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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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
They're using their grammar skills there.
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.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
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?
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.