Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style

Thu Dec 23 19:17:29 UTC 2010

----- Original Message -----
> From: "John Osmon" <josmon at rigozsaurus.com>

> On Thu, Dec 23, 2010 at 10:17:46AM -0800, Joel Jaeggli wrote:
> [...]
> > The fact that I can get a wavelength to county dump in Eugene OR the
> > composting facility in Palo Alto doesn't really do anything for the
> > residential access market.
> 
> Why not?
> 
> You have to start with connectivity *somewhere*. If the economics work
> out, *someone* will build the residential access market from those
> access points.

Well, I think Joel's real point was that it's not necessarily a given that
just because fiber's being installed by (or under contract to) a city or
other municipality, that it will necessarily be run to *every single premise*
in that municipality.

And of course he's right, but there are lots of good reasons to do it that
way; buildings often change occupancy and purpose, and the dump, of course,
is *run* by the municipality very often, and you want all your official
facilities connected up anyway.  And doing it all as one build probably
makes it easier to finance.

My personal favorite reason to do this is that it *increases the 
property values in the municipality*, an assertion for which I have
no documentary evidence or studies.  :-)  (To clarify there, by "this" 
I mean muni fiber in general, not necessarily passing every premise,
though Metcalfe's Law probably applies here as well...)

Cheers,
-- jra