Muni fiber: L1 or L2?

Sun Feb 3 01:16:41 UTC 2013

----- Original Message -----
> From: "Scott Helms" <khelms at zcorum.com>

> Owen
> I think the confusion I have is that you seem to want to create solutions
> for problems that have already been solved. There is no cost effective
> method of sharing a network at layer 1 since DWDM is expensive and requires
> compatible gear on both sides and no one has enough fiber (nor is cheap
> enough in brand new builds) to simply home run every home and maintain
> that.

That's my fundamental design assumption, and you're the first person to 
throw a flag on it.  I'm hearing $700 per passing and $600 per sub; those
seem sustainable numbers for a 30 year service life amortization.

I'm not yet 100% clear if that's layer 1 only or layer 2 agg as well.

[ And note that for me, it's practical; most everyone else is merely
along for the ride. ]

>       ISPs that would want to use the shared network in general (>95%
> in my experience) don't want to maintain the access gear and since there
> is no clear way to delineate responsibilities when there is an issue its
> hard.

You're talking about what I'm calling L2 clients.  If layer 2 falls over
it's my fault, and believe me, I'll know about it.

> The long and short of it is lots of people have tried to L1 sharing
> and its
> not economical and nothing I've seen here or elsewhere changes that.

You just changed gears again, no?

I'm not trying to share L1 *drops*.  I'm trying to make it possible 
to share *the entire L1 deployment between providers*, a drop at a time.

> The thing you have to remember is that muni networks have to be cost
> effective
> and that's not just the capital costs. The operational cost in the long
> term is much greater than the cost of initial gear and fiber install.

Depends on what you're trying to do.  But yes, I do know the difference
between CAPEX and OPEX.

Cheers,
-- jra
-- 
Jay R. Ashworth                  Baylink                       jra at baylink.com
Designer                     The Things I Think                       RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates     http://baylink.pitas.com         2000 Land Rover DII
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