets of salt...)

Or I can think of how this works on Windoze machines that are sold without windoze (well, you have to pay them to not install it...)

It seems to me that the idea of selling the last mile of cable is simply a way of offloading costs (servicing the last mile of cable becomes YOUR problem, when you're neighbor's installer cuts your cable) while charging the homeowner a profit at the same time. Nor do I think that prices will be lower.

I'd call it dividing up the bill and double charging.

But maybe I'm wrong. This is Canada we're talking about, not the good ol' US of A. Us USAians are good at taking a good idea and driving it for such profit that we break the camel's back. Canada has followed us in that in some respects, but not nearly as badly.

Re:won't prevent anything

[statemachine]

susceptible to shutoffs at a whim

Your friend had a fractional T1 and didn't have an SLA?

Re:won't prevent anything

[Burz]

I won't prevent anything *until* residents start linking their 'tails' together to form local area networks of their own. Maybe from there, they can link those LANs up to satellites, microwave links of a combination of alternatives.

Re:won't prevent anything

[Curtman]

I can think of how this works at the hospital (well, you pay the hospital megabucks for being there--the same money you'd have paid for the full service; but you still find you're liable to the doctor's union, and to the radiologist, and the pharmacologist, and the pharmacist, and the food service provider, and the company that provides the little packets of salt...)

Hospital visits are free here as well.

What's so good about the good ol' US of A again?

I would be willing to do this

[mrycar]

Sure hope that this can become an option in the U.S. A couple days of using the backhoe to dig the ditch would pay for itself.

Re:I would be willing to do this

[h4rr4r]

You use a ditchwitch to cut a trench, not a backhoe. It only needs to be a few inches wide. Right tool for the right job.

Re:I would be willing to do this

[lilomar]

Backhoes are more fun!

Re:I would be willing to do this

[Relic of the Future]

It is. Since http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.12/view.html?pg=5">four and a half years ago.

Re:I would be willing to do this

[Anonymous Coward]

Hoes is always more fun on they backs... DIG THAT SHIT!

Re:I would be willing to do this

[mrycar]

I own a backhoe, not a ditchwitch, otherwise would use it.

Re:I would be willing to do this

[nawcom]

You own a blackhoe? classic pimp wannabe.

Re:I would be willing to do this

[symbolset]

Maybe a bunch of us in my neighborhood could get together and arrange something like this. We could string fiber to all of the homes in an area, like on poles or something... Maybe, since we're putting up poles we could get electricity to the homes as well.

We need a name for something like this that expresses the general usefulness of it for all the customers in the area. I know... let's call it a "public utility district."

Now how to pay for it... since it affects everybody, maybe some sort of property tax.

Re:I would be willing to do this

[smoker2]

Can a ditchwitch fill the trench back in too ?

Re:I would be willing to do this

[Gilmoure]

Ya'll live in the Tennessee Valley area?

Re:I would be willing to do this

[symbolset]

You have to have sigs turned on in order for this joke to work. Here, I'll help:

A public utility district is authorized to provide telecommunications services. - WA SB 6102 2007

Re:I would be willing to do this

[ristonj]

Which ditch did the ditchwitch witch if the ditchwitch did witch ditch?

Re:I would be willing to do this

[Quicksilver_Johny]

Or even a working link.

That doesn't appear to be exactly the same, but similar and interesting, and the article makes some good points.

Re:I would be willing to do this

[The FNP]

The ditch that the ditchwitch would witch if the ditchwitch did witch ditch.

I'm waiting for my +2 Offtopic.

--The FNP

Re:I would be willing to do this

[rossz]

I prefer using high explosives. It does a shitty job, but it's a whole lot more fun.

Re:I would be willing to do this

[mpoulton]

You use a ditchwitch to cut a trench, not a backhoe. It only needs to be a few inches wide. Right tool for the right job.

Usually not. Most communications trenches are 18 to 24 inches wide. Why? Because the cable is pulled in 3" or 4" conduits, which must be laid on a bed of compacted gravel (called "shading"), covered with more shade, and then backfilled. This requires working space in the trench. Usually multiple conduits are laid too, and telecom is often co-trenched with other utilities below it. A narrow bucket on a backhoe is the tool of choice. I have never seen a ditchwitch used to install pipe for telecom. Ditchwitches are the tool of choice for small irrigation pipe, small buried electrical feeders, and other really light duty applications. Yes, IAACC (commercial contractor).

Re:I would be willing to do this

[mpoulton]

Can a ditchwitch fill the trench back in too ?

Automatically. You can either run it to cut a narrow trench and deposit the dirt off to the side, or you can run it to automatically cut the trench, lay in pipe or wire from a spool, and drop the dirt back on top. It then requires only a little watering and compaction and you are done. Fast and easy.

Re:I would be willing to do this

[mnslinky]

Ditch Witch is a brand-name. If you're burying inter-duct or a single line, the blade to slice is sufficient. If you're burying multiple lines, you dig one trench - with a back-hoe - and bury them together. This is called a multi-service dig. In new home developments, power, CATV, and telephone providers will often dig one larger hole to bury everything at once. :\

Re:I would be willing to do this

[ksd1337]

Pfft. Back in my day, we had to use shovels. 'Course, this being Slashdot, mentioning the words "manual labor" will probably get me a big fat "-1, Troll".

Re:I would be willing to do this

[Kristoph]

In fact my new house is in a community (in WA) where, during the plan of the subdivision, they mandated fiber to every home.

The service provider is owned by the local council. They provide 24x7 support. All hardware, including the hookup and the fiber router is free.

The only drawback is that every home owner - even those who do not use the service - have to pay the minimum fee, which is $42 per month for 6MB symmetrical / 20MB symmetrical is an extra $50.

I think this service has been around for about 5 years.

]{

Re:I would be willing to do this

[Sentry21]

You know what they say... when all you have is a backhoe, everything looks like a quarry.

Re:I would be willing to do this

[Oktober Sunset]

I've never heard of a ditchwitch before, so I just googled for a picture of one, and I have to ask the question: Why on has no one thought to have the hero drive one of these things in a zombie film?

Re:I would be willing to do this

[oldspewey]

You know what they say ... once you've had a backhoe, you never go back yo.

Re:I would be willing to do this

[Phybertekie]

Gotta love the ditchwitch. After working at Verizon on the Fios project, they should have called it the sprinklercide. Lots of calls from Florida began with "I had Fios installed and my sprinkler/sewage pipe leaked all over the place."

Re:I would be willing to do this

[hampton]

You know what they say ... once you've had a backhoe, you never go back yo.

They really need something beyond +5, Funny for comments like this when you actually laugh out loud.

Re:I would be willing to do this

[Anonymous Coward]

Your UID is too high for you to have ever experienced anything vaguely resembling manual labor.

Re:I would be willing to do this

[SpiderClan]

Because as we all know, everyone joins Slashdot at the same age.

Re:I would be willing to do this

[0100010001010011]

Excavators would still be a better tool than a backhoe, unless it was a medium job. The track type don't have to put down the stabilizers like on a backhoe (or wheeled excavator). I've seen a professional dig a trench in almost no time.

Yes, IAAEFABYC. (I am an engineer for a big yellow company)

Re:I would be willing to do this

[Anonymous Coward]

Check out 30 Days of Night. I think you'll find that the giant chainsaw blade of the ditchwitch mounted on the front end of a tractor makes an appearance. Granted it's vampyres not zombies...

Re:I would be willing to do this

[lucifuge31337]

No, but your foot can. You aren't digging that deep or that wide. A backhoe would be overkill.

Re:I would be willing to do this

[Anonymous Coward]

No, but with "1337" in his username and "computerkid" in his email, it's a pretty safe bet that his UID is indicative of his age as well.

Re:I would be willing to do this

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't backhoe me bro!

Re:I would be willing to do this

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry bub, ditch witch is the tool of choice for last mile fiber. Watched two crews in the past two weeks use a ditch witch. A 6 or 12 count fiber works fine in 2" inner duct. They trenched and laid the inner duct. Buried it with NO shading. Then blew the fiber through. A lot quicker and more cost effective than your method for the last mile fiber.

Re:I would be willing to do this

[Anonymous Coward]

We need a name for something like this that expresses the general usefulness of it for all the customers in the area. I know... let's call it a "public utility district."

I believe the generally accepted name for this type of infrastructure is a "shanty-town".

Looking forward to this...

[PC and Sony Fanboy]

This will be great... so much better than being at the whims of our ISPs (which are going the way of AT&T and comcast - changing policies and restricting access because they can).

I do shudder at paying for repairs to 'my' section of fibre optics - I mean, what happens when they get cut because someone is out digging in the yard? It is pretty hard to get other people to pay for their mistakes... especially if they're expensive!

But, I certainly could go for a community network, even if it was partly independant of the internet - it would make p2p much faster, and more difficulty to monitor.

Re:Looking forward to this...

[Relic of the Future]

"what happens when they get cut because someone is out digging in the yard?"

The same thing that happens if you're out digging in the yard and the part of the water line that you're responsible for gets broken?

Re:Looking forward to this...

[gad_zuki!]

Why not buy insurance for backhoe incidents? Hell, you can add it to your home owners insurance.

Personally, I dont think this is at all feasible. The labor of laying down that one line could be better spent laying down 20 lines at the same time and getting everyone on your block. I could see block co-ops working hand-in-hand with local telcos, but I wouldnt hold my breath. At this point you might as well go whole hog and do municipal fiber broadband.

Re:Looking forward to this...

[Anonymous Coward]

The utility owns everything up to the service meter. So if you break it before your section, you owe them money.

Re:Looking forward to this...

[SilverJets]

Well unless I am missing something entirely here or having a brain fart (it is Friday afternoon and all) you would still be at the whim of some type of ISP. I mean the fiber goes back and connects to someone's network somewhere, right? And someone somewhere has to give you an IP address.

My concern would be paying $3000 for this and then the company providing actual access to the rest of the internet going under. So where do I get my refund? Or am I stuck with a "dark" fiber cable in my yard that connects nowhere?

Re:Looking forward to this...

[Anonymous Coward]

Their idea is that somewhere in the neighborhood will be some sort of hutch that basically consists of a bunch of patch panels. On one side are the ends of every fiber in the neighborhood. On the other, places for ISPs to bring their lines in. Then, you just patch from your house to the ISP of your choice.

Personally, I suspect that the ISPs will boycott it. All of the major consumer ISPs will declare that it "doesn't fit in their business plan", and most of the minor ones don't have the capability to feed that sort of connection. That leaves the homeowners with caving in and buying DSL or Cable over the traditional wire, or banding together to shell out the big bucks to get something like an OC-3 line installed, and everyone just using that without getting to choose carriers.

Re:Looking forward to this...

[Renraku]

Well..

Repairing fiber is very, very expensive. They'll have to come up with an easy way of replacing the fiber if it gets damaged, or most people won't want to pay thousands to replace it when they break it. Replacing fiber is quite a bit cheaper, the hardest part is just getting the fiber into its armor and running the armored cable. Since we're not talking about OC48-grade connections, one or two strands in a thin shell would suffice.

Re:Looking forward to this...

[jd]

The "easiest" solution would be to run a bunch of fibres to some "neutral" point on each block. Although this uses multiple cables, with one cable per end-point in the junction box, it's the same distribution mechanism that cable currently uses. (You see cable junction boxes on some telephone poles, but also as small green pedestals in front of houses and as junction boxes on the sides of apartment buildings.) The "last mile" becomes the "last few feet", with the cable relatively easy (and therefore relatively cheap) to reach and replace.

If you wanted to do municipal/metropolitan broadband, you'd have 32 fibres run to each block, then a 256-way multicast-capable, MPLS-capable router linking four blocks together. (MPLS, or some other virtual circuit protocol, would then uniquely tag a user's stream, so it can be identified further along.) This would be linked to a switch, in the case of larger cities, which would link up a fairly large set of these 4-blocks into a well-defined subset of the city. You'd then have a set of top level multicast-capable MPLS-capable routers that linked the layer below it onto the public Internet, possibly through multiple gateways. Residents would then "buy" Internet access from the providers as always, but this would only require adjusting a QoS table entry in one top-level router that identified how much bandwidth a given virtual circuit had on the public Internet and which gateway that connection would use.

For intra-city connections - say, IMing a friend in the next building - you would only go over the metronet, and your connection could sensibly be whatever speed the local fibre could handle - call it a gigabit per second - provided the upstream networks weren't saturated, as you're working over shared pipes some of the way. Saturation can be avoided by placing routers and switches in parallel. You could load-balance between them, or you could have them working wholly in parallel and have very high-speed switches linking the independent metronets together into a collective metronet. In either case, it makes no difference which router a packet comes in on or goes out on, even if the routers are not on the same "tree" per-se.

If you don't have limited funds, then saturation is inevitable at some point. To minimize the overall impact, routers should be enabled with CBQ or HFSC, such that each virtual circuit has a guaranteed bandwidth (something it can always reach, no matter how busy the network) and a hard maximum bandwidth of whatever the local few meters connection can support, where the guaranteed bandwidth is either an equal fraction of the network at that segment or the hard maximum, whichever is less.

Could this be done? Yes. It's not anti-competitive, as ISPs still end up selling bandwidth to customers the way they have always done. The metronet doesn't replace the ISPs, it replaces the need for excessive physical wiring and it allows ISPs that provide broadband to do so without buying/maintaining quite so many expensive DSL modems, so it cuts the ISP's costs.

Is such a model in use? Yes. It's how natural gas and electricity are sold already. It's how DSL works, for the most part, as DSL companies all share the same phone lines. The difference is the line supplier, not the principle.

Re:Looking forward to this...

[failedlogic]

You can fix it for rather cheap. Call up the local FBI office or if you want an upgrade the This Agency Does Not Exist. Tell them you need it repaired. It will be. And you'll receive additional "upgrades" at no extra cost!

Re:Looking forward to this...

[monxrtr]

I do shudder at paying for repairs to 'my' section of fibre optics - I mean, what happens when they get cut because someone is out digging in the yard?

That's covered by the contracting ISP that's servicing the line in their monthly rates, just as it currently is covered by the monopoly contracting ISP. Multiple companies compete to provide the service, the winner gets the privilege.

Re:Looking forward to this...

[Anonymous Coward]

It wouldn't just be sitting there in the ground. You would run it in PVC. PVC is pretty tough stuff. You'd have to hit it pretty hard to do any serious damage to it. Also, the price of fiber has gone down a lot in the past couple of years.

Re:Looking forward to this...

[Anonymous Coward]

not the price of cable - the price of labour to repair it. And pvc isn't that tough. Maybe if you're in highschool and think that gr 11 algebra is tough, then PVC would be tough. but it isn't.

Re:Looking forward to this...

[Anonymous Coward]

the This Agency Does Not Exist

Perhaps you mean "No Such Agency"?

Re:Looking forward to this...

[im_thatoneguy]

Ha! When you said "going the way of AT&T" I thought you meant that most people were going to abandon their home Internet connection in lieu of wireless Internet like they have done for home phones.

And I would have agreed with you too.

Re:Looking forward to this...

[Anonymous Coward]

You should change your nick to "failedIQtest".

$2700 is a lot of money, sorry folks.

[garcia]

Paying $2700 for a fiber connection may seem like a lot, but plenty of people spend more than that on other high-tech gadgets. High-end gaming machines and laptops still cost more than $2700. And, Wu notes, a fiber connection will probably sell with the house; a couple thousand dollars is a pittance compared with the amounts many customers pay for remodeled kitchens and bathrooms, new windows, and the like.

I have fiber running less than 100 feet from my house. Why the fuck can't I just access that? I realize that they are talking about Ottawa Canada here, but why can't someone just ask me if I want to pay money to tap into the cables that are so close to me? While I don't believe $2700 is at all reasonable for what they are asking (especially in the United States) and I couldn't tell you more than a handful of people that would even know what Fiber to your door means let alone have it be a selling point, I still want someone to come to me and say, "hey, you can use that McLeod fiber that is right there -- today -- enjoy."

Ah, my dreams.

Re:$2700 is a lot of money, sorry folks.

[Anonymous Coward]

It will cost you close to a grand just to dig the trench.

When I needed my main water line replaced (about 10 years ago), the cost breakdown was:

$400 for the plumbing and the labor
$400 to pay for a ditchwitch for a day
$400 for the guy operating the ditchwitch

Re:$2700 is a lot of money, sorry folks.

[bockelboy]

Doesn't always work like that.

My university is about 2 miles from the fiber backbone which connects Denver to Chicago. I believe it's the primary line from the East Coast to West Coast. Tons and tons of capacity.

However, after doing a cost analysis, the university bought IRUs on fiber to a peering point about 150 miles south of us solely because the cost of tapping in to the nearby fiber would have been insane. In fact, that was the last option - it would have been cheaper to buy fiber from here to Chicago, 500 miles away.

Re:$2700 is a lot of money, sorry folks.

[mnslinky]

You can't just 'tap' into fibre. You need to have a pair, to a mux. With copper, you can just throw on a vampire splice and go on your way. Can't do that with glass.

Re:$2700 is a lot of money, sorry folks.

[westlake]

And, Wu notes, a fiber connection will probably sell with the house; a couple thousand dollars is a pittance compared with the amounts many customers pay for remodeled kitchens and bathrooms, new windows, and the like.
.

If you are looking for a return when it comes time to sell your house... all I can tell you is that the odds are better in Lotto.

The choices you make in tech - like those you make in interior design - are personal. The buyer sees your dream house, not their dream house.

Road works

[Anonymous Coward]

Does this mean that the street will be opened every week, when the next person in a neighbourhood wants fiber, instead of every month? At least it wouldn't be a real big problem in my city, with the potholes all year long...

Re:Road works

[Deadplant]

Here in Ottawa we have the vast majority of our cables on poles.

Re:Road works

[techno-vampire]

Here in Ottawa we have the vast majority of our cables on poles.

Interesting. Here in Southern California we use swedes instead of poles.

Re:Road works

[mikael]

They would probably bury duct tubes/pipes underneath the ground and give every house its own fibre-optic cable.

For a new subdivision, the peering point would probably be at the nearest major road intersection.

Re:Road works

[TheRaven64]

I don't know how you lay fibre in leftpondia, but when we laid a water main to our last house from the main road, it went under an orchard and the only digging required was a hole at each end. A small device called a mole dug a tunnel with no disruption. It went in one hole and came out the other end pulling the water pipe behind it. A pipe that size could take a lot of fiberoptics.

Re:Road works

[slashtivus]

We do that here too. The last company I worked for purchased a warehouse that was a bit down the road and had a rail line running between the two buildings. We played with wireless for a little while until extra offices were put in the new building and the wireless was simply inadequate. We ran 6 fibers in a pipe just as you describe.

Re:Road works

[Sandman1971]

I don't know where you live, but outside of very old parts of the city, cables run underground. I'd say a rough estimate is only 10% of Ottawa has wires up on poles.

Re:Road works

[Deadplant]

hmm, that does not jive with my anecdotal experience.
I know the newer suburbs are buried but the glebe, westborough and everything in between is on poles.
{99%joking}That is Ottawa-proper, everything else is suburban wasteland or Orleans trailer-park{/99%joking}
Perhaps I haven't quite fully accepted Kanata and barhaven into my mental image of the city.

Interestingly, I was reading some of the 20/20 docs on ottawa.ca the other day and noticed that there is a rule requiring telecoms companies to bury an extra 4" conduit when they are installing their own stuff.
They are supposed to make it available at market rates for anyone who wants to rent it.

Internet as a utility?

[atfrase]

When I read this, the first thing that came to mind was that in theory, you could do a similar thing with electricity, and then maybe the electric company wouldn't have to be a sanctioned monopoly anymore.

And then that thought went the other direction: maybe the broadband internet access market will start looking more like the electricity market, rather than the other way around.

As things stand now (in the US at least), broadband competition is all but non-existent for the same reasons as more conventional utilities: the prohibitively high infrastructure cost for competitors to enter the market. If this experiment doesn't enable viable competition, maybe it's time to think about applying the regulated-monopoly idea to internet access.

Re:Internet as a utility?

[arclyte]

While I think that this is where we will end up before long (or at least something analogous to current utilities) reading your post sent shivers up my spine... I think seeing internet as utility is exactly the wrong direction to go, as utilities in the U.S. are so terrible as it is. Hopefully broadband access can break that mold and help to drag utilities out with it... I can dream, can't I?

Re:Internet as a utility?

[symbolset]

They actually put this bill before the state senate in Washington:

A public utility district is authorized to provide telecommunications services. - WA SB 6102 2007

A few days later it was replaced with a substitute bill which calls this a "test" and then lays out a list of restrictions on the counties that qualify to engage in the test. Strangely, not one of the counties in the state qualifies - making the entire thing void.

The first bill was a much better bill. Maybe somebody else can take this up. The prior "test" happened in 1990 and is meeting with some success.

Re:Internet as a utility?

[TheCastro]

Actually it isn't very expensive to enter the market anymore thanks to the thousands of miles of lines laid down in the nineties during the internet boom, that's why it costs so little to make phone calls across the world compared to before the boom.

The costs come from other things such as getting lines to neighborhoods and fighting bidding and cost cutting wars. The initial infrastructure is there, its the small things that will add up. And regulations from the FCC really stop rich people from getting involved in a market that changes constantly.

Re:Internet as a utility?

[AnotherSeattlePrgmr]

So without this change, PUDs are not allowed to do telecommunications? I live in Washington state in the Seattle area, I'm probably dreaming to think that it will ever get better. If you don't happen to live in a Verizon neighborhood where you can get their fiber service, you're probably stuck with cable.

Kinda' like a patch panel

[Gazzonyx]

This is kinda' like a patch panel, I take it. Have a junction point for distribution of media and have it in place so that you can light up paths as you need them. Good idea, so long as no one gets the bright idea of proprietary junction boxes or something.

I know I wouldn't mind buying a house with my own fiber uplink to a distribution point, as it's probably cheaper when it's part of the 'package' with a house purchase than having it run by a contractor. Since it costs just about the same to run a single strand as it does to run 20, it would make sense for new neighborhoods to have someone run fiber to all the houses while the trench is open, like they do with cable now.

Like the phone company's "inside line" service?

[Anonymous Coward]

Whereby they charge you 'extra' for service or for 'insurance' on the lines. It also provides a convenient excuse for bandwidth problems when they start throttling your service for 'traffic shaping' those pesky congestion issues arising from traffic shap... er, we mean those nasty IP disrespecting P2P terrorists.

Owning your fiber is great, till something breaks.

[Vellmont]

Like say some idiot knocking out your connection because they knocked it out with a backhoe. Or even the city tearing up the street, and saying you have to pay to relocate your fiber.

It's a hell of a lot easier for someone that owns a LOT of the fiber to hire lawyers and get someone else to pay for mistakes than it is for one person.

What happens when something goes wrong?

[PFAK]

It should be interesting to see how maintenance is handled. Can't wait until something goes wrong and you have a $15,000 bill to dig up the road to the "peering point."

Re:What happens when something goes wrong?

[4iedBandit]

I know this is Slashdot, but if you had bothered to read the article you would have discovered that the cable would be managed and maintained by a management company. So the cost of maintenance would be shared among the community. Just like existing home owners associations today.

I currently pay a monthly fee to my association and it covers lawn care, water, sewer, snow removal and garbage removal. This would just tack on "fiber internet connection" to that list.

Re:What happens when something goes wrong?

[argent]

I currently pay a monthly fee to my association and it covers lawn care, water, sewer, snow removal and garbage removal.

Me too. It also pays for them to dig a hole in my yard, not fill it in, then send me a nasty notice threatening me with fines if I don't fix the hole in my yard. Depending on them for Internet access, too? God almighty!

Re:What happens when something goes wrong?

[Anonymous Coward]

I currently pay a monthly fee to my association and it covers lawn care, water, sewer, snow removal and garbage removal. This would just tack on "fiber internet connection" to that list.

What do your municipal taxes pay for?

Re:What happens when something goes wrong?

[jedidiah]

Ok, so the whole HOA gets the bill.

It still resolves into the same nonsense.
It's just a smaller hit for each individual.

Re:What happens when something goes wrong?

[celle]

Not everyone lives in the suburbs or city and many don't have neighborhood associations and wouldn't want the nosy fuckers anyway.

Re:What happens when something goes wrong?

[westlake]

you would have discovered that the cable would be managed and maintained by a management company.
.

so you pay $3000 up front for the install ---

+ plus a monthly - unregulated - maintenance fee

from a company that that doesn't have an interstate fleet of trucks and repair crews.
every time your street floods and you lose service, it's Hurricane Katrina. "we will get there when we get there."

+ plus the bill from an ISP who has his nothing much to gain in the long run from undercutting his nominal competitors.

This is great!

[Pig Hogger]

This is great! Now, the phone companies will be able to blame the customers directly for their troubles!!!

This would solve so many problems for us.

[DragonTHC]

I would definitely pay to have fiber drawn at my house.

I think a peering agreement is way easier than using an ISP.

This increases competition and provides infinitely more options to customers.

For instance, I could peer with a large network provider and ask for 100Mbits both way. The price would drop significantly since it's just a simple network connection after that.

Re:This would solve so many problems for us.

[Mr. Underbridge]

For instance, I could peer with a large network provider and ask for 100Mbits both way. The price would drop significantly since it's just a simple network connection after that.

I'm assuming you went for funny and the mods missed it.

Just in case you were serious...why the hell would they peer with you? Unless a whole lot of their customers were sitting inside your network (ie, in your house), they'd be carrying all your traffic and you none of theirs. So that peer agreement would be rather imbalanced.

I dare you though - call up Verizon and tell them you want a peer agreement. Would be a good prank if nothing else.

Re:This would solve so many problems for us.

[MightyYar]

I dare you though - call up Verizon and tell them you want a peer agreement.

They told me it would cost 0.02 cents/kB.

Re:This would solve so many problems for us.

[AnotherSeattlePrgmr]

What other costs would there be? That would be pretty cheap. I guess you'd have to get an ip subnet. For my comcast account that costs $60 a month, with theoretically 40 gigabytes, that's 0.15 cents per kB. Vs. your amount above of 0.02 cents per or about 7 times cheaper. If I could pay 2k today to get a fiber internet connection to my house that wasn't limited by comcast, I'd do it in a second.

Re:This would solve so many problems for us.

[ChadM]

What other costs would there be? That would be pretty cheap. I guess you'd have to get an ip subnet. For my comcast account that costs $60 a month, with theoretically 40 gigabytes, that's 0.15 cents per kB. Vs. your amount above of 0.02 cents per or about 7 times cheaper.

If I could pay 2k today to get a fiber internet connection to my house that wasn't limited by comcast, I'd do it in a second.

MightyYar was referring to this incident:

http://verizonmath.blogspot.com/2006/12/verizon-doesnt-know-dollars-from-cents.html

Limit the monopoly

[WindBourne]

I have suggested many times, that a monopoly should be created from the block level green box, to the house. That monopoly should not do anything BUT that monopoly. Nothing else. Then it should allow up to 50-100 providers to come to each box. Any smart company who goes block level to CO will then sell hookups to others. Of course, competition means prices will be kept low.

Re:Limit the monopoly

[Deadplant]

Absolutely, although I would suggest at least neighbourhood level aggregation, not blocks.
(depending on what size of blocks we're talking about here)

Also, if this organization is to be a monopoly then it will have to be heavily regulated.
A co-op or condo-association model might work better and be more efficient.

Re:Limit the monopoly

[WindBourne]

Actually, have the co-op offer up 5-10 year contracts for servicing it. That way, another company can compete OCCASIONALLY.

Re:Limit the monopoly

[khallow]

Well, this story appears to have a way to do that. Namely, have the "monopoly" of the last mile owned by the customer.

Pitch in...

[Thelasko]

with your neighbors and buy it together, then share it with a wireless mesh network.

Re:Pitch in...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why even do that? As long as the distance between houses is reasonable, there would be nothing wrong with plain wired ethernet. Get a heavy-duty switch (or NAT router, depending on how the networking is going to go), a few powered repeater hubs, and heavy-duty Cat5. If everyone is in the same building, even better.

Re:wireless

[Deadplant]

i don't think 50mb/s is doable over the air.
That is more like the best case performance if you are the only user on the system.
Unless you are talking about directional wireless. (which is not as cheap or scalable as you might think)

Wireless is also high latency, lossy, unreliable, easily disrupted by a single mis-configured pc...
It is struggling to reach 100mbit ethernet level performace while 100mbit fiber gear is reaching consumer-level cheapness.

to top it all off, wireless still needs fiber for backhaul!
in my opinion fiber is literally 1000 times better than wireless.

Can't just tap it

[statemachine]

A fiber isn't something you can just tap into without negative results. You'll need to cut it then add a splitter.

Assuming it went perfectly, you've just
1) Killed the network for everyone using that fiber for the time it was cut
2) degraded the signal(light) for everyone
3) ponied up for several (10's of?) thousands of dollars in equipment because that signal won't likely be usable by low-end short-haul consumer equipment.

Now imagine all your neighbors doing that.

You'll need some type of remote terminal for your neighborhood.

Even in the old days of vampire taps on coax there were limits.

Re:Can't just tap it

[Bobtree]

Please mod parent up. You can't just tap an existing active fiber optic line any more than you can just take a sip from an open fire hose.

Re:Can't just tap it

[Tmack]

Please mod parent up. You can't just tap an existing active fiber optic line any more than you can just take a sip from an open fire hose.

Better "series of tubes" analogy: you cant just cut a hole and screw your garden hose to the nearest water main, you need pressure reducers, check valves, cuttoffs, a meter, and other pipe fittings, and it reduces the service level to everyone else on the same pipe, and you have to take it out of service to put in the T.

With fiber its that * 10, generally your fiber will run with with everyone elses' (and maybe even along side the backbone) to a fiber hut somewhere down the line, where they all patch into transceivers and fiber-mux's to be piped back upstream or around the ring. Sure, the backbone itself might be laid at the edge of the road 20' from your door, but the nearest fiber hut could be a few miles down the road. Same reason you dont normally see the houses directly under high-tension power lines running taps to them...

tm

Re:Can't just tap it

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, a large amount of fiber was installed in the US for exactly that purpose - FTH. The telcos and cable companies shut them down - it violated their exclusion agreements. A large part of the dark fiber Google has been buying was from that network.

Re:Can't just tap it

[plasmacutter]

it's quite easy to take a sip from an open fire hose

Re:Can't just tap it

[lucifuge31337]

Please mod parent up. You can't just tap an existing active fiber optic line any more than you can just take a sip from an open fire hose.

The NSA could tell you how, but then they'd have to kill you.

Bragging rights

[shicaca]

"So Fred what are you doing today?" "Oh nothing just downloading movies at 40Gb/s from Timmy next door on our local fiber P2P network"

Re:Bragging rights

[jedidiah]

Don't scoff. A neighborhood only dark network for "sharing"
stuff could be a very interesting possibility. It would be
like a neighborhood private BBS and could be completely
invisible to prying eyes.

Re:Bragging rights

[shicaca]

Oh I say it with sincerity. We had DC++ in the dorms. Need I say more?

Re:Bragging rights

[Anonymous Coward]

Until one neighbor realizes what kind of leverage knowing this network provides. The real world isn't like dorm rooms. You can't beat the shit out of the killjoy.

Necessary move

[Migraineman]

In my neighborhood - suburb of DC - I can't get Verizon's FIOS because I live in a low-ish density single-family community. I live 7500 feet from the CO and have DSL. The townhouses on either side of me have FIOS, as do the apartments across the street. Apparently there isn't enough incentive to bring their fancy fibers my way. I'd love to run privately owned dark fiber to a co-lo where the bastards *would* take my money. I'd expect a better rate due to the need to use *my* infrastructure. I've been speaking to the Verizon customer service reps on and off for several years now, and they expect to have the service in my area "any day now." Uh huh ...

Re:Necessary move

[Solandri]

Work the phones and talk with Verizon's FIOS people. Not the customer support folks, but the technical folks who lay the cable and stuff (if you can catch one of their vans out there laying out cable, talk with the workers). They can get you in touch with managers and supervisors who make the actual go/no-go decisions on who gets FIOS.

My previous workplace was in the same situation with FIOS available literally on the other side of the street, but Verizon unwilling to bring it to their building because it was too far back from the street. After a lot of talking, they came up with an arrangement to split the cost of the fiber install to the building 50/50 (which was still way cheaper than the T1 they were using). Last I heard Verizon decided to just pay for the whole thing. So get on the phone and talk with Verizon.

Re:Necessary move

[Migraineman]

Entitlement? No, not in the "I did noting to deserve this" sense. I'm more than willing to pay for the service, and two years ago I probably could have gotten my company to pay for Verizon's full installation costs (i.e. truck roll, fiber pull back to the CO, etc.)

Years ago, Verizon and their peers petitioned to get a right-of-way through my property to string their oh-so-valuable wires and fibers. In exchange, they are obligated to provide "universal" telephone service. They've been very careful to avoid a similar situation with broadband communications, as the "inconvenient" customers don't earn them enough profits. They've run the fiber down my street to another community. They are using the right-of-way through my property to provide the FIOS service to someone else. They refuse to provide it to me, but they're more than happy to drag the fibers through my neighborhood. Looking out my kitchen window, I can see them hanging from the poles, taunting me.

The reason I'm torqued is that I can almost touch the fibers. If they're going to use the right-of-way through my property, I expect to get something other than the finger.

Re:Necessary move

[Migraineman]

I'm in a bit of a Catch-22. Verizon won't install the fiber drops unless they get enough connection density in the community. The community isn't dense enough even if everyone here wanted FIOS. Our dated 1950s-era utility installations don't work in modern times. Verizon has a state-sanctioned monopoly on the communications wires/fibers hanging on the poles, so I couldn't string my own fiber to somewhere they would drop a connection. My only recourse is to move ... which is in the works.

Re:Necessary move

[Anonymous Coward]

Just ask them to install wifi and use their wifi! Give them $30/month for the privilege.

Re:Owning your fiber is great, till something brea

[Chirs]

The ideal would be for it to operate like any other civic infrastructure (water, sewer, power, etc.) where the homeowner is responsible only past a certain point (demarc point, property boundary, etc.) and the utility company is responsible for the rest.

Realistically, bandwidth _should_ be a utility.

if and only if...

[indy_Muad'Dib]

id do gladly pay for this if and only if the telco guarantees me full unrestricted access.

no blocking, no caps, no limits on what i can do with it.

Repairs, upgrades, etc...?

[argent]

Fiber is a backhoe magnet. If the homeowners are responsible for the last mile, who's responsible for repairing it when the inevitable backhoe strikes? The neighborhood association? Heaven forfend!

No Easement, No Fiber

[statemachine]

So, I pay $2700 for a company to "pull" fiber directly to my house/condo. But, according to the article, even though it throws around the word "ownership" there's nothing defining that ownership.

When this company goes belly up in the future, I will lose this fiber because I don't have an easement for it. And because there isn't an easement, nothing gets transferred with the property, except a gentleman's agreement. And what's to stop this company from doing something else with the fiber?

This sounds suspiciously like a cableco/telco that allows you to use another network on their physical line. I own nothing. I have no rights. It also sounds like a subscription music service.

Re:No Easement, No Fiber

[erbmjw]

Just a little bit of info from the article

A private company has recently completed a project to string dark fiber from a colocation facility under the Ottawa City Hall to a neighborhood of 400 older, upper-middle-class homes.

I think a company that is starting it's fiber to homes project from under city hall has already got the easements approved.

Re:No Easement, No Fiber

[statemachine]

You missed my point. Nowhere in that article does it say the homeowner receives an easement for the fiber, or a share of the company, like a co-op.

Without that, when that company dies or gets bought out, its easements will get transferred to someone else, and the homeowners are at the whim of the easement holder. The homeowners are only paying for a service. "Ownership" is a huge misnomer.

Re:No Easement, No Fiber

[erbmjw]

Then maybe you really didn't RTFA cause it says

Higher takeup means lower pricesâ"strands could cost as little as $1000 if half the homes buy in. Homeowners can pay a lump sum or make monthly installments over three to five years. Once the final payment is made, the fiber strand would be the property of the homeowner.
The firm that's doing the work is not an ISP, but a company focused on building and managing dark fiber networks. Under an approach called "condominium fiber," it plans to manage the network on behalf of its owners in the same way that private companies manage condominium buildings, charging a small fee for the service. Because the company does not provide Internet service, it has no incentive to limit customers' choices in providers.

And yes I would assume that in order to own the cable easement rights would have to be granted to the home owner who has paid off the cable cost.
You also don't seem to understand that the company doesn't want to own the cable ( and accompanying easements ) it wants to get paid for managing the network. So why do the home owners need to own a share in the company?

Re:No Easement, No Fiber

[statemachine]

Again, fiber strand does not equal easement.

And yes I would assume that in order to own the cable easement rights would have to be granted to the home owner who has paid off the cable cost.

You're assuming a lot. The article makes no mention of easements, so I'm rightfully figuring this is a marketing ploy. Owning a fiber strand is worthless if you don't have the right to put it there.

If this company really is selling easements, then I'd certainly love to be wrong. But I wouldn't make a $2700 investment without that information.

Re:No Easement, No Fiber

[erbmjw]

You're also busy assuming that the article contains all relevant legal terms and conditions of ownership of the cable --- so you're assuming extraordinary journalistic behavior and impeccable research

The City of Ottawa and Société de Réseaux Dédiés Privés Inc have entered into a municipal - telco agreement -- so once again -- I really think they have been granted the required easement rights and yes I do think that the home owners get to be Third Party Attachments to this agreement ( section 11 )

http://www.ottawa.ca/calendar/ottawa/citycouncil/occ/2007/04-25/csedc/ACS2007-PWS-INF-0003.htm

English home page for Société de Réseaux Dédiés Privés Inc http://www.srdptele.com/en/home/

Unless you have access to the consumer document and it states otherwise -- I'm going to assume that the cable runs are part of the service corridor and that the home owner as the potential third parties will be granted any required easements under the terms of this agreement.

Re:No Easement, No Fiber

[statemachine]

If anything, the links you posted are hurting your argument:

From the first link:

11. THIRD PARTY ATTACHMENTS

11.1 ****** may allow a Third Party to attach its equipment and to charge and recover a fee from the Third Party provided:

                                                (a) any lease or license agreement requires the Third Party to comply with all laws, statutes, by-laws, codes, ordinances, rules, orders and regulations of all governmental authorities in force, and that the Third Party shall obtain and maintain any and all permits, licenses, official inspections or any other approvals and consents necessary or required for the placement or operation of the Third Party's equipment; and

(b) ****** does not charge a fee for the Third Party's use of the Service Corridors.

and

20.5 This Agreement creates contractual rights only between the City and ****** and not an interest in the Service Corridors and ****** covenants and agrees with the City that ****** shall desist always from any registration of this Agreement or of any right howsoever arising under it.

The above is just boilerplate utility right-of-way. And it only mentions *attaching* third party equipment.

From the second link (SRDP's website):

SRDP offre tous les services requis pour assurer la construction d'un réseau privé tel l'ingénierie, la mise en plan, les droits de passage et la surveillance de chantier.

I was just checking that they also said rights-of-way in their primary language. :)

But I saw nothing, in English or French, that mentioned selling easements as part of the project in the article. Would you enter an agreement without the easement being spelled out? I wouldn't. It's not in the article, not in the municipal agreement, and not clearly specified even on their website (maybe they actually only get the utility easement secured, but under their own name).

It's an extremely important detail, and they're very silent on this. Someone going in on this should be very skeptical until it is spelled out in plain language. A judge may need to decide this someday.

Re:No Easement, No Fiber

[erbmjw]

You could also assume that

The third party is the article mentioned "condominium fiber," ie the home owners who buy into this plan are the Third party -- a very local telecom - ie a utility -- which are the owners of the "condominium fiber".

SRDP design and deploy the "condominium fiber" -- then sell the cables/etc to a third part telco "condominium fiber" -- ie CF telco. CF telco is bought by the homeowners

SRDP are, as contractually agreed upon in the sale of CF telco, hired by CF telco to
1) give expert assistance which allows CF teclo to comply with all laws, statutes, by-laws, codes, ordinances, rules, orders and regulations of all governmental authorities in force, and in obtaining and maintaining any and all permits, licenses, official inspections or any other approvals and consents necessary or required for the placement or operation of the CF telco's equipment
2) manage the required cable network on behalf of its owners CF telco.
3) provide an attachment point for CF telco's equipment

So SRDP doesn't need to sell shares of itself -- it just needs to sell CF telco in a condominium style of legal arrangement to the homeowners.

Oh and before you ask about where the attachment point is between SRDP and CF telco --- under city hall ( I'm completely pulling this figure out of my magic hat ) about 15 feet inside the basement wall.

All very legal, logical and in keeping with the reported concept of "condominium fiber".

RTFA. The fiber is already installed.

[whoever57]

Personally, I dont think this is at all feasible. The labor of laying down that one line could be better spent laying down 20 lines at the same time and getting everyone on your block.

RTFA. The fiber is already installed. Now the plan is to sell the existing fiber to the homeowners.

Baby Bells RULE!

[iplayfast]

I'm on a farm in the country (in Ontario) that is serviced by a "baby bell" This is a co-op where all the people on the line have a share in the company.

The neat thing about this is, Bell and Rogers and all the baby bells go to Ottawa to discuss what a proper service rate is. Rogers and Bell, present their case that it costs $$$$ to do their thing. My co-op costs $$$, but because of anti-competition rules the bigger guys their their way with $$$$ and the co-op has to have the same prices.

So I'm paying $$$$ for my phone service. BUT.....

All is not lost, remember the share in the company? Well if it only costs $$$ to run a service that $$$$ is being charged, then the owners receive a dividend at the end of the year! Whee.

Or alternatively we get better service!

Whee!!!

On Tuseday (yup this really is relevant!) they were installing Fiber Optic in front of my house. In the near futures I'll be getting it inside.

Don't forget, I live on a Farm, in the middle of the farming area.

Don't you wish you didn't have to deal with the monopolies?

Re:Baby Bells RULE!

[TooMuchToDo]

Any chance you could have someone from your coop email me info on the process behind forming one?

Re:Baby Bells RULE!

[ichigo 2.0]

All is not lost, remember the share in the company? Well if it only costs $$$ to run a service that $$$$ is being charged, then the owners receive a dividend at the end of the year! Whee.

I might be missing something, but doesn't the government tax that extra $ as it is profit?

Re:Baby Bells RULE!

[kaiser423]

bastid. I hate you :)

Re:Baby Bells RULE!

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, that's not really what a Baby Bell is. A Baby Bell is Verizon or SBC. You have a co-op, and god bless you for it. But if you lived in the states, your co-op would have been crushed by an actual Baby Bell long ago if you represented enough of a customer base to be worth crushing.

That's the same reason this scheme will never work. The problem with getting fiber to your home is purely a problem of corporate power. Municipalities trying to provide their own broadband services get sued by RBOCs, or pet legislatures simply outlaw it. It's not like there's some magic way of lining up the paperwork that's going to suddenly induce the Bells to give up their monopoly. The Bells are DeBeers for telecom. They profit by (pretty much solely by these days) maintaining a wholly artificial scarcity of last mile bandwidth. They'll kill your children in front of you before they give that up.

Re:Baby Bells RULE!

[TheRaven64]

Don't you wish you didn't have to deal with the monopolies?

Why? It sounds like you have to deal with a monopoly too. Of course, it's one that you own shares in, and which only provides services to its shareholders, but it sounds a lot like a monopoly to me.

A monopoly isn't always a bad thing, it's just easy to abuse.

Re:Baby Bells RULE!

[chihowa]

As he said, it's either reinvested in the business or returned as a "refund" to the same people who paid it in the first place. No profit involved.

Re:Baby Bells RULE!

[mattack2]

He actually said "dividend". So wouldn't that dividend info be provided to the recipient on the Canadian equivalent of a 1099-DIV, and have to be put on one's taxes, assuming Canadian taxes are even vaguely similar to those in the US?

Re:Baby Bells RULE!

[smithy242]

Who's the co-operative? I've dealt with Quadro and HuronTel in the past for branch offices.

Re:Baby Bells RULE!

[EGenius007]

I'm pretty sure I've heard of this before. "[Everyone] has a share" sorta like a line from a Joseph Heller novel...

Re:Baby Bells RULE!

[iplayfast]

I think the pie has already been sliced up.

Re:Baby Bells RULE!

[iplayfast]

This co-op has been around for quite some time, and the pie has been divided for that long as well.

For them to be "crushed" they would have to loose their customers, which I rather doubt they could do, even if they wanted.

Re:Baby Bells RULE!

[iplayfast]

Quadro

ORLY?

[h3]

> robust telecom competition should prevent the worst of the monopolistic behavior exhibited by telco and cable incumbents

It's 2008, does anyone really believe that?

nah, thanks to google TiSP...

[Tmack]

Does this mean that the street will be opened every week, when the next person in a neighbourhood wants fiber, instead of every month? ...

Nope! Thanks to the innovative people at Google, there is no trenching involved! With their latest beta release of TiSP, all the end user has to do is flush one end of the fiber down the nearest toilet, and wait for the plumbing techs to plug it in to the nearest node!

Tm

Re:nah, thanks to google TiSP...

[Anonymous Coward]

TiSP FAQ

Q: I live at the bottom of a hill and the manager of my town's sewer system says that "Only a dumbass would think that anything would make it through the pumping station."

A: The TiSP sinker and cable are designed to operate in the harshest environments. Although our testing is not 100% complete, the centrifugal pumps in your local pumping station are not expected to cause a problem for TiSP. As a precaution, you should have your neighbor hold the spool while flushing.

Q: I have a septic system. Can I still use TiSP?

A: Absolutely! Please contact Google's Professional Installation Service to arrange an appointment.*

*Advertised install time and bandwidth may not apply to septic system customers.

Re:nah, thanks to google TiSP...

[Nos.]

Its even easier: http://xkcd.com/454/

Re:nah, thanks to google TiSP...

[gig4897]

it would be awesome to be so rich as to fund toilet humor

Re:Owning your fiber is great, till something brea

[Vellmont]

The ideal would be for it to operate like any other civic infrastructure (water, sewer, power, etc.) where the homeowner is responsible only past a certain point (demarc point, property boundary, etc.) and the utility company is responsible for the rest

So how would that be different than it is now? I don't own the water pipes outside my home, nor the power cables. I don't WANT to own those things, nor does it really make much sense to do so. If you own it, you're responsible for fixing it. Nobody is going to want to be responsible for fixing the fiber, but not be able to charge you for that responsibility.

The one good suggestion I heard was someone who suggested an insurance model.

I like the idea!

[mnslinky]

This sounds like a pretty neat idea. Make the homeowner somewhat responsible for their own pipe, and let the ISP/service providers run to the peering node. To me, this makes a ton of sense!

Re:I like the idea!

[celle]

How about getting rid of the ISP/Providers and running everyone to a branching backbone thereby getting rid of the middleman.

Re:I like the idea!

[mnslinky]

Yeah, how about no to that? Structure of the internet would get *really* messy. Also, these fibre links can be used for more than internet connectivity. Voice, CATV, etc, can be run across the links. In other words - more than one provider could peer to those demarcations.

They should partner with Google

[Tmack]

Since google has already perfected the easiest deployment scheme, with No trenching needed!

Tm

Re:They should partner with Google

[Creepy Crawler]

Boy, that's some SHITTY service :D

typoinheadline

[Anonymous Coward]

In this usage, "underway" should be one word.

"Robust compitition" my ass

[Anonymous Coward]

Any article with "Canada" and "robust telecom competition" in it should be taken with a large grain of salt.

"Robust competition", heheheheheh. "Robust". Hahahahaha!

Re:wireless

[compro01]

Which wireless system do you have that:

• Will reliably provide 50Mb/s per user over a reasonable area (even VDSL2 can only do that for about 1km)
• Won't be taken out by rain, lightning, snow, obstructing buildings, overhead power lines, etc.
• Does not require a large antenna (Needs to be feasible for apartment dwellers).
• Does not require as yet undeveloped or unstandardized technology.

equipment

[Anonymous Coward]

A trencher is good but sometimes the ground has huge nasty rocks. We use all three here on the farm do do trenching, ditchwitch, backhoe, trackhoe. You can even use a ripper plow and then go back over it with the blade and smooth it back out if it is all soft mostly. That's really fast if you have a big crawler to drag it, it's like butter then. Just depends on your terrain and how deep you want to go.

With that said, I wish we had better options on wireless. It's gotten really old them tards in government selling all the good spectrum to the same billionaires all the time and leaving john q. public with the *dregs*.

Re:equipment

[Anonymous Coward]

Wireless will never be as good as a fiber optic or copper cable. Even if you could use 100% of the spectrum it'd still always be slower and have higher latency.

Re:Owning your fiber is great, till something brea

[mevets]

> Like say some idiot knocking out your connection because they knocked it out with a backhoe.

I've heard techs refer to backhoes as "cable finders"...

Re:Owning your fiber is great, till something brea

[Kjella]

The ideal would be for it to operate like any other civic infrastructure (water, sewer, power, etc.) where (...) the utility company is responsible for the rest.

Yeah, except I've never had to bother with what the utility company has on their end. I've never turned my hose up full and heard the water works say "we can't deliver more water". I've never turned on the stove and heard the power plant say "we can't deliver more electricity". Nor have the sewage ever had a problem taking away what it should. But I've certainly hear the ISPs say "we can't deliver faster Internet because you're too far from the central". If there's no competition on the last mile, there's no point in competition anywhere else. Maybe that'll change some day, but right now I want cable vs dsl vs fios vs wifi vs whatever battle it out for the last mile. If we ever get to the point where the end mile is "plenty" fast maybe metered bandwidth would work.

The Low Population Density Means A Long Wait!

[Easy2RememberNick]

The population of Canada is pretty low (about 35 million), spread out across the second largest country in the world and frozen solid for at least two or three months in the warmest areas, it's a big deal if this was offered.

  Some places near me have just got cable access last year because they were so isolated the cable company wasn't going to put up miles of cable for one house.

  I would pay up front for fiber if that meant I would get it sooner...it'll probably still end up being throttled to death somehow!

Re:The Low Population Density Means A Long Wait!

[stevo3232]

True, but a very large amount of the Canadian population is concentrated in the Quebec-Windsor corridor and aside from that, within a few major cities. Servicing all of Canada with broadband will take forever, but getting 2/3 to 3/4 with very high speed access shouldn't take very long at all.

Re:The Low Population Density Means A Long Wait!

[p0tat03]

spread out across the second largest country in the world and frozen solid for at least two or three months in the warmest areas

Correction. The west coast of Canada is rarely frozen, and in fact snows very little.

Re:The Low Population Density Means A Long Wait!

[Easy2RememberNick]

BC? I figured it was just the extreme south west area that was relatively snow free, doesn't it snow pretty much in all the other 99% of the province?

Management ?

[droopycom]

So, there will be a new Fiber Management Company (FMC ?) setup to manage your own fiber and arguably the peering point.

Who would this Company report to and how would it too its business ?

Would it report to the Homeowners through some kind of HOA ?

If not, then you just moved the monopoly from the ISP to the FMC.

But if the peering point and fibers are really owned by the HOA, can an HOA really ensure quality service to its member ? Do you feel comfortable with your neighbors handling this ? I mean my HOA is trying to regulate the Satellite Dishes, in the complex, with very little success. And I dont really want my neighboors to have access to my connection logs.

It is likely that the local cable or phone company will be first to connect to your peering point and try to keep the competition out by the usual means.

I'm not saying its a bad idea, but I doubt it will be a perfect solution...

Re:Owning your fiber is great, till something brea

[Solandri]

I think it works better with power, water, and gas because breaks in those things are actually dangerous. I've run into gas and power problems in the past on my property which should've been my responsibility to fix. But (except for one really expensive fix) the utility company fixed it on their dime anyway. I suspect they'd rather spend a couple hundred dollars repairing something than end up with the bad publicity and possible lawsuit of a house blowing up or a person being electrocuted because they refused to fix it.

The phone company OTOH just hooked up the T1 to the junction box and left. If a phone line or fiber breaks, there isn't exactly much incentive for them to come and fix it promptly. I even had intermittent problems with their lines for two years and they'd try to dodge it rather than fix it. Every time it rained for more than a couple hours, I'd get static on the phone (and the T1 would stop working). I'd call Verizon, they'd open a ticket, which they wouldn't get to for a day or two, by which time the lines were dry and there was no problem, and they'd close the ticket. I finally got lucky when it happened while I was switching T1 companies and a Verizon tech was sitting on the line working with the T1 company.

In the city?

[Roger W Moore]

A couple days of using the backhoe to dig the ditch would pay for itself.

Ottawa is a city. There tend to be pavements, roads, concrete etc. in the way not to mention a city council that will get rather ticked off if you dig a large trench into the middle of the street. While the idea seems nice in principle is the city going to give homeowners the right to dig up the street to fix their connection if it fails? Are there really going to be multiple companies connecting to the streets central hub to provide a real choice of service? On the face of it it seems rather impractical.

Re:Owning your fiber is great, till something brea

[Chirs]

I'm fairly sure I own the sewer pipes out to the edge of my property, but I get a certain number of free service calls for root cleaning.

I own the power cables from my side of the meter.

I own the phone wiring from my side of the demarcation point.

The fiber could work the same way...the utility is responsible for the common sections of the network.

Re:wireless

[Qzukk]

50mb/sec is going to be enough for most users to get TV and internet

HDTV is about 18mbit per channel. Is your hypothetical wireless system going to be broadcasting 50mbit per user, or is this 50mbit per cell/base station? Does everyone in the neighborhood vote on what two channels to carry each evening, or do all the VoIP connections get dropped if someone changes the channel?

Seriously, this whining about how telcos and cablecos shouldn't need to spend money to upgrade the last mile needs to stop. Don't half-ass the upgrade, the rest of the technology will eventually be upgraded to make use of whatever capacity is installed.

Re:wireless

[Anonymous Coward]

50mb/s is doable over air (I'm assuming Mbytes - Wireless G is already 54 Mbits and N can see actual throughput on that). 400 Mbits/s is also doable - I would expect to see it within 5 years.

The latency of wireless depends on the technology used - since radio travels at the speed of light, the higher latency of wireless networks is a property of the implementation rather than intrinsic to it being wireless (i.e. more processing time needed because SNR is lower on a wireless network).

Please define what you mean by wireless being "lossy" but wired being lossless. Any communication system in reality doesn't have an infinite SNR - wired is obviously better insulated, but it still has many of the same fundamental problems as wireless (i.e. hear about the corrupted bit on Amazon's network that brought down their S3 service? I'm sure they have wired connections everywhere)

You're right that wireless won't supplant wired networks in terms of capacity. However, it's infinitely more useful in mobile applications (i.e. even laptops). Also, wireless is way cheaper as a solution if you have to service many computers within a close geographical area (at least with 802.11 - some of the wireless tech on the horizon has much wider coverage areas) and your internet connection is still probably slower than any G or N network.

If fiber is really 1000 times better than wireless in every case, then why are Wireless G/N used in the home, business, and schools?

Just how long ago did fiber

[LM741N]

go into every (not sure) home, etc in Palo Alto? And now its experimental? Another example of more brain dead telecom companies.

Hey, that's like I was thinking!

[gsarnold]

Interesting idea - very similar to a goofy idea I came up with a few years back after the phone companies successfully overturned the rules requiring them to lease their wires to competitors.

Basically, I thought maybe we should run the comm networks like we our other infrastructure: local municipalities should declare emininent domain over the copper, fiber and coax and take direct control of the communications networks from private companies.

Then, they contract with an operator (or hire their own network staff) to manage and maintain the physical layer and lease access to layer 3 and up for any company that wants to come in and provide phone/cable/ISP services.

PROs:
* Competition removes single-vendor lock-in
* No more bandwidth bullying by asshat mega-corporate ISPs
* With the right people in charge, capacity planning should be less whiny

CONs:
* Getting the right people in charge
* Do you really want city hall responsible for figuring out where to add capacity?
* Where do you go for service when they won't stop raising TAXES?!

Re:Hey, that's like I was thinking!

[IHC Navistar]

"Interesting idea - very similar to a goofy idea I came up with a few years back after the phone companies successfully overturned the rules requiring them to lease their wires to competitors."

-----Too bad you didn't patent that idea. You could have made alot of money! :P

" Do you really want city hall responsible for figuring out where to add capacity?"

-----They won't add capacity, at least in our lifetime. They will have to perform a financial analysis, a feasability study, Environmental Impact Report, and since city employees are Union-owned, it means it you will have to pay 5 of them for a full days' work every time you need to reset a router.

"Where do you go for service when they won't stop raising TAXES?!"

-----The same place I go: First their office, then their front door, then the ballot box, then the ammunition dealer. Thankfully, I haven't needed to make it to the last step.

You forgot to include some important info

[symbolset]

Which do you have? 6 or 20?

How do you like it?

Re:Owning your fiber is great, till something brea

[Amorymeltzer]

Realistically, bandwidth _should_ be a utility.

I have never, EVER heard the whole bandwidth issue be stated as perfectly as this. But it's true - in today's world, broadband is third only to water and electricity. I bet most people would sooner give up other assumed niceties before going to dial-up or something equally absurd.

Why not build out fiber like we build out roads?

[zerofoo]

Here in the US, Federal, State, and Local governments either directly build roads, or hire private companies to build and maintain the roads.

Why can't the US do this with fiber? Competing ISPs, could provide service over the fiber to end users, and tax dollars would pay to maintain the fiber "roads". Your monthly ISP bill would cover the services provided over the fiber (data, voice, video...etc).

I'm sure many will argue that they don't want their tax dollars paying for someone to download music and porn, but your tax dollars already pay for roads, even if you don't drive.

A reliable, public, fiber infrastructure will be as important to the US in the future as telephones and electricity are now. We need leaders that are smart enough to see that.

-ted

That should be Ottawa ON, not Ottawa CA

[mark-t]

The country code, if present, is never immediately placed after the city name for any place in Canada or the US. Otherwise Ottawa CA would read as Ottawa, California (and I don't even think there is such a place).

Re:That should be Ottawa ON, not Ottawa CA

[Kompressor]

Oddly enough, there is an Ontario, CA. That's where they make maglites.

Re:Owning your fiber is great, till something brea

[CastrTroy]

Just in case you didn't know, phone lines can pack quite a punch. The electrical signal sent down the line is enough to make those old 30 pound black phones ring. My dad decided to do all the internal phone wiring in his house, and he says that from actual experience with being shocked, that you should be pretty careful when messing with phone lines. Wikipedia says the ringing signal is generally over 100 volts.

About. Bloody. Time.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's always been incomprehensible to me that we ever allowed our copper (pairs and coax) infrastructure to be anything but publicly owned. Hydro (in Ontario, at least) generation and distribution infrastructure are owned by the province; water is owned by the city; I'm not sure about gas, but the setup there is mostly akin to DSL, where you can pick your provider (whether they pay service fees to a single company, I'm not sure).

This actually makes perfect sense, since you're not limited to a few kilometres as you are with pairs; a single strand of fibre could provide internet, television and telephone to each household, and you could choose a different provider for all three (I'm sure 'bundling' would take place, but it's nice to have the option). Since fibre can run 40km, you'd need only a few COs for an entire city (granted, they'd be hella huge, but still), thus allowing for smaller providers to purchase enough equipment to be a viable start-up. It would also reduce overall bandwidth requirements, since you could take further advantage of systems like the Toronto Internet Exchange (TORIX), which allow local providers to trade traffic (i.e. P2P, local VoIP calls, IM, etc.) without causing unnecessarily large numbers of router hops (as happens with, say, Bell, where a shiteload of Toronto users' traffic goes via Chicago). Alternatively, having FDDIs at every corner (sure makes transferring a couple of gigs to my neighbour a lot easier), which would in turn uplink to a main ISP carrier hotel would also have its benefits.

About the only way this will work is....

[FlyingGuy]

Is either in new housing developments where the builder puts it in when the streets are being laid out, or in a HOA where there are decent number of homes and the HOA wants to fund it off of homeowner dues,

Alternatively small townships or cities could go back and retrofit fiber to every home then build a small NOC and then provide enough interconnects to allow the various providers equal access to provide services to the community and then each resident can truly choose what they want in a package from Comcast, AT&T, COVAD, Joes Brand ISP.

But at any rate the entity in question would not be able to make sweetheart deals as it would be prevented by CC&R's or local regulation

Now the chances of that happening are slim to none, because as soon as you try and do it some compnay like Comcast or AT&T will take you to court like they have taken every other entity to court when they tried to go it on their own. About the only ones who might be able to get away with it are HOA's since they are not a government entity since the Government is not supposed to compete against private business.

My in-laws live in a HOA ( a fairly large one of about a thousand homes ) and the HOA owns the cable system. The HOA purchases content ( HBO, Showtime, etc. etc. ) and transmits it over the cable system. They also now provide internet access and have a a bonded T1 ( two T1's ) and everyone is throttled. Since mostly older people live in the community, most are not big time internet users all though there are some families with kids and such.

Buying bandwidth gets expensive, T3 prices start as low as about 4K per month, and can hit upwards of 15K a month, bandwidth is expensive.

So how would one in a community of say 1000 homes handle something like having a unlimited bandwidth T3 feeding them and make it fair for everyone. The numbers are easy, Lets say the rate is 15K per month, so that is $15.00 per household( real good!!!), a T3 is 45megs, so each house gets 45K? Hmmmm not so good. Or do you go on the honor system, no throttling, and then some kid ( or horny old goat ) discovers youporn.com or a bit torrent and he just eats bandwidth like there is no tommorow?

Answer that question, in a way that users will put up with, and let me tell you AT&T or Comcast has a job opening for you!!!

Re:wireless

[Torvaun]

You forgot horrifically insecure. I'd as soon send my bank information by ham radio.

privately owned dark fiber

[monkeySauce]

Because we might've thought you wanted to run publicly-owned in-use fiber to a colo?

Re:privately owned dark fiber

[Migraineman]

In this area, there is monopoly-backed privately-owned fiber (Verizon, AT&T, etc.) There is also dark fiber that's owned by the local municipalities (county and city governments installed ducts and fiber bundles during road maintenance work.) Certain areas allow private installs through an approved subcontractor (i.e. Covad.) Some new builders got smart and put community pedestals with access to the homes, which solves the most expensive part of the last-mile problem. So yes, there is a need to differentiate who owns what. We don't have "the phone company" with a simple demarcation point anymore.

Re:privately owned dark fiber

[monkeySauce]

I've never heard anyone use "dark fiber" to mean anything but fiber that isn't in use. To say that you want to "run dark fiber" to get hooked up at a colo sounds nonsensical.

Obviously Verizon, AT&T, and municipalities all own various amounts of dark fiber. I don't know why you say "there is also dark fiber that's owned by the local munis".

If you actually work that backhoe

[symbolset]

Think to the future. 8 strands per house should be the minimum. I think Ma Bell proved sometime in the 60's that that was the optimum balance of cost per line. Remember that your development may be "played monopoly with" in the future. The cost of the media is nothing compared with the cost of the trench. When they buried the backbone along I-5 in the '90s I went out and watched. I couldn't get them to install me a tap. It's as big as your leg. Thousands of strands, mostly dark for now. There's lots of that stuff buried all over the country. They use a few for traffic cams. Bandwidth per strand is increasing exponentially. And yet the providers are trying to say Bandwidth is a precious limited resource. It's a scam.

This will never happen in the US

[Anonymous Coward]

It will cost much more than $2700 to run fiber through a 4" conduit in the US. You can't just use a backhoe to tear up sidewalks and pavement. You would need a company that could do underground drill shots from the street to your front door. Good Luck!

In Seattle you're hosed.

[symbolset]

The 1990 experiment involved rural counties, and that's going well. As I mentioned, this law now involves hypothetical counties that don't exist within Washington state (although the original bill was immediate and involved all counties). As the law sits within Washington state you can get up to a symmetrical 100Mbps for $50 a month if you live in Grant county. Google, Microsoft, Yahoo are all building datacenters there now so (according to state legislators) it seems to not be working out. God help you if you pay property taxes in those areas though - real-estate prices are up on an average of >100% per year. Districts served by Comcast and USWorst? Call them and ask what you can get. They bought your state senator so they should know how much you need to pay to compensate them for that service.

Move to Tacoma. They get a symmetrical 10Mbps with Click! and I hear the service is great. Me, I'm moving to Shelton.

Comcast and Qwest own Seattle. It will not get better there. Ever.

Welcome to slashdot

[symbolset]

The first thing you need to know is that all of the major interests have blog centers where they monitor /. all day. Posts like yours that involve actual people involved with the issues at hand get modded down as a matter of course. That means you lose Karma, and your subsequent posts matter less as a matter of course.

Don't give up. It's a useful forum.

That said, give it up. Unless you live within a reasonable distance from a peering point you're not going to get a fair price for good bandwidth in Seattle. If you are lucky enough to be within line-of-sight I might be able to help you hook up a wireless connect. It'll cost you too, but it'll be worth it in the long run.

Re:Owning your fiber is great, till something brea

[Solandri]

I have been shocked while wiring internal DSL into a hotel when someone called that number. It's definitely not pleasant, but it's pretty low current so doesn't do much damage (about 20 mA max, fatal level is 100-200 mA). It'll leave your fingers tingling and maybe numb for a minute, but that's about it. I wouldn't really call it dangerous, unless you're doing something stupid like stripping live phone wires with your teeth. That could make you bite your tongue tip off.

What?

[underpenguin]

What, Net Neutrality isn't a real problem? Capitalism works? What? Go ahead and mod me republican.

European model

[vidarh]

Most European countries have implented EU directives to enforce telecoms competition by allowing some form of "local loop unbundling". What that means in the UK as an example (since it's one I know well) is that BT, which was the incumbent telco and thus owned the last mile, has been forced into separating it's line maintenance and local exchange maintenance from it's retail arm.

Consumer still have to pay a basic line rental for the physical connection that covers BTs costs for them, but ANYONE that is willing to fulfill certain minimum criteria can sell services to any of these customers and choose between two options: a) placing equipment in the local exchange for a fee intended to cover cost + a profit margin that is restricted (i.e. BT can't make more than X% profit on it - don't know what X is), b) paying BT for "backhaul" services via BT's network to a specific exchange point.

This achieves most of the effect of owning your own last mile, while at the same time it is far less hassle for consumers and it allows the competition to compete on what type of services they offer. BT's maximum DSL product is 8Mbps, for example, while some of their competition offers 24Mbps.

The only thing missing is a mechanism for requiring BT to offer fibre upgrades (currently they have a vested interest in NOT doing it, since they lag so far behind the competition in what they offer already). One way might be to use compulsory purchase orders (UK version of eminent domain) to threaten to take away the exchanges if they don't step up, and then award maintenance / development contracts to whoever presents the best plans. After all this infrastructure was built with taxpayer money to start with.

It's been done before

[thepacketmaster]

This was done in a suburb of Toronto (called Milton) back in 2000. The only problem is that they installed the fiber and had people living in the subdivision before it was finished. Less-than-careful construction workers kept running over the fiber juction boxes or cutting lines, and because of the repair costs they junked the whole network. Too bad though, because the link was blazing fast even by today's standards.

Bell System was broken up along the wrong lines

[IGnatius T Foobar]

I've always maintained that the Bell System was broken up along the wrong lines. Regardless of whether you're talking copper or fiber, an ILEC should be allowed to do nothing other than provide that copper or fiber from your home or business to their central office. They shouldn't be allowed to provide any services. The central office then becomes a colocation facility, where CLEC's then offer voice, data, video, or whatever. It's the perfect solution, really.

And backhoes come with a guarantee !

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

That they'll cut 10 other customers' lines to have one new one !

"Great for the economy".

Not that I haven't got 10 other questions about this, first and foremost being "who owns the 'peering point'" (the incumbent telco ?) ??? (I imagine I'd want a local fiber switch there, would that be possible ?)

Re:wireless

[compro01]

Which you do you wish to bank your infrastructure on? Technology which is available RIGHT NOW and performs better or technology which will be developed at some undefined point in the future and will perform only adequately?

In Sweden this is common

[canibull]

This is common practice in Sweden. Fiber is usualy laid out together with remote water heating pipes, the homeowner can then choose to pay something like $800-$1000 for blowing the fiber into the house, this has nothing to do with any providers so we're free to choose from any availiable provider in the network. My brother did this a few weeks ago and it took about two weeks from ordering it to get it installed and online. My uncle who lives in the countryside of Umeå has had fiber now for more than 5 years.