Will wholesale-only muni actually bring the boys to your yard?

Wed Jan 30 00:53:11 UTC 2013

On 1/29/2013 4:39 PM, Jay Ashworth wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Jean-Francois Mezei" <jfmezei_nanog at vaxination.ca>
>
>> It is in fact important for a government (municipal, state/privince or
>> federal) to stay at a last mile layer 2 service with no retail
>> offering. Wholesale only.
>>
>> Not only is the last mile competitively neutral because it is not
>> involved in retail, but it them invites competition by allowing many
>> service providers to provide retail services over the last mile
>> network.
>
> This, Jean-Francois, is the assertion I hear relatively frequently.
>
> It rings true to me, in general, and I would go that way... but there is
> a sting in that tail: Can I reasonably expect that Road Runner will in fact
> be technically equipped and inclined to meet me to get my residents as
> subscribers?  Especially if they're already built HFC in much to all of
> my municipality?
>
> Cheers,
> -- jra
>

If there is competition offering next-gen type services, that they can't 
reasonably or more easily offer via their existing HFC plant, then I 
would expect they'd start using the muni network.

I think the biggest factor though, would be cost. If using the muni 
network is cheaper than their own HFC plant, they may actually phase out 
their HFC network over time.

--John