Re: Muni network ownership and the Fourth

[Owen DeLong <owen () delong com>]

On Jan 30, 2013, at 1:36 PM, Jean-Francois Mezei <jfmezei_nanog () vaxination ca> wrote:

> On 13-01-30 15:49, Owen DeLong wrote:
>
> > 1.   They are not allowed to sell L3+ services.
> > 2.   They are not allowed to own any portion of any L3+ service provider.
> > 3.   They must sell their L1/L2 services to any L3+ service provider on
> >      equal terms.
>
>
> This is the problem we have in Canada. Despite the CRTC mandating that
> incumbents must wholesale their last mile, the incumbents are always in
> a conflict of interest because they also run their own retail service
> which competes against wholesale ISPs. And the incumbent's own retail
> service do not purchase last mile access at the regulated rates set by
> the CRTC.
>
> So functional separation is a clear requirement to ensure that the
> provider of the last mile as no vested interest in giving preferential
> treatment to one retailer over another.
>
>
> Another aspect which is important: when you wish to foster a competitive
> environment, you have market controlling incumbents and small startup ISPs.
>
> Small startup ISPs cannot afford to deploy fibre to whole neighbourhood
> when they will only have a couple of subscribers there. Having shared
> infrastructure is key to allowing small competitive ISPs to start and grow.
>
> While Australia resisted giving NBN the ability to aggregate traffic
> centrally (so that one ISP could get one connection to NBN and serve the
> nation), Canada moved in a different direction, increasing aggregation
> so that small ISPs can compete in a greater footprint so that even
> smaller towns can get competitive services. (Rogers cable is the last
> problem/sore point of this policy set in 2010 and confirmed/implemented
> in late 2011 - However, the aggregation is still within an incumbent's
> own fooot print. So you need links to Bell for most fo Québec and
> Ontario, links to Telus for Alberta-British Columbia, Rogers to reach
> cable custoemrs in Ontario, Vidéotron for Québec, Shaw for BC/ALTA etc).
>
> So while the Aussie NBN has many points of interconnect, they will
> connect to every home in that area, whereas in Canada, ISPs have cable
> and telco connections which are separate.
>
>
> In the Australian model, if you want to serve 5 customers in a small
> town, you need to setup a gigE link to the MMR in that small town. So it
> is much harder for smaller ISPs to cost justify expansion because break
> even point is far down the road once you have enough customers to
> justify the links to that town.

Seems to me that this will lead to a business of aggregators selling
aggregations of interconnects to the various small towns in AU to
eventually bring that price down.

Owen