Muni fiber: L1 or L2?

Fri Feb 1 01:08:07 UTC 2013

> 1.      Must sell dark fiber to any purchaser.
> 2.      Must sell dark fiber to all purchasers on equal terms.
>         (There must be a published price list and there cannot be deviations
>         from that price list. If the price list is modified, existing customers
>         receive the new pricing at the beginning of their next billing cycle.)
> 3.      May provide value-added L2 services
> 4.      If L2 services are provided, they are also subject to rule 2.
> 5.      May not sell L3 or higher level services.
> 6.      May not hold ownership or build any form of alliance or affiliation with
>         a provider of L3 or higher level services.

I think rule #3 is the kind of thing that sounds like a good idea, but
ends up being abused in practice.

My personal view is that you really want that separation in place.
You don't want a situation where the dark fiber provider gives
priority to their L2 outages and get's around to their competitors
later.

Businesses are in the business of profit.  Nothing wrong with that,
but if you want it to be a fair playing field you need to avoid this
kind of conflict of interest.

We've seen the same behavior with ILECs and small ISPs.  They were
required to open up their network to competing ISPs, but did
everything they could to make it as difficult as possible.  You really
want to create a situation where that temptation isn't even there.

We've also seen that when left up to the private sector even last-mile
solutions suffer from the same cherry-picking of "profitable"
locations to service: example would be an apartment complex having
fiber delivered vs. a house next door not having fiber delivered.  You
can't really blame the private sector for it, but if you want the idea
of FTTH to be a universal service, you really need to apply the public
utility model to it.

P.S.Fletcher Kittredge is the "private" side of the public-private
partnership that made Maine Fiber Company possible and deserves at
least 50% of the credit if not more (Google him).  Great to see him
on-list.

P.P.S. I should also note that my boss, Jeff, would be the "public"
side of that, and he isn't quite on board with my position on
extending FTTH as a public utility.  He still has faith in the private
sector to take care of it.  ;-)  I mostly stand on the sidelines and
provide commentary, I'm not suited for the level of political
involvement it actually takes to make the magic happen.

-- 
Ray Patrick Soucy
Network Engineer
University of Maine System

T: 207-561-3526
F: 207-561-3531

MaineREN, Maine's Research and Education Network
www.maineren.net