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'Dig Once' Bill Could Bring Fiber Internet To Much of the US (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: If the U.S. adopts a "dig once" policy, construction workers would install conduits just about any time they build new roads and sidewalks or upgrade existing ones. These conduits are plastic pipes that can house fiber cables. The conduits might be empty when installed, but their presence makes it a lot cheaper and easier to install fiber later, after the road construction is finished. The idea is an old one. U.S. Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) has been proposing dig once legislation since 2009, and it has widespread support from broadband-focused consumer advocacy groups. It has never made it all the way through Congress, but it has bipartisan backing from lawmakers who often disagree on the most controversial broadband policy questions, such as net neutrality and municipal broadband. It even got a boost from Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), who has frequently clashed with Democrats and consumer advocacy groups over broadband -- her "Internet Freedom Act" would wipe out the Federal Communications Commission's net neutrality rules, and she supports state laws that restrict growth of municipal broadband. Blackburn, chair of the House Communications and Technology Subcommittee, put Eshoo's dig once legislation on the agenda for a hearing she held yesterday on broadband deployment and infrastructure. Blackburn's opening statement (PDF) said that dig once is among the policies she's considering to "facilitate the deployment of communications infrastructure." But her statement did not specifically endorse Eshoo's dig once proposal, which was presented only as a discussion draft with no vote scheduled. The subcommittee also considered a discussion draft that would "creat[e] an inventory of federal assets that can be used to attach or install broadband infrastructure." Dig once legislation received specific support from Commerce Committee Chairman Greg Walden (R-Ore.), who said that he is "glad to see Ms. Eshoo's 'Dig Once' bill has made a return this Congress. I think that this is smart policy and will help spur broadband deployment across the country."
Misleading headline. Saying "Dig Once Bill Could Bring Fiber..." implies that there is currently a bill undergoing consideration. The article says that the same guy has been proposing it over and over for 8 years.
You could also say "If US Politicians stopped being twats, it could bring internet to people." Or "If people stopped killing people, the world would be better." Or ...you get the picture.
but who would own this fiber, and will it remain "dark"? There's always rumors and urban legends of tons of installed but unused for one reason or another. Laying more won't help, particularly if its owned by some investor putz intending to charge the Earth to any comm company who'd put it to use.
Anyway, the biggest problem is the last mile, particularly in rural neighborhoods, older neighborhoods, and cities where the roads are already built and too busy and expensive to tear up. That's the excuse Verizon's using for failing to light up New York City.
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Anyone around here here have any practical experience with long runs of conduit in rural areas? I'm all in favor of it if it works. But how do you keep the conduit from filling up with water ... at least in places where it rains now and then?
There is always water in underground conduit. Electrical and communication lines run in underground conduit are required to be sheathed in the same cable jacket as direct burial lines.
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The conduit is capped and sealed as its laid. So there shouldn't be an opening for water to get in. Of course it will get fractures and water will enter it at times but generally if they are laid properly it shouldn't fill with water and if water does get in it will be small in volume. Same for critters. If it's sealing out the water, animals shouldn't get in.
The pipes they use are also flexible so small amounts of movement wont cause them issues. Fault lines? Do your roads slip that often? If you're roads aren't suddenly slipping 2m then the conduit wont break either. Don't forget it's usually laid as part of the road bed.
As for freezing that is only an issue if your ground is actually freezing to a fair depth. How are they currently dealing with that issue with your water pipes? Same methodology.
Laying conduit when laying roads is a solved problem and done in many other countries.
They're talking about conduit, not actual fiber. You apparently didn't read more than the first two sentences, because those conduits would be empty, but make it easier to run fiber in the future.
And, IMHO, it's an issue for the states, not the feds. Communications which enables Interstate Commerce is not itself Interstate Commerce.
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Norway
Mean: 47 Mbit
Median: 27.7 Mbit
People <4 Mbit: 3.9%
People <1 Mbit: 0.5%
People who can't get fiber: 54%
People who can't get 100/10 Mbit: 22%
People who can't get 4 Mbit on a fixed connection: 5%
People who can't get 10 Mbit LTE outdoor w/antenna: 0.06%
I thought maybe the fiber rollout would slow down, but the last stats indicate a speed up going from 41% to 46% in last year. Next year it seems likely a majority of the population can get fiber.
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FYI... they already do this without a law telling them to and have been doing it for years. lt's called Dark Fiber, and I've had a first-hand tech power company tech tell me that.
Now granted, it may not be all/most companies. But the power companies are eager to make money off of selling wires they can lay for almost free, while they're already laying power lines. So it stands to reason that we shouldn't need much of a legislative push to get them to do what's already clearly in their best financial interest.
Laying fiber to the 99% of the USA that's ALREADY paved, however, that's going to be an interesting, less short-term profitable venture.
The issue with a city competing with an incumbent cable provider is one of contracts.
Stop confusing Cable and internet. The municipalities are not competing/wanting to compete with Cable TV providers or violate their contracts by laying their own fiber and providing internet.
The big broadband providers, including cable companies lobbied states to get special laws passed designed to kill the municipal projects.
The cable provider has a franchise that has all sorts of conditions and requirements
No: municipalities are only able to do this for Cable TV Service, the franchise agreements don't apply to other services that the municipalities are not empowered to create a monopoly in for the first place. Telecoms that put in and own fibre optics on the other hand are federally regulated and cannot be franchised by a municipality.
DEEERRRP
Funny thing is that the cities heavily subsidize the rural areas. Rural states would be even more broke than their dumbasses are already without the cities helping them out.
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Yes, this is the model that makes the most sense.
It closely parallels the road system -- government builds the roads, but they don't deploy commercial services on the roads themselves -- ie, they don't get into the taxi business, the delivery business, etc.
I think it's telling and strange that they complain about this. For one, it says that they are less profitable on actual services delivered over the wire because when faced with competition where pricing is solely determined by content and not delivery.
Strange, because I would kind of expect that physical plant maintenance would be expensive. I see Comcast trucks all the time, which assume at least some percentage of involve physical plant work. If a city put in municipal fiber Comcast could connect subscribers to, I would expect that they would be thrilled to dump a shitload of plant maintenance overhead.
And at some point in the future, I would expect both competitors running fiber to the home and signaling limits on coax cable to render coax plants non-competitive, meaning that cable providers are sitting on something of a timebomb of aging infrastructure which will be very costly to upgrade.
I've often wondered if a smarter strategy for cable providers might not be offering to sell their municipal wire plant (coax to the house plus fiber distribution network) to municipalities. The cable company could spin off an independent plant management company which would actually run the plant -- I would expect any municipal plant to be managed under contract by a private entity anyway. The municipality gets an instant network to homes plus fiber distribution without having to do any construction and the cable company unloads a physical plant which will need a long-term investment to remain viable.