RE: Free access to measurement network

["Naslund, Steve" <SNaslund () medline com>]

  That must be recent change then because last time I looked RLECs are pretty well protected from CLEC competition.  
That was the original telecom act difference between CLECs and RLECs.  Their argument was that it was so hard to be 
economically viable in low density areas that they deserved to have exclusive access to their infrastructure.  However 
the biggest thing stopping a CLEC from building in a ROW is economics.  The RLEC wouldn't even be there without all of 
the government subsidies they got to build in the first place.  

I think the market has already spoken pretty resoundingly about building out infrastructure as a CLEC.  You would have 
to step over all of the corpses on your way to doing so.  In fact,  I can’t off the top of my head think of a single 
CLEC that has widespread coverage over their own infrastructure.  They almost universally use the ILEC infrastructure 
for last mile.  Even the giants like Level 3 are pretty much unavailable unless you are in the heart of the NFL sized 
city.  As far as rural wireless, we have found very few options in any of the markets we have looked into.  The same 
density issues that prevent high quality cellular build outs also applies to WISPs.  In the rural area the WISP still 
needs backhaul and antenna infrastructure.  The lack of national scale WISPs tells me that model is not going to be 
viable at scale.  Too much infrastructure for too few customers is the common killer of CLECs and WISPs.  The biggest 
WISPs I know of are mostly urban as alternatives to the ILEC infrastructure not in rural areas and are used mostly as 
backup providers.

Most facilities based DSL providers (i.e. equipment collocated with the ILECs) died quite some time ago.  There were 
lots of them in the 1999 - 2005 timeframe and they are all dead now.  You just can't compete with the ILEC cost model.

I think the only model that would possibly bring out any viable competition in the last mile would be municipality 
owned infrastructure.  The problem with that model is the municipalities love to offer exclusive contracts instead of 
an open infrastructure because they get the big payday.

Steven Naslund
Chicago IL


> -----Original Message-----
> From: NANOG [mailto:nanog-bounces () nanog org] On Behalf Of Mike Hammett
> Sent: Monday, December 18, 2017 10:43 AM
> Cc: nanog () nanog org
> Subject: Re: Free access to measurement network
>
> There's nothing stopping you from using CLEC status to build in the ROW of an RLEC area. 
>
> Fixed wireless is the most cost effective way to deploy in rural environments, other than at some point ultra rural, 
> satellite takes over. That's kinda what WISPs have been doing for 20 years. 
>
> So don't own cable. Build fiber. There's nothing stopping you from doing that. 
>
> If you're going CLEC and using the ILEC's copper, go bigger. Most of the big ILECs are still rolling with sub 10 
> megabit speeds. I know some CLECs doing ADSL2+, VDSL, etc. Not as wide-reaching, no, but it's something and generates 
> ?>revenue while you build your own plant. 
>
>
>
>
> ----- 
> Mike Hammett 
> Intelligent Computing Solutions 
>
> Midwest Internet Exchange 
>
> The Brothers WISP