----- Original Message ----- > From: "Stephen Sprunk" <step...@sprunk.org>
> Sure, almost nobody asks for dark fiber today because they know it costs > several orders of magnitude more than a T1 or whatever. However, if the > price for dark fiber were the same (or lower), latent demand would > materialize. Why would I pay through the nose for a T1 when I can light > the fiber myself with 10GE for $20/mo? This was part of my argument, yes. h And it even occurred to me over the weekend that this will reduce the engineering charges to get me onto the already-built backbone loops: They don't need to build to my *CO*, just to a splice at the edge of my city, and *I* can backhaul the uplinks in myself. > What you're missing is that in this model, _every_ connection is L1 from > the fiber owner's perspective. Let service providers worry about L2 and > above. In fairness to Scott, he didn't *miss* it, he simply has his "feasible" slider set to a different place than I/we do. > Why would the ISP "have to build and maintain a lot of > infrastructure"? > All they need is a fiber-capable Ethernet switch in a colo to turn up > their first customer. That's a lot simpler than trying to turn up > their first customer via an ILEC's DSLAM, for instance. Well, that means *they have to build out in my city*; I can't aggregate L1 and backhaul it to them. > There's nothing wrong with the muni operating a L2 (or even L3) carrier > of last resort, just to ensure that _some_ useful service is available > to residents. However, it should (a) be priced high enough to attract > competitors and (b) be a distinct entity, treated by the fiber arm as > no different from any other L1 customer. None of the shenanigans like the > ILECs play, where the wholesale rate to competitors is higher than the > retail rate for the ILEC's own service. That's true at L3, but at L2, my goal is to encourage *much smaller* ISPs (like the one I used to engineer in 1996, Centurion Technologies; we were profitable with about 400 dialup customers into a 40 and a 20 modem dialup bank backhauled by 512kb/s *and I would come to your house and make it work if I had to*. :-). By having the city run L2 over our L1, we can accomplish that; unlike L3, I don't believe it actually needs to be a separate company; I expect most ISP business to be at L2; L1 is mostly an accomodation to potential larger ISPs who want to do it all themselves. Or FiOS. :-) > You're missing the simplicity of dark fiber. The carrier orders a L1 > circuit from a customer to their facility. The L1 provider just patches > one fiber pair to another fiber pair, which can be done by a trained > monkey. Then the carrier connects their own equipment to the fiber at > their own facility and at the customer site, everything lights up and > the spice^Wdata flows. Again, that can be done by a trained monkey. > You don't need a CCIE or even a CCNA to do this. Heck, it's even > simpler than what's required today for DSL, cable or satellite > installers. Scott asserts that it's not that easy In The Real World; it remains to be seen whether he's right. > (Note that inside wiring is a completely separate issue, and carriers > _will_ have to train techs on how to do that since few are familiar with > fiber, but that is an optional service they can charge extra for. The > L1 provider's responsibility ends at the NIU on an outside wall, same > as an ILEC's, so it's not their problem in the first place.) The L2 might end there, too, if I decide on outside ONTs, rather than an optical jackblock inside. Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth Baylink j...@baylink.com Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100 Ashworth & Associates http://baylink.pitas.com 2000 Land Rover DII St Petersburg FL USA #natog +1 727 647 1274
