Re: New minimum speed for US broadband connections

[Mike Hammett <nanog () ics-il net>]

Incorporated areas of any kind offer enough density for independents to build fiber themselves. There are hundreds of 
companies doing this, in both small town USA and suburban areas of major cities. 


If {insert major developed area here} doesn't have it yet, ask them what they're doing to make it easier for operators 
to build, what operators they've been talking to, etc. 




----- 
Mike Hammett 
Intelligent Computing Solutions 
http://www.ics-il.com 

Midwest-IX 
http://www.midwest-ix.com 

----- Original Message -----

From: "Christopher Morrow" <morrowc.lists () gmail com> 
To: "Valdis Klētnieks" <valdis.kletnieks () vt edu> 
Cc: "nanog list" <nanog () nanog org> 
Sent: Tuesday, June 1, 2021 8:27:03 PM 
Subject: Re: New minimum speed for US broadband connections 







On Tue, Jun 1, 2021 at 8:48 PM Valdis Klētnieks < valdis.kletnieks () vt edu > wrote: 


On Tue, 01 Jun 2021 10:10:17 -0000, scott said: 
> $10400 / $125 = 84 months or 7 years. 

> On the high side: 14 years. 

Plus ongoing monthly costs that drags out the break-even. 

The big question is how to get a CFO to buy into stuff with a long break-even 
schedule when short-term profits get emphasized. Telcos strung a lot of copper 
when they were assured of multiple decades of returns - and even *then* getting 
it out to rural areas required providing more incentive.... 





(going to be pretty us-centric, sorry 'not use folks', also this isn't about valdis's message directly) 
There's a bunch of discussion which seems to sideline 'most of the population' and then 
the conversation ratholes on talk about folk that are not grouped together closely (living in cities/towns). 
I think this is a good example of: "Perfect is the enemy of the good" in that there are a whole 
bunch, 82% or so[1], of folk live 'in cities' (or near enough) as of 2019. 
If the 'new' standard is 100/100, that'd be perfectly servicable and deployable to 
82% of the population. 


Wouldn't it make sense to either: 
1) not offer subsidies to city-centric deployments (or pro-rate those) 
2) get return on the longer-haul 'not city' deployments via slightly higher costs elsewhere? 
(or shift the subisidies to cover the rural deployments more completely?) 


Yes 'telco' folk will have to play ball, but also they get to keep their 'we do broadband' marketting.. 
Holding back ~80% of the population because you can't sort the other 20% out (or a large portion of that 20%) 
in a sane manner sure seems shortsighted. I get that trenching fiber down 'state-route-foobar' is hard, and costly, 
but throwing up your hand and declaring that 'no one needs XXX mbps' is more than just a little obstructionist. 






1: 
https://www.statista.com/statistics/269967/urbanization-in-the-united-states/#:~:text=The%20statistic%20shows%20the%20degree,in%20cities%20and%20urban%20areas
 .