Greenfield Access Network

Thu Jul 31 17:18:30 UTC 2014

On Thu, Jul 31, 2014 at 9:23 AM, Colton Conor <colton.conor at gmail.com> wrote:
> If a new operator or city is building a greenfield access network from the
> ground up,

Hi Colton,

We just had a long discussion in this forum to the effect that if a
city builds a greenfield access network, it would be best limited to
"layer 1" services. That is, deliver dark fiber and invite as many
service providers as possible to light it with whatever services
they're inclined to sell. Commercially, the L1 infrastructure presents
the barrier to entry. That's why you don't have enough competitive
commercial entities mooting the need to even discuss providing
Internet as a municipal service. Even the smallest city is attractive
to competitive commercial service providers when they can lease
in-place L1 infrastructure ad hoc.

This isn't as sexy as delivering gigabit Internet in the way roads
aren't as sexy as the cars which drive on them but it relieves the
city of having to make most of the hard-to-get-right decisions that
could tank your effort and turn it into a boondoggle. Let commercial
entities worry about what car will be popular next year and let
commercial entities figure out which stores folks will drive those
cars to. Just worry about where to build roads.

On Thu, Jul 31, 2014 at 12:24 PM, Roland Dobbins <rdobbins at arbor.net> wrote:
> I'm not criticizing you; I'm just trying to make the point that instead
> of concentrating on vendors and technologies and hardware and
> software, it's better to concentrate on *people* who have the
> requisite experience and expertise, and go from there.

This. So much this.

Regards,
Bill Herrin

-- 
William Herrin ................ herrin at dirtside.com  bill at herrin.us
Owner, Dirtside Systems ......... Web: <http://www.dirtside.com/>
Can I solve your unusual networking challenges?