Muni fiber: L1 or L2?

Sat Feb 16 11:05:46 UTC 2013

I completely agree with you on this Owen, and we were almost in that situation in the UK but Ofcom backed down for some reason :(

BT, as a state created monopoly, was facing being broken up with the local loop operations being hived off into a completely separate company to give all providers equal access. In the end, BT somehow managed to convince Ofcom to let them keep the local loop operations in-house, on the condition that it was in a strictly controlled child company where Ofcom sets a lot of the prices.

It's a much better situation than we used to have, and it has done a good job of opening up the local loop to competitors, but I can't help but feel that if it had been split off into a completely separate company without BT Group as the parent. At the end of the day, the money still goes into the same group funds and there's still going to be a lot of internal influence from BT in decision making.

One interesting recent development is that OpenReach are opening up their ducts and poles so that other providers can install their own fibre in/on them, but from my reading of the limitation on this it sounds like Active Ethernet (or similar) deployments would be impossible as BT/OpenReach have somehow managed to get Ofcom to agree to prevent any deployments that would threaten their leased line business barred:

> 3.2 The Customer warrants that it will use the Service solely for the deployment in the Access Network of the Customer’s network serving Multiple Premises for the provision to end users of Next Generation Access Services or the deployment in the Access Network of Sub Loop Unbundling backhaul and for no other purpose whatsoever, in particular not for:
> 
> 3.2.1 leased lines for the provision of point to point services offered with the intent or effect of providing private circuit type services;
> 
> 3.2.2 direct connection between two Customer Points of Handover or any other connection which may be regarded as core network; or
> 
> 3.2.3 backhaul services, including fixed or mobile and wireless backhaul services, with the exception of Sub Loop Unbundling backhaul services for fixed traffic (inclusive of Sub Loop Unbundling daisy chain aggregation) to the Local Access Node or Customer Point of Handover.
> 
> as more fully described in the Duct and Pole Sharing Product Description,
> 
> If the Customer uses the Services for any other purposes than for the deployment in accordance with clause 3.2 above, this will be a material breach of this Agreement under clause 2.3 (a) (ii) and BT may also at its sole discretion refuse to accept any Orders for the Service on notice to the Customer until the breach has been rectified.

Of course, IANAL so may be getting that completely backwards :)

Edward Dore 
Freethought Internet 

On 16 Feb 2013, at 01:10, Owen DeLong wrote:

>> 
>> With BT/OpenReach's FTTC and FTTP there's no difference in terms of layer 1 unbundling - it's impossible with either as they are both shared mediums aggregated before the exchange.
>> 
> 
> Which is a classic example of why I say the L1 provider must not be allowed to participate in or act as a related party to the L2+ providers.
> 
> Owen
> 