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

Wed Jan 30 14:24:04 UTC 2013

On Tue, Jan 29, 2013 at 7:39 PM, Jay Ashworth <jra at baylink.com> 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.

As long as they support open peering they can probably operate at
layer 3 without harm. Tough to pitch a muni on spending tax revenue
for something that's not a complete product usable directly by the
taxpayers.

> 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?

Not Road Runner, no. What you've done, if you've done it right, is
returned being an ISP to an ease-of-entry business like it was back in
the dialup days. That's where *small* business plays, offering
customized services where small amounts of high-margin money can be
had meeting needs that a high-volume commodity player can't handle.

Regards,
Bill Herrin

-- 
William D. Herrin ................ herrin at dirtside.com  bill at herrin.us
3005 Crane Dr. ...................... Web: <http://bill.herrin.us/>
Falls Church, VA 22042-3004