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Posted on 10.16.06
News.com has published an updated version of their municipal broadband projects map, including FTTH. A description for each state lists the FTTH projects. Filed under: Uncategorized and Municipal Broadband Comments: None |
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Posted on 10.09.06
The city of Wilson, North Carolina USA is proposing to build a $27.7 million FTTP network. EMBARQ which sells local telehone service in the area claims that, according to North Carolina legislation, this municipal network could be illegal. Pro and con arguments and advantages of FTTP are presented in this article. Filed under: Regulatory Environment and Municipal Broadband Comments: None |
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Posted on 10.09.06
According to Jim Baller, widely considered the top municipal broadband legal advocate, the regulatory environmnent is beginning to look more positive for municipal broadband. Verizon and AT&T are taking a less combative approach and legal cases have been won recently. Also, "According to Render Vanderslice & Associates, municipalities and utilities serve 7% of the fiber-to-the-premises subscribers in North America today." Filed under: Uncategorized and Regulatory Environment and Municipal Broadband Comments: None |
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Posted on 10.04.06
The Salt Lake City Weekly has published an article on UTOPIA Utah Telecommunications Open Infrastructure Agency, the city-backed network that plans to run fiber-optic cable to every home and business in 14 participating communities. Currently, UTOPIA has passed 44,000 homes and has 5100 subscribers. Also, a new $180 million loan has been arranged and the number of subscribers is expected to substantially incerase in the next year. Filed under: Municipal Broadband Comments: None |
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Posted on 09.25.06
Very informative article in Lightwave on the direction of European FTTH focusing mostly on municipal deployment. According to the article, the regulatory and competitive environment makes it unfavorable for carriers to build their own fiber access networks. Instead the carriers are actively encouraging municipalities to do the buildout and then lease capacity on the "open" FTTH networks. Also the religius battles on GPON vs. EPON vs. Active Ethernet are touched upon, with Active Ethernet and GPON taking the lead. An interesting observation from the article: For his part, Rao believes incumbent providers like France Telcom should consider FTTH for more than just the obvious bandwidth benefit. “When you have such short loops, there is, with the potential of fiber, the possibility to actually consolidate your offices,” he says. “It is theoretically possible with the capabilities of PON to actually remove a number of central offices and just have a very centralized function and save some serious money. That’s a good driver for PON.” Filed under: Regulatory Environment and Municipal Broadband Comments: None |
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Posted on 08.30.06
28 vendors responded to recent Seattle request for proposals for a citywide municipal broadband network. The task force has narrowed the list to 11 vendors: ACI Communications, Bechtel Telecommunications, Ericsson, iTown Communications, Lucent Technologies, NextNet Investments, PacketFront, Qwest, US MetroNets, Verizon Business and Vulcan. Whats even more notable is the list of vendors who were cut: Motorola, Fujitsu, Kirkland-based Clearwire and Seattle-based AboveNet (since Motorola has both wireless and fiber access technologies at its disposal). Also an interesting paragraph in the Seattle Times article on Qwest, in incumbent telco for the area: Qwest said it had experience deploying fiber to provide video in some cities. But Qwest, which has been questioned by the city over whether it has the financial means to deploy fiber, said to participate it needs to be "reasonably certain that it will be able to earn a reasonable return on its investment." From the tone of the article it appears that the Seattle network will be mostly if not all fiber. Filed under: Municipal Broadband Comments: 1 Comment |
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Posted on 08.22.06
After a long delay, the city of San Francisco, California has hired Maryland-based Columbia Telecommunications Corp. (CTC) to devise a plan for a municipal fiber optic network to be built concurrently with a sewer system overhaul. This plan will either be implemented with or instead of a municipal wireless network. Filed under: Municipal Broadband Comments: 3 Comments |
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Posted on 08.20.06
Residents of Clarksville, Tennessee are set to vote on a referendum for the local utility Clarksville Department of Electricity to build a residential FTTH network. Here are the details: CDE will eventually connect all of its 51,500 customers to a fiber-optic network. About 125 miles of fiber optics have been installed in Clarksville, of which Spradlin said city and county government offices are taking advantage. Another 685 miles of fiber lines will be needed to serve every CDE customer. The network would allow CDE to offer cable television, on-demand video, video conferencing, community-access channels and high-speed Internet.
Filed under: Municipal Broadband Comments: None |
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Posted on 08.20.06
This exhaustive Lightreading report profiles TRE-FOR, a Danish utility with 300,000 customers that is rolling out FTTH. Applications and infrastructure are kept separate (as opposed to Verizon and others). The report has the following sections:
Filed under: Municipal Broadband Comments: None |
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Posted on 08.03.06
Many municipalities are debating whether to install the "quick and cheap" Wi-Fi municpal broadband solution or the "long term and expensive" fiber to the home solution to improve residents lives and increase business competitiveness. Here’s a couple of recent articles that tackle this issue: and a quote from the first article: Fiber to the home is infinitely preferable to Wi-Fi to the home, and I can get executives off the record in every kind of wire and wireless industry to admit that. However, the cost is so prohibitive, that Wi-Fi becomes a “best worst” alternative.Filed under: Municipal Broadband Comments: None |
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Posted on 07.23.06
The European Commission has banned the Dutch town of Appingedam from bulding its own fiber optic access network. The reason stated is as follows: Appingedam is "already served by broadband networks and the Commission considered that the aid was not necessary to remedy either a market failure or unaffordable prices for broadband services." Some insights on what this means to the Amsterdam fiber network or other European municipal fiber networks would be useful. Filed under: Regulatory Environment and Municipal Broadband Comments: 1 Comment |
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Posted on 07.07.06
Robert X. Cringely, noted author, and pbs.org columnist comments on a proposal put forth by Bill St. Arnaud, senior director of advanced networks with CANARIE (Canadian high speed Internet research organization) for homeowners to form cooperatives and own the last mile of fiber to their homes. Providers would then compete for the connection to the cooperatives. Advantages of this would be the breaking of the last mile monopoly or duopoly (and all that this entails) and improved bit rates. This proposal would take things a bit further from the municipal broadband model where municipalities own the "last mile". The end game with this is each subscriber owning connections to multiple service providers and choosing the provider with the best deal. This is accomplished with an approach called reverse PON, which was also proposed by Bill St. Arnaud. I assume there is an ideal granularity level for subscriber control and choice. Comments are welcome. Filed under: Technology and Municipal Broadband Comments: None |
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Posted on 07.03.06
Recently Dynamic City the consultancy that worked with the UTOPIA project in Utah was comissioned to write a feasability report on building a FTTP network for 14 communities in the Taconite Tax Relief Area in Northern Minnesota. Dynamic City came back with a price tag of $70 million, after which it was promptly sent back to the drawing board to possibly include incumbent carriers in the plan. Read more about the debate here. Filed under: Municipal Broadband Comments: None |
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Posted on 06.28.06
The city of Klamath Falls, Oregon has approved an ordinance allowing Lightspeed Networks to expand its fiber reach to the municipality. Quoting from the article: Earlier this month, LS Networks announced the completion of yet another segment its fiber-optic network, bringing the company’s total fiber miles to 2,250 miles. The carrier’s SONET network includes more than 45 switches and DWDM/SONET/Ethernet routers and 43 points-of-presence (PoPs) and reaches nearly 75% of Oregon’s business addresses in 26 cities. It is not clear form the article whether an access network will also be built or just a poiny-of-presence. Filed under: Municipal Broadband Comments: None |
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Posted on 06.27.06
More details on the hoops that Verizon has to jump through to win Cable TV franchises for its Fios FTTP service. Here’s a quote: Under the agreement with the county, Verizon will pay the county between $2 million and $5 million over 15 years, depending on its subscriber numbers…Verizon agreed to serve areas with at least 30 homes per mile within the first seven years. After that, the company must serve areas with at least 20 homes per mile….In addition, the agreement contains provisions for four public, educational and governmental access channels; a $22,000 commitment to the city; and cable service to public schools and to certain government buildings at no cost. Interestingly in one of Andrew Schmitt’s posts detailing Verizon cable TV franchise negotiations in Winchester, MA, Verizon refused to "compensate" the municipality for $20,000 in legal fees, even though for Oldsmar, Fla. there was a "$22,000 commitment to the city". Filed under: Municipal Broadband Comments: None |
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Posted on 06.20.06
iProvo, in Provo, Utah was one of the first municipal FTTH projects in the US. The buildout is nearly complete and now the city’s goal is to have 10,000 subscribers. Currently, there are 6053 subscribers. This article talks about the municipal bonds and interdepartmental loans that the city must carry out in order to finance the project. At the moment, the mood is "cautiously optimistic". Filed under: Municipal Broadband Comments: None |
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Posted on 06.12.06
Frequent FTTHblog commenter and venture capitalist Andrew Schmitt sat in on and blogged a Winchester, MA town meeting during which the granting of a cable TV franchise license to Verizon (Fios FTTH) was discussed. Ultimately the decision was postponed over who pays $20,000 in legal fees. In addition to a peek into what goes on during 1000’s of similar negotiations that Verizon is engaged in accross the country, some interesting financial details about a cable TV franchise agreement were given: Financial aspects. 14 year license. 15 years is the max. License will be re-negotiated when Comcast’s expires – both expire at same time. VZ has an option to pull out early in some MA franchises, but not Winchester. Must provide free service to public buildings. Access fee is 5% of revenues, the max allowed in the state. Public Educational Grant (PEG) of $210k, $100k up front, $50k 3 years, $60k 6 years from now. All goes to WinCAM. They also get 2 channels, a third if they need it. Filed under: Municipal Broadband Comments: None |
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Posted on 06.11.06
Illinois cities of Geneva, St. Charles, & Batavia have put proposals for building fiber-based municipal broadband networks to the ballot twice, and were voted down both times. Now at&t wants to extend its Project Lightspeed FTTN network to these communities and offer IPTV service without applying for a cable franchise license. The cities have imposed a 180 day moratorium on network construction and at&t is countersuing. This interview with Peter Collins, the Information Systems Manager of Geneva, Illinois details the municipalities’ side of the story. Filed under: Municipal Broadband Comments: None |
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Posted on 05.30.06
A post in Broadband Reports details MSO Comcast’s efforts to oppose the Nashville municipal fiber network: "David Buhler was one of the city councilmen that voted against Salt Lake City participating in the UTOPIA fiber project…is spotted in Nashville speaking out against municipal fiber on behalf of Comcast" Filed under: Municipal Broadband Comments: None |
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Posted on 05.23.06
After encountering some controversy with its broadband task force (and here), the City of Seattle, Washington (USA) has issued a Request for Information document for a FTTP network. In many ways the FTTP network that Seattle envisions is similar to the Amsterdam FTTP network in that its open access and private sector companies will run it. Here is a subset of the "desired characteristics": -Competitive Services by Private Sector. The City intends to be an infrastructure partner and does not intend to be a retail service provider or a network operator. -Non Discriminatory Bit Transport. It is vital to the future of the Internet that network owners not discriminate in terms of bit transport or unnecessarily mediate between users and content or application providers. -Open infrastructure. To the extent possible, the City would like to consider an open broadband network architecture that allows for multiple service providers. Filed under: Municipal Broadband Comments: None |
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