Is Google Fiber a model for Municipal Networks?

Sun Feb 3 22:01:53 UTC 2013

On Sun, Feb 3, 2013 at 4:52 PM, Leo Bicknell <bicknell at ufp.org> wrote:

>
> I've been searching for a few days on information about Google
> Fiber's Kansas City deployment.  While I wouldn't call Google
> secretive in this particular case, they haven't been very outgoing
> on some of the technologies.  Based on the equipment they have deployed
> there is speculation they are doing both GPON and active thernet
> (point2point).
>
> I found this presentation:
>
> http://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrusted_dlcp/research.google.com/en/us/pubs/archive/36936.pdf
>
> Its active ethernet.  They looked at PON but ultimately rejected it since
it fell below their speed goals (can't do gig connections on any flavor of
PON today).

Here is the architecture document:
http://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrusted_dlcp/research.google.com/en/us/pubs/archive/36936.pdf

> It has a very good summary of the tradeoffs we've been discussing
> regarding home run fibers with active ethernet compared with GPON,
> including costs of the eletronics compared to trenching, the space
> required in the CO, and many of the other issues we've touched on
> so far.
>
> Here's an article with some economics from several different
> deployments:
> http://fastnetnews.com/fiber-news/175-d/4835-fiber-economics-quick-and-dirty
>
> Looks like $500-$700 in capex per residence is the current gold
> standard.  Note that the major factor is the take rate; if there are two
> providers doing FTTH they are both going to max at about a 50% take
> rate.  By having one provider, a 70-80% take rate can be driven.
>
> Even with us a 4%, 10 year government bond, a muni network could finance
> out a $700/prem build for $7.09 per month!  Add in some overhead and
> there's no reason a muni-network couldn't lease FTTH on a cost recovery
> bases to all takers for $10-$12 a month (no Internet or other services
> included).
>
> Anyone know of more info about the Google Fiber deployment?
>

The biggest factor that Google has going for them is they are their own
gear manufacturer, both the in home stuff and the access network.  They
invited several manufacturers to test but then sent them all packing.  They
are doing a ring (actually several rings) of Ethernet with nodes that then
connect down to the neighborhood level.

>
> --
>        Leo Bicknell - bicknell at ufp.org - CCIE 3440
>         PGP keys at http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/
>

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