Re: Muni fiber: L1 or L2?

[Jay Ashworth <jra () baylink com>]

----- Original Message -----
> From: "Stephen Sprunk" <stephen () sprunk org>

> Sure, almost nobody asks for dark fiber today because they know it costs
> several orders of magnitude more than a T1 or whatever. However, if the
> price for dark fiber were the same (or lower), latent demand would
> materialize. Why would I pay through the nose for a T1 when I can light
> the fiber myself with 10GE for $20/mo?

This was part of my argument, yes.
h
And it even occurred to me over the weekend that this will reduce the
engineering charges to get me onto the already-built backbone loops:

They don't need to build to my *CO*, just to a splice at the edge of
my city, and *I* can backhaul the uplinks in myself.

> What you're missing is that in this model, _every_ connection is L1 from
> the fiber owner's perspective. Let service providers worry about L2 and
> above.

In fairness to Scott, he didn't *miss* it, he simply has his "feasible" 
slider set to a different place than I/we do.

> Why would the ISP "have to build and maintain a lot of
> infrastructure"?
> All they need is a fiber-capable Ethernet switch in a colo to turn up
> their first customer. That's a lot simpler than trying to turn up
> their first customer via an ILEC's DSLAM, for instance.

Well, that means *they have to build out in my city*; I can't aggregate
L1 and backhaul it to them.

> There's nothing wrong with  the muni operating a L2 (or even L3) carrier
> of last resort, just to ensure that _some_ useful service is available
> to residents. However, it should (a) be priced high enough to attract
> competitors and (b) be a distinct entity, treated by the fiber arm as
> no different from any other L1 customer. None of the shenanigans like the
> ILECs play, where the wholesale rate to competitors is higher than the
> retail rate for the ILEC's own service.

That's true at L3, but at L2, my goal is to encourage *much smaller* ISPs
(like the one I used to engineer in 1996, Centurion Technologies; we were
profitable with about 400 dialup customers into a 40 and a 20 modem dialup
bank backhauled by 512kb/s *and I would come to your house and make it work
if I had to*.  :-).

By having the city run L2 over our L1, we can accomplish that; unlike L3,
I don't believe it actually needs to be a separate company; I expect
most ISP business to be at L2; L1 is mostly an accomodation to potential
larger ISPs who want to do it all themselves.

Or FiOS.  :-)

> You're missing the simplicity of dark fiber. The carrier orders a L1
> circuit from a customer to their facility. The L1 provider just patches
> one fiber pair to another fiber pair, which can be done by a trained
> monkey. Then the carrier connects their own equipment to the fiber at
> their own facility and at the customer site, everything lights up and
> the spice^Wdata flows. Again, that can be done by a trained monkey.
> You don't need a CCIE or even a CCNA to do this. Heck, it's even
> simpler than what's required today for DSL, cable or satellite
> installers.

Scott asserts that it's not that easy In The Real World; it remains to
be seen whether he's right.

> (Note that inside wiring is a completely separate issue, and carriers
> _will_ have to train techs on how to do that since few are familiar with
> fiber, but that is an optional service they can charge extra for. The
> L1 provider's responsibility ends at the NIU on an outside wall, same
> as an ILEC's, so it's not their problem in the first place.)

The L2 might end there, too, if I decide on outside ONTs, rather than
an optical jackblock inside.

Cheers,
-- jra
-- 
Jay R. Ashworth                  Baylink                       jra () baylink com
Designer                     The Things I Think                       RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates     http://baylink.pitas.com         2000 Land Rover DII
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