Starting a greenfield carrier backbone network that can scale to national and international service. What would you do?

Fri Apr 4 14:08:32 UTC 2014

On 4/3/14, 4:52 PM, charles at thefnf.org wrote:
> Hello everyone,
>
> It's been some time since I've been subscribed/replied/posted here (or 
> on WISPA for that matter). I've been pretty busy running a non profit 
> startup (protip: don't do that. It's really really terrible) :) I'm 
> cofounder and CTO of the Free Networking Foundation. Our goal is to 
> bring broadband (5 mbps symmetric to start) bandwidth to the 2/3 of 
> Americans who currently can't get it (rural, urban core, undeserved, 
> "$ILEC stops on otherside of street" etc).
>
>
> Please feel free to visit us at https://www.thefnf.org for more 
> information.
>
I'm equally confused.   Last mile is much more of a problem than 
backbone.   I run a (for a WISP) mid size end user network.  Raw 
bandwidth cost is <8% of our expenses.  Last mile delivery and transport 
around our own network is the expensive part.

Nearly all of the action in new last mile networks is wireless or small 
provider FTTx deployments.   I would look at what WISPA (www.wispa.org) 
is doing, as well at the FTTH council (www.ftthcouncil.com) to see what 
is being done in last mile.   The FCC and Agriculture departments is 
also heavily involved in rural and last mile deployments and is 
(depending on your view) either funding these deployments, distorting 
the markets by discouraging private investment, or wasting lots of money.

Mark

-- 
Mark Radabaugh
Amplex

mark at amplex.net  419.837.5015 x 1021