Muni broadband sucks (was: New minimum speed for US broadband connections)

Thu Jun 3 16:15:33 UTC 2021

In my opinion, if a city is installing a fiber network for other providers to use, they need to plan on active-e only. Let it be up to the providers back at the head end to either plug the individual strands into a switch for active-e or into a splitter for a PON type setup. 

Thank you
Travis Garrison

-----Original Message-----
From: NANOG <nanog-bounces+tgarrison=netviscom.com at nanog.org> On Behalf Of Mikael Abrahamsson via NANOG
Sent: Thursday, June 3, 2021 11:00 AM
To: Masataka Ohta <mohta at necom830.hpcl.titech.ac.jp>
Cc: nanog at nanog.org
Subject: Re: Muni broadband sucks (was: New minimum speed for US broadband connections)

On Fri, 4 Jun 2021, Masataka Ohta wrote:

> As cabling cost is mostly independent of the number of cores in a 
> cable, as long as enough number of cores for single star are provided, 
> which means core cost is mostly cabling cost divided by number of 
> subscribers, single star does not cost so much.
>
> Then, PON, needing large closures for splitters and lengthy drop 
> cables from the closures, costs a lot cancelling small cost of using 
> dedicated cores of single star.
>
> On the other hand, if PON is assumed and the number of cores in a 
> cable is small, core cost for single star will be large and only one 
> PON operator with the largest share (shortest drop cable from closures 
> to, e.g. 8 customers) can survive, resulting in monopoly.

My experience is that people can prove either active-e or pon is the cheapest by changing the in-parameters of the calculation. There are valid concerns/advantages with both and there is no one-size-fits-all.

-- 
Mikael Abrahamsson    email: swmike at swm.pp.se