more on Public Broadband Hits Political Speedbumps

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Robert J. Berger" <rberger () ibd com>
Date: July 17, 2005 3:38:10 PM EDT
To: Randall <rvh40 () insightbb com>
Cc: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>, Dewayne Hendricks  
<dewayne () warpspeed com>
Subject: Re: [IP] Public Broadband Hits Political Speedbumps


I am personally not against Municipalities that want to attempt to be  
a service provider (i.e. manage and support Layer 2+ services on top  
of a Physical Plant (layer 1).

But I believe that it is much more difficult and more prone to  
failure than just running a Layer 1 service (I.e. Dark Fiber). Dark  
Fiber is primarily a physical deployment and maintenance issue. And  
it does map to the same kinds of  capabilities and economic  
mechanisms as roads/water/sewers/power. You just have to make sure  
that the roads/sewers/power is built and flows. The technology and  
capital costs of the physical layer generally move on the decade scale.

The technology and capital costs, of layer 2+ services move on a 2 -  
4 year cycle and the support and operations costs are something that  
most Municipalities are totally unprepared to handle.

Also if the Municipality is the application layer service provider,  
it can lead to the same problems of monopolization as having an RBOC,  
or CableCo be the monopoly. Less choice and stifling of technical  
innovation. If the Municipality runs it as an open access layer 1  
offering, then innovation and markets can bloom.

Almost all the examples of failed Municipal broadband is where the  
municipality tried to be an end to end service provider.  
Unfortunately, we don't have too many examples of municipalities that  
have tried to do layer 1 only (Stockholm, Sweden is one shining light  
of a positive example though)

On Jul 16, 2005, at 3:14 PM, Randall wrote:


> On Sat, 2005-07-16 at 14:22 -0700, Robert J. Berger wrote:
>
>
>
> > The Municipalities should not be service providers. Lighting the  
> > fiber
> > and delivering content is the right place for competitive,
> > primarily commercial providers. These competitive providers  would
> > gain access to the dark fiber or the routers operated by other
> > competitive service providers who light fiber, collocated at  
> > Municipal
> > Exchange Points where everyone can collocate equipment on a cost  
> > plus,
> > open access basis.
>
> Why should municipalities not be service providers?  Here in Kentucky
> the city of Glasgow owns the CATV provider; they have the lowest cable
> TV rates in the state.  Our third-largest city, Owensboro, owns
> Owensboro Municipal Utilities, which provides electricity, gas, water
> and sewer service at a lower rate than any private providers does to
> other cities in the state.
>
> The city of Louisville owns the Louisville Water Company and the
> Metropolitan Sewer District.  The former company is run on a
> profit-making basis, with the profits being paid as dividends to its
> sole shareholder, the city.   Water is cheaper in Owensboro than in
> Louisville.

---
Robert J. Berger - Internet Bandwidth Development, LLC.
Voice: 408-882-4755 eFax: +1-408-490-2868
PGP Key: http://www.ibd.com/html/rbergerPublic.gpgkey
http://www.ibd.com



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