Muni network ownership and the Fourth

Wed Jan 30 21:01:50 UTC 2013

Although not technically private, this is where we see ourselves getting to if a good competitive environment fosters from the construction of the infrastructure. Again, we can't abandon our citizens to a one provider monopoly, but if a true competitive environment arose we would be quite content to sell last mile at a set price to anyone that wanted to provide services across that last mile and use those funds to maintain and upgrade said infrastructure as required going forward.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Owen DeLong" <owen at delong.com>
To: "Jason Baugher" <jason at thebaughers.com>
Cc: "NANOG" <nanog at nanog.org>
Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2013 3:49:38 PM
Subject: Re: Muni network ownership and the Fourth

On Jan 30, 2013, at 6:33 AM, Jason Baugher <jason at thebaughers.com> wrote:

> There is much talk of how many fibers can fit in a duct, can be brought
> into a colo space, etc... I haven't seen much mention of how much space the
> termination in the colo would take, such as splice trays, bulkheads, etc...
> Someone earlier mentioned being able to have millions of fibers coming
> through a vault, which is true assuming they are just passing through the
> vault. When you need to break into one of those 864-fiber cables, the room
> for splice cases suddenly becomes a problem.
> 
> The other thing I find interesting about this entire thread is the
> assumption by most that a government entity would do a good job as a
> layer-1 or -2 provider and would be more efficient than a private company.
> Governments, including municipalities, are notorious for corruption, fraud,
> waste - you name it. Even when government bids out projects to the private
> sector these problems are seen.

I now this is a popular refrain, but in reality, it's not all that accurate.

I have no problem with allowing L1/L2 to be done by private enterprise, so
long as said private enterprises are required to abide by the following rules:

1.	They are not allowed to sell L3+ services.
2.	They are not allowed to own any portion of any L3+ service provider.
3.	They must sell their L1/L2 services to any L3+ service provider on
	equal terms.

Owen