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

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