Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
On Aug 28, 2009, at 7:55 PM, Frank Bulk wrote: I'm not following you here -- which party has the right of first refusal? The incumbent companies (generally, a LEC or cable company) are able to refuse projects and also effectively prevent buildouts and upgrades from being done by a 3rd party. However, I have seen reports that in a few areas, municipalities are starting to win lawsuits against them (in apparently the long appeals process). urban area receives no USF, and is not able to financially justify it even with a dense customer base. That might apply to fiber, but even speed upgrades (Newer DSL services) are apparently subject to the same refusal process, but the rules are different across the country, too. -j
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
On Aug 26, 2009, at 5:00 PM, Roy wrote: I think it has become obvious that the correct definition of broadband depends on the users location. A house in the boonies is not going to get fiber, Perhaps the minimum acceptable bandwidth should vary by area. A definition of area could be some sort of user density Except this is exactly what happened. The players with vested interests were allowed a sort of first refusal on projects. In areas where they had lots of customers, they passed on the projects. So, we find that in urban areas, you can't get fiber in the home, but there are countless rural farms and homes that have fiber just lying around. I have an acquaintance 60 miles from the closest commercial airport in TN, telling me about the fiber internet he has. -j
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
On Aug 27, 2009, at 11:11 PM, Richard Bennett wrote: The background issue is whether satellite-based systems at around 200 Kb/s and high latency can be defined as broadband. Since everyone in America - including the Alaskans - has access to satellite services, defining that level of service as broadband makes the rest of the exercise academic: everyone is served. There's no economic argument for government subsidies to multiple firms in a market, of course. It seems to me that there has to be an element of what can be the hardest thing to obtain in Government, judgement. If I lived on Attu Island in the Aleutians, I would probably consider a 200 Kb/s satellite link as broadband. Where I live in Northern Virginia, I would not. If there isn't some form of judgement about what is suitable and possible in a given area, the results are not likely to be good. Regards Marshall It's more interesting considering that DirecTV is about to launch a new satellite with a couple orders of magnitude more capacity than the existing ones offer. I seem to recall their claiming that the service would then improved to some respectable number of megabits/ sec. Satellite ISPs locate their ground stations in IXP-friendly locations, so there aren't any worries about backhaul or fiber access costs. But to your actual question, under-served is of course quite subjective and cost is clearly part of it. RB Frank Bulk - iName.com wrote: As one of the workshops discussed, does the definition of underserved and unserved include the clause for a reasonable price? If the price is unreasonable, do you think its government money well-spent to subsidize bringing a competitor to a market that couldn't make it before? Or are there perhaps other ways to deal with that pricing issue? Frank -Original Message- From: William Herrin [mailto:herrin-na...@dirtside.com] Sent: Wednesday, August 26, 2009 4:46 PM To: Fred Baker Cc: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband snip Really where they need the swift kick in the tail is in the product tying where you can't buy a high speed connection to J. Random ISP, you can only buy a high speed connection to monopoly provider's in-house ISP. Which means you can only get commodity service since monopoly provider isn't in the business of providing low-dollar custom solutions. But it sounds like that's outside the scope of what Congress has approved. Regards, Bill Herrin -- Richard Bennett Research Fellow Information Technology and Innovation Foundation Washington, DC
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
- Original Message From: James Downs e...@egon.cc Except this is exactly what happened. The players with vested interests were allowed a sort of first refusal on projects. In areas where they had lots of customers, they passed on the projects. So, we find that in urban areas, you can't get fiber in the home, but there are countless rural farms and homes that have fiber just lying around. I have an acquaintance 60 miles from the closest commercial airport in TN, telling me about the fiber internet he has. As an example of the above, Verizon has until 2017 to get FIOS to all of the neighborhoods of Washington DC (http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/stories/2008/11/24/daily8.html). I am envious of many of my suburban-dwelling coworkers and friends who already have it. David Barak Need Geek Rock? Try The Franchise: http://www.listentothefranchise.com
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
The problem is that if you break down the costs, you'll find out that it almost doesn't matter what you put in as a cost of the total build; the big costs are the engineering and the labor to install, not the cost of the NID or anything like that. Nobody cares whether you saved a million bucks on a 2 billion dollar project. One of the cool things about the infrastructure that is now in place (copper pairs) is that it turned out to be relatively future-proof - lots of 50 and 70 year old OSP still in use. In order to get similarly long life out of newly installed fiber assets, the only real solution is home runs to either existing or newly constructed concentration points (not just a box at the side of the road, that's not what I'm talking about here). Distributed splitter designs force forklift upgrades when the Next Big Thing comes along, rather than upgrading the service only for folks who are willing to pay for it. The Next Big Thing is always coming, and 2.4 Gbit/sec down per port GPON is gonna look awfully slow 10 years hence when everyone's demanding gigabit ethernet to the desktop, not to mention 20 years from now with IPv6 multicast of 2000 channels of 4320p pr0n. I used to believe in the FTTC (fiber to the curb) model too - it's the obvious solution. That was before I started cranking the numbers myself, playing with some of the new splicing solutions that are out there that require *far* less finesse than the cam-splice stuff I was using 10 years ago. Now I believe in the other FTTC (fiber to the couch). Get it as far out into the field as you possibly can, right up to, or even inside, the house. -r Jack Bates jba...@brightok.net writes: heh. I've seen 3 different plans for FTTH in 3 different telco's; different engineering firms. All 3 had active devices in the OSP. Apparently they couldn't justify putting more fiber in all the way back to the office. Don't get me wrong. I've heard wonderful drawn out arguments concerning vendors that failed to properly handle Oklahoma summers or draw too much power. Brings up new PRO: active devices in the OSP providing longhaul redundancy on fiber rings Another PRO: simple, inexpensive NID Jack Robert Enger - NANOG wrote: CON: active devices in the OSP. On 8/26/2009 12:06 PM, Jack Bates wrote: jim deleskie wrote: I agree we should all be telling the FCC that broadband is fiber to the home. If we spend all kinds of $$ to build a 1.5M/s connection to homes, it's outdated before we even finish. I disagree. I much prefer fiber to the curb with copper to the home. Of course, I haven't had a need for 100mb/s to the house which I can do on copper, much less need for gigabit. Pro's for copper from curb: 1) power over copper for POTS 2) Majority of cuts occur on customer drops and copper is more resilient to splicing by any monkey. Jack
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
Rob, well put. -jim Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network -Original Message- From: Robert E. Seastrom r...@seastrom.com Date: Fri, 28 Aug 2009 09:29:58 To: Jack Batesjba...@brightok.net Cc: Robert Enger - NANOGna...@enger.us; nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband The problem is that if you break down the costs, you'll find out that it almost doesn't matter what you put in as a cost of the total build; the big costs are the engineering and the labor to install, not the cost of the NID or anything like that. Nobody cares whether you saved a million bucks on a 2 billion dollar project. One of the cool things about the infrastructure that is now in place (copper pairs) is that it turned out to be relatively future-proof - lots of 50 and 70 year old OSP still in use. In order to get similarly long life out of newly installed fiber assets, the only real solution is home runs to either existing or newly constructed concentration points (not just a box at the side of the road, that's not what I'm talking about here). Distributed splitter designs force forklift upgrades when the Next Big Thing comes along, rather than upgrading the service only for folks who are willing to pay for it. The Next Big Thing is always coming, and 2.4 Gbit/sec down per port GPON is gonna look awfully slow 10 years hence when everyone's demanding gigabit ethernet to the desktop, not to mention 20 years from now with IPv6 multicast of 2000 channels of 4320p pr0n. I used to believe in the FTTC (fiber to the curb) model too - it's the obvious solution. That was before I started cranking the numbers myself, playing with some of the new splicing solutions that are out there that require *far* less finesse than the cam-splice stuff I was using 10 years ago. Now I believe in the other FTTC (fiber to the couch). Get it as far out into the field as you possibly can, right up to, or even inside, the house. -r Jack Bates jba...@brightok.net writes: heh. I've seen 3 different plans for FTTH in 3 different telco's; different engineering firms. All 3 had active devices in the OSP. Apparently they couldn't justify putting more fiber in all the way back to the office. Don't get me wrong. I've heard wonderful drawn out arguments concerning vendors that failed to properly handle Oklahoma summers or draw too much power. Brings up new PRO: active devices in the OSP providing longhaul redundancy on fiber rings Another PRO: simple, inexpensive NID Jack Robert Enger - NANOG wrote: CON: active devices in the OSP. On 8/26/2009 12:06 PM, Jack Bates wrote: jim deleskie wrote: I agree we should all be telling the FCC that broadband is fiber to the home. If we spend all kinds of $$ to build a 1.5M/s connection to homes, it's outdated before we even finish. I disagree. I much prefer fiber to the curb with copper to the home. Of course, I haven't had a need for 100mb/s to the house which I can do on copper, much less need for gigabit. Pro's for copper from curb: 1) power over copper for POTS 2) Majority of cuts occur on customer drops and copper is more resilient to splicing by any monkey. Jack
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
Robert E. Seastrom wrote: The problem is that if you break down the costs, you'll find out that it almost doesn't matter what you put in as a cost of the total build; the big costs are the engineering and the labor to install, not the cost of the NID or anything like that. Nobody cares whether you saved a million bucks on a 2 billion dollar project. Errr, I've yet to meet a rural ILEC that doesn't take the cost of the NID splitter vs inline splitters into account. ILECs will argue over a single $1/customer, and rightfully so. The cost of the FTTH NID adds considerably to the price per customer. In addition, it generates additional maintenance costs maintaining batteries. I've yet to hear an ILEC suggest that they not have batteries in the NID to support the voice in power outages. Batteries have shelf lives, and maintaining one per household is definitely more costly than maintaining the batteries to power the remotes. Getting rid of costs, FTTH uses more power, and most of the people I've talked to said we can't feed it from the remotes even via copper mixed with the fiber. This creates issues when we need to provide service. Everyone always badmouth's the whole emergency phone thing, but we take it seriously in the rural areas where power outages are not uncommon, natural disasters are expected, and we are the ONLY utility that continues to function. Jack One of the cool things about the infrastructure that is now in place (copper pairs) is that it turned out to be relatively future-proof - lots of 50 and 70 year old OSP still in use. In order to get similarly long life out of newly installed fiber assets, the only real solution is home runs to either existing or newly constructed concentration points (not just a box at the side of the road, that's not what I'm talking about here). Distributed splitter designs force forklift upgrades when the Next Big Thing comes along, rather than upgrading the service only for folks who are willing to pay for it. The Next Big Thing is always coming, and 2.4 Gbit/sec down per port GPON is gonna look awfully slow 10 years hence when everyone's demanding gigabit ethernet to the desktop, not to mention 20 years from now with IPv6 multicast of 2000 channels of 4320p pr0n. I used to believe in the FTTC (fiber to the curb) model too - it's the obvious solution. That was before I started cranking the numbers myself, playing with some of the new splicing solutions that are out there that require *far* less finesse than the cam-splice stuff I was using 10 years ago. Now I believe in the other FTTC (fiber to the couch). Get it as far out into the field as you possibly can, right up to, or even inside, the house. -r Jack Bates jba...@brightok.net writes: heh. I've seen 3 different plans for FTTH in 3 different telco's; different engineering firms. All 3 had active devices in the OSP. Apparently they couldn't justify putting more fiber in all the way back to the office. Don't get me wrong. I've heard wonderful drawn out arguments concerning vendors that failed to properly handle Oklahoma summers or draw too much power. Brings up new PRO: active devices in the OSP providing longhaul redundancy on fiber rings Another PRO: simple, inexpensive NID Jack Robert Enger - NANOG wrote: CON: active devices in the OSP. On 8/26/2009 12:06 PM, Jack Bates wrote: jim deleskie wrote: I agree we should all be telling the FCC that broadband is fiber to the home. If we spend all kinds of $$ to build a 1.5M/s connection to homes, it's outdated before we even finish. I disagree. I much prefer fiber to the curb with copper to the home. Of course, I haven't had a need for 100mb/s to the house which I can do on copper, much less need for gigabit. Pro's for copper from curb: 1) power over copper for POTS 2) Majority of cuts occur on customer drops and copper is more resilient to splicing by any monkey. Jack
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
Perhaps the most practical service for both broadband and ALWAYS-on voice service is one pair of copper (POTS) and one pair of fiber everything-else per house. Does anyone have a ballpark guess on the incremental cost of a strand-mile (assuming the ditch is going to be dug and the cable put in it, how much does the per-mile cost of the cable go up for each additional strand in it) ? If the fiber pair goes all the way from some reasonably concentrated location to the house, then excessive locations with batteries should not be required. -Dorn On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 9:47 AM, Jack Bates jba...@brightok.net wrote: Robert E. Seastrom wrote: The problem is that if you break down the costs, you'll find out that it almost doesn't matter what you put in as a cost of the total build; the big costs are the engineering and the labor to install, not the cost of the NID or anything like that. Nobody cares whether you saved a million bucks on a 2 billion dollar project. Errr, I've yet to meet a rural ILEC that doesn't take the cost of the NID splitter vs inline splitters into account. ILECs will argue over a single $1/customer, and rightfully so. The cost of the FTTH NID adds considerably to the price per customer. In addition, it generates additional maintenance costs maintaining batteries. I've yet to hear an ILEC suggest that they not have batteries in the NID to support the voice in power outages. Batteries have shelf lives, and maintaining one per household is definitely more costly than maintaining the batteries to power the remotes. Getting rid of costs, FTTH uses more power, and most of the people I've talked to said we can't feed it from the remotes even via copper mixed with the fiber. This creates issues when we need to provide service. Everyone always badmouth's the whole emergency phone thing, but we take it seriously in the rural areas where power outages are not uncommon, natural disasters are expected, and we are the ONLY utility that continues to function. Jack One of the cool things about the infrastructure that is now in place (copper pairs) is that it turned out to be relatively future-proof - lots of 50 and 70 year old OSP still in use. In order to get similarly long life out of newly installed fiber assets, the only real solution is home runs to either existing or newly constructed concentration points (not just a box at the side of the road, that's not what I'm talking about here). Distributed splitter designs force forklift upgrades when the Next Big Thing comes along, rather than upgrading the service only for folks who are willing to pay for it. The Next Big Thing is always coming, and 2.4 Gbit/sec down per port GPON is gonna look awfully slow 10 years hence when everyone's demanding gigabit ethernet to the desktop, not to mention 20 years from now with IPv6 multicast of 2000 channels of 4320p pr0n. I used to believe in the FTTC (fiber to the curb) model too - it's the obvious solution. That was before I started cranking the numbers myself, playing with some of the new splicing solutions that are out there that require *far* less finesse than the cam-splice stuff I was using 10 years ago. Now I believe in the other FTTC (fiber to the couch). Get it as far out into the field as you possibly can, right up to, or even inside, the house. -r Jack Bates jba...@brightok.net writes: heh. I've seen 3 different plans for FTTH in 3 different telco's; different engineering firms. All 3 had active devices in the OSP. Apparently they couldn't justify putting more fiber in all the way back to the office. Don't get me wrong. I've heard wonderful drawn out arguments concerning vendors that failed to properly handle Oklahoma summers or draw too much power. Brings up new PRO: active devices in the OSP providing longhaul redundancy on fiber rings Another PRO: simple, inexpensive NID Jack Robert Enger - NANOG wrote: CON: active devices in the OSP. On 8/26/2009 12:06 PM, Jack Bates wrote: jim deleskie wrote: I agree we should all be telling the FCC that broadband is fiber to the home. If we spend all kinds of $$ to build a 1.5M/s connection to homes, it's outdated before we even finish. I disagree. I much prefer fiber to the curb with copper to the home. Of course, I haven't had a need for 100mb/s to the house which I can do on copper, much less need for gigabit. Pro's for copper from curb: 1) power over copper for POTS 2) Majority of cuts occur on customer drops and copper is more resilient to splicing by any monkey. Jack
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
JC Dill wrote: IMHO the biggest obstacle to defining broadband is figuring out how to describe how it is used in a way that prevents an ILEC from installing it so that only the ILEC can use it. If the customer doesn't have at Oh, that's easy. If the government pays for 90% of the plant cost, I'm sure ILECs would love to share it with everyone else. Until then, put your own plant in. As an added bonus, when you put your own plant in as a CLEC, you can just serve the profitable areas and leave the poor ILEC having to serve the barn 15 miles from the nearest neighbor. Huh? Wait, don't drink anymore of that, guys! We've *already* subsidized the telcos $200 billion for a next generation broadband-capable plant, that was supposed to be LEC-neutral... http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_20070810_002683.html So, we've *already* paid the plant cost, and we've gotten nothing much in return. ... JG -- Joe Greco - sol.net Network Services - Milwaukee, WI - http://www.sol.net We call it the 'one bite at the apple' rule. Give me one chance [and] then I won't contact you again. - Direct Marketing Ass'n position on e-mail spam(CNN) With 24 million small businesses in the US alone, that's way too many apples.
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
On Aug 28, 2009, at 9:47 AM, Jack Bates wrote: Robert E. Seastrom wrote: The problem is that if you break down the costs, you'll find out that it almost doesn't matter what you put in as a cost of the total build; the big costs are the engineering and the labor to install, not the cost of the NID or anything like that. Nobody cares whether you saved a million bucks on a 2 billion dollar project. Errr, I've yet to meet a rural ILEC that doesn't take the cost of the NID splitter vs inline splitters into account. ILECs will argue over a single $1/customer, and rightfully so. The cost of the FTTH NID adds considerably to the price per customer. In addition, it generates additional maintenance costs maintaining batteries. I've yet to hear an ILEC suggest that they not have batteries in the NID to support the voice in power outages. Batteries have shelf lives, and maintaining one per household is definitely more costly than maintaining the batteries to power the remotes. Getting rid of costs, FTTH uses more power, and most of the people I've talked to said we can't feed it from the remotes even via copper mixed with the fiber. This creates issues when we need to provide service. Everyone always badmouth's the whole emergency phone thing, but we take it seriously in the rural areas where power outages are not uncommon, natural disasters are expected, and we are the ONLY utility that continues to function. Before you get too hung up on the emergency phone thing, take a hard look at the present day. The telcos pushed SLC gear out everywhere. Those have batteries, but at least in some areas, no maintenance was done, batteries died, and when the power went out, so did the phones. The SLCs had generator plug-in setups to be used in an emergency, but in any natural disaster, it's unlikely there'd be enough portables deployed and maintained by the telco to keep the multiplexors alive. For myself, I moved my phone service off Verizon to Comcast in part because Comcast service always works through power outages, where Verizon in the last 5 years has always failed. That just means in my neighborhood, Comcast's batteries haven't died yet. If you want to make the emergency phone thing a part of the discussion, then regulations need to exist AND be enforced, and penalties assessed, for failure to provide such during power outages. It's not happening today, so don't expect it in the future either.
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
Joe Greco wrote: We've *already* subsidized the telcos $200 billion for a next generation broadband-capable plant, that was supposed to be LEC-neutral... Yeah, not every telco participated, though the RBOCs sure did. So, we've *already* paid the plant cost, and we've gotten nothing much in return. Looking at just Oklahoma, I'm not sure ATT could get even 200kb to every household for $200b. More interesting, I'd be curious to see how well NSP's could handle the increase in traffic if every house support 45mb of Internet (not local video/voice). I'd love to see some good data on how the average throughput changes as the rates go up, especially with the continued increase of higher bandwidth video. Jack
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
In a message written on Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 09:19:50AM -0500, Jack Bates wrote: Looking at just Oklahoma, I'm not sure ATT could get even 200kb to every household for $200b. For an interesting set of cost comparisons In most locations every home has electrical service. What's the cost per household? Most houses have a statem maintained road in front of them, what is the cost per household? Many (although a lower number) of city water and sewer, what is the cost per household? For a number of reasons I would expect Broadband to be cheaper than any of those, per household; but should definately not exceed any of them in cost. -- Leo Bicknell - bickn...@ufp.org - CCIE 3440 PGP keys at http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/ pgpmvRvM024rg.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
Oh, that's easy. If the government pays for 90% of the plant cost There have been countless times where a local government wanted to install the fiber *themselves*, only to have the ILEC file a lawsuit and/or petition (bribe) the State Legislature to prevent installation. Cheers, Michael Holstein Cleveland State University
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
Daniel Senie wrote: Before you get too hung up on the emergency phone thing, take a hard look at the present day. The telcos pushed SLC gear out everywhere. I'm the network engineer for 12 ILECs. Over the last 10 years, I've seen several major outages ( 48 hours) where voice has been maintained. One ILEC was disappointed in not being able to maintain DSL as well (as DSLAM/SLC was separate). They've since developed a plan to solve that issue and to maintain DSL as well (just for those households that have power/generators themselves). If you want to make the emergency phone thing a part of the discussion, then regulations need to exist AND be enforced, and penalties assessed, for failure to provide such during power outages. It's not happening today, so don't expect it in the future either. That may be. I don't know what RBOCs do. The ILECs here are privately owned companies. They aren't publicly traded. They are a part of their communities. Don't get me wrong, profit is definitely on the top list, but not at the sacrifice of quality and reliability. When your daily life consists of spending time with your customers because it's your community, you do everything you can to protect your name and reputation. A not uncommon statement heard when someone doesn't like the answer given by the helpdesk, I'm friends with the owner. I'm going to call and complain to him/her. Jack
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
Michael Holstein wrote: There have been countless times where a local government wanted to install the fiber *themselves*, only to have the ILEC file a lawsuit and/or petition (bribe) the State Legislature to prevent installation. Out of curiousity, ILEC or RBOC? Have some pointers? Jack
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
Once upon a time, Daniel Senie d...@senie.com said: Before you get too hung up on the emergency phone thing, take a hard look at the present day. The telcos pushed SLC gear out everywhere. Those have batteries, but at least in some areas, no maintenance was done, batteries died, and when the power went out, so did the phones. The SLCs had generator plug-in setups to be used in an emergency, but in any natural disaster, it's unlikely there'd be enough portables deployed and maintained by the telco to keep the multiplexors alive. Around here, most BellSouth cabinets have a natural gas generator as part of the setup, so they stay up as long as the gas lines are good (and if something has happened to both the power lines and the gas service, it probably doesn't matter much anyway). We had a fairly large power outage here a few months ago that affected just about everybody except for my house and my sister's house (we're only a mile or so apart). Neither of us even knew the power was out until we left our houses. Her Comcast cable was out (my Knology wasn't), so she decided to go to the store (I just happened to also go out at the same time). Sticking with BellSouth/ATT for phone service (and DSL for Internet) wasn't such a bad idea after all. -- Chris Adams cmad...@hiwaay.net Systems and Network Administrator - HiWAAY Internet Services I don't speak for anybody but myself - that's enough trouble.
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
Leo Bicknell wrote: In most locations every home has electrical service. What's the cost per household? $20/mo electric bill. That would so rock. Most houses have a statem maintained road in front of them, what is the cost per household? Paid for by City/County or more commonly by the land owner. New development in Lone Grove, for example requires the developer to put the road in, and then it's wrapped into the house cost. The city will not take over the roads otherwise. Lots of gravel roads here. Many (although a lower number) of city water and sewer, what is the cost per household? Way lower number. I'd be surprised if the city water and sewer here covers 25% of the city. Most water is cover by a rural water company. For a number of reasons I would expect Broadband to be cheaper than any of those, per household; but should definately not exceed any of them in cost. A friend has a well and there is a water pipe running just outside their property. They were quoted $20k to hook on to the water and they would still have to run the line themselves. A lot of residential services are paid for by the home owners by virtue of the developer. It is easier and more cost efficient to build out during new construction of homes than to retrofit plant after the fact. Jack
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
In a message written on Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 10:00:32AM -0500, Jack Bates wrote: Leo Bicknell wrote: In most locations every home has electrical service. What's the cost per household? $20/mo electric bill. That would so rock. There is the cost to put the line in to your house, and then the cost for the 100Kva of servers you have in your basement. :) Now, $20/month plus $1 per megabit, 95% for a GigE linethat would rock. Most houses have a statem maintained road in front of them, what is the cost per household? Paid for by City/County or more commonly by the land owner. New development in Lone Grove, for example requires the developer to put the road in, and then it's wrapped into the house cost. The city will not take over the roads otherwise. Lots of gravel roads here. Unless I'm mistaken, in new construction the developer pays for the electrical install, the cable install, the telephone install, and the road install. In some cases these are subsidized, and in some the costs are spread around (e.g. when an entire neighborhood is being developed). I don't see why Broadband should be any different. It is easier and more cost efficient to build out during new construction of homes than to retrofit plant after the fact. In most areas of the country you can't get a permit to build a house without electrical service (something solar and other off the grid people are fighting). Since it is so much more cost effective to install with new construction, why don't we have codes requring Cat5 drops in every room, and fiber to the home for all new construction? -- Leo Bicknell - bickn...@ufp.org - CCIE 3440 PGP keys at http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/ pgppyKiR4z1Tp.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
On Fri, 28 Aug 2009, Leo Bicknell wrote: In most areas of the country you can't get a permit to build a house without electrical service (something solar and other off the grid people are fighting). Since it is so much more cost effective to install with new construction, why don't we have codes requring Cat5 drops in every room, and fiber to the home for all new construction? And where does that fiber go to? Home runs from a central point in the development, so any provider can hook up to any house at the street? Deregulation means those lines should be accessible to any company for a fee. How do you give House A Verizon and House B Cox, especially if Cox doesn't support fiber? Granted, I don't do residential broadband deployments, maybe all of those issues are trivial, but something that needs to be considered. Just because there is only one player in a certain market now doesn't mean we shouldn't plan now for 10 players 10 years from now in the same market. --- Peter Beckman Internet Guy beck...@angryox.com http://www.angryox.com/ ---
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
On 28-Aug-2009, at 08:14, Peter Beckman wrote: On Fri, 28 Aug 2009, Leo Bicknell wrote: In most areas of the country you can't get a permit to build a house without electrical service (something solar and other off the grid people are fighting). Since it is so much more cost effective to install with new construction, why don't we have codes requring Cat5 drops in every room, and fiber to the home for all new construction? And where does that fiber go to? Home runs from a central point in the development, so any provider can hook up to any house at the street? Deregulation means those lines should be accessible to any company for a fee. How do you give House A Verizon and House B Cox, especially if Cox doesn't support fiber? This sounds like some of the scenarios that Bill St Arnaud worked through at CANARIE. I think they got as far as some test deployments in or around Ottawa. His general idea was that the homeowner owns conduit and fibre from the house to a shared neighbourhood colo facility, and has rights to some space in that facility. The facility then acts as a junction point between houses in the neighbourhood (if the neighbours want to connect) or as a place where a service provider could build to in order to deliver service to the homeowner. It has been some time since I read the material, but my memory is that the model was at its essence one of moving the provider/subscriber demarcation point from the house to a central neighbourhood location. Joe
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
On Fri, 28 Aug 2009, Joe Abley wrote: On 28-Aug-2009, at 08:14, Peter Beckman wrote: And where does that fiber go to? Home runs from a central point in the development, so any provider can hook up to any house at the street? Deregulation means those lines should be accessible to any company for a fee. How do you give House A Verizon and House B Cox, especially if Cox doesn't support fiber? His general idea was that the homeowner owns conduit and fibre from the house to a shared neighbourhood colo facility, and has rights to some space in that facility. The facility then acts as a junction point between houses in the neighbourhood (if the neighbours want to connect) or as a place where a service provider could build to in order to deliver service to the homeowner. I like that idea, except for the problem that I don't want my neighbors to have access to the colo, or at least my feed, but I want access to my feed to I can reboot whatever device is connected there. There would have to be individual locked cages of some standard size so I could access and reboot or change my router out, but could not disconnect or modify my neighbors connection. It would really suck if my router locked up and it was locked in the colo room and I had to wait for someone to let me in to powercycle it. It would also really suck if my neighbor hated me and simply loosened my connection when they felt like it. I'm sure there are solutions to that problem, but moving the demarc line outside the home does bring up new and interesting challenges. --- Peter Beckman Internet Guy beck...@angryox.com http://www.angryox.com/ ---
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
On Aug 28, 2009, at 7:17 AM, Daniel Senie wrote: If you want to make the emergency phone thing a part of the discussion, then regulations need to exist AND be enforced, and penalties assessed, for failure to provide such during power outages. It's not happening today, so don't expect it in the future either. The FCC has adopted requirements for 24 hours of backup power for central offices and 8 hours for remote switches, digital loop carrier (SLCs), and cell sites among others back in 2007. However those rules have been on hold so far due to the usual wrangling. Unless Katrina fades completely from memory, some sort of requirement will likely come out, at least to maintain existing backup power equipment. Individual states may have their own preexisting regulations. Even in spite of the current state of FCC rulemaking, I've seen a number of new generators placed at cell sites.
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
Once upon a time, Peter Beckman beck...@angryox.com said: And where does that fiber go to? Home runs from a central point in the development, so any provider can hook up to any house at the street? Deregulation means those lines should be accessible to any company for a fee. How do you give House A Verizon and House B Cox, especially if Cox doesn't support fiber? I have two cable TV providers available at my house. They each have their own cable plant in my neighborhood; there are two runs in each easment, two sets of pylons for access (although they mostly alternate yards, so they aren't digging at the same place when burying new wires). If you switch from one to the other, the new one runs a new wire from their nearest tap and sends somebody else around in a few weeks to bury (under maybe 2 of dirt) the wire. On my block, the cable lines are at the back edge of the yard, running between the houses (down the middle of the block), while the phone company wires run along the easment at the front edge of the yard with the utility (power/water/sewer) lines. Not sure why it was done that way, except maybe to keep the cable guys from digging up important stuff on a regular basis (since people switch cable a lot). However, I've seen pictures of the old power lines in New York City and such, when there were a dozen or more power companies. I sure wouldn't want to see anything like that again. IMHO, we'd be better off with a public utility that manages nothing but the cable plant, running one set of wires (a few copper pairs, a coax or two, and a couple of fiber pairs) to each house, and then selling equal access to all takers (ILEC, CLEC, cable TV, direct to ISPs, etc.). The utility would be banned from selling any kind of service themselves, and would be a non-profit; they'd charge everybody the same fees for access to the same type of cable and they'd maintain the plant and colo facilities. -- Chris Adams cmad...@hiwaay.net Systems and Network Administrator - HiWAAY Internet Services I don't speak for anybody but myself - that's enough trouble.
RE: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
The dropping of internet is done on purpose to preserve the battery for the pots when ac power is lost. This is an actual setting in just about all manufacturers of ftth equipment. You'll probably have a hard time to get them to change the profile on the equipment tho but it is possible. Carlos Alcantar Race Telecommunications, Inc. 101 Haskins Way South San Francisco, CA 94080 P: 650.649.3550 F: 650.649.3551 -Original Message- From: William Herrin [mailto:herrin-na...@dirtside.com] Sent: Friday, August 28, 2009 11:00 AM To: Jack Bates Cc: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 9:47 AM, Jack Batesjba...@brightok.net wrote: I've yet to hear an ILEC suggest that they not have batteries in the NID to support the voice in power outages. The battery in my FTTH NID is completely useless. It maintains the voice side of the NID but drops the Internet side. Only, I cancelled the POTS service years ago and use a Vonage phone. So now I need a second UPS for the already-battery-backed NID or I lose phone service. Brilliant design that. IIRC, when my FTTH was installed, I was told: here's the battery. It's now your problem. When this light goes red, call the number here to BUY a new one. Folks handle batteries for their flashlights and emergency radios and cars and cordless phones. I fail to understand why asking the customer to handle one more battery would stymie them. Regards, Bill Herrin -- William D. Herrin her...@dirtside.com b...@herrin.us 3005 Crane Dr. .. Web: http://bill.herrin.us/ Falls Church, VA 22042-3004
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 2:15 PM, Carlos Alcantarcar...@race.com wrote: The dropping of internet is done on purpose to preserve the battery for the pots when ac power is lost. This is an actual setting in just about all manufacturers of ftth equipment. You'll probably have a hard time to get them to change the profile on the equipment tho but it is possible. Hi Carlos, I realize why it's done. I merely point out that there are common configurations in which the having the FTTH NID power the POTS circuitry and drop the Internet circuitry is exactly the opposite of correct. Where instead of preserving access to emergency responders, it is intentionally designed to cut that access. Regards, Bill Herrin -- William D. Herrin her...@dirtside.com b...@herrin.us 3005 Crane Dr. .. Web: http://bill.herrin.us/ Falls Church, VA 22042-3004
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
I agree, while the majority of government and service providers have the opinion that POTS is a lifeline service, and ethernet is not, I disagree. I know the service provider I work for is starting to change their views on this, but it will take time for the general populous of managers, etc throughout the nation to realize this. William Herrin wrote: On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 2:15 PM, Carlos Alcantar[1]car...@race.com wrote: The dropping of internet is done on purpose to preserve the battery for the pots when ac power is lost. This is an actual setting in just about all manufacturers of ftth equipment. You'll probably have a hard time to get them to change the profile on the equipment tho but it is possible. Hi Carlos, I realize why it's done. I merely point out that there are common configurations in which the having the FTTH NID power the POTS circuitry and drop the Internet circuitry is exactly the opposite of correct. Where instead of preserving access to emergency responders, it is intentionally designed to cut that access. Regards, Bill Herrin -- Walter Keen Network Technician Rainier Connect (o) 360-832-4024 (c) 253-302-0194 References 1. mailto:car...@race.com
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
One thing that I think service providers take into account is that while many people still have phones that do not have their own power source, battery backups for home computers aren't that common as a general rule. There is no need to have battery backup for internet services if the computer doesn't have power. :Luke On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 1:10 PM, Walter Keen walter.k...@rainierconnect.net wrote: I agree, while the majority of government and service providers have the opinion that POTS is a lifeline service, and ethernet is not, I disagree. I know the service provider I work for is starting to change their views on this, but it will take time for the general populous of managers, etc throughout the nation to realize this. William Herrin wrote: On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 2:15 PM, Carlos Alcantar[1]car...@race.com wrote: The dropping of internet is done on purpose to preserve the battery for the pots when ac power is lost. This is an actual setting in just about all manufacturers of ftth equipment. You'll probably have a hard time to get them to change the profile on the equipment tho but it is possible. Hi Carlos, I realize why it's done. I merely point out that there are common configurations in which the having the FTTH NID power the POTS circuitry and drop the Internet circuitry is exactly the opposite of correct. Where instead of preserving access to emergency responders, it is intentionally designed to cut that access. Regards, Bill Herrin -- Walter Keen Network Technician Rainier Connect (o) 360-832-4024 (c) 253-302-0194 References 1. mailto:car...@race.com -- :Luke Marrott
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
On Aug 28, 2009, at 3:17 PM, Luke Marrott wrote: One thing that I think service providers take into account is that while many people still have phones that do not have their own power source, battery backups for home computers aren't that common as a general rule. There is no need to have battery backup for internet services if the computer doesn't have power. Most people I know use laptops as their primary computers. These most definitely have battery backup. Regards Marshall :Luke On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 1:10 PM, Walter Keen walter.k...@rainierconnect.net wrote: I agree, while the majority of government and service providers have the opinion that POTS is a lifeline service, and ethernet is not, I disagree. I know the service provider I work for is starting to change their views on this, but it will take time for the general populous of managers, etc throughout the nation to realize this. William Herrin wrote: On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 2:15 PM, Carlos Alcantar[1]car...@race.com wrote: The dropping of internet is done on purpose to preserve the battery for the pots when ac power is lost. This is an actual setting in just about all manufacturers of ftth equipment. You'll probably have a hard time to get them to change the profile on the equipment tho but it is possible. Hi Carlos, I realize why it's done. I merely point out that there are common configurations in which the having the FTTH NID power the POTS circuitry and drop the Internet circuitry is exactly the opposite of correct. Where instead of preserving access to emergency responders, it is intentionally designed to cut that access. Regards, Bill Herrin -- Walter Keen Network Technician Rainier Connect (o) 360-832-4024 (c) 253-302-0194 References 1. mailto:car...@race.com -- :Luke Marrott
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
William Herrin wrote: You would suggest treating the Ethernet and POTS ports the same for power backup purposes until the ethernet port drops its carrier for 60 seconds or so? Maybe do the same for the POTs ports wrt detecting whether any phones are attached? Nah, that would make far too much sense; there must be something fatally wrong with the idea. Detecting whether an idle phone is attached to a POTS port isn't exactly trivial. This is more true now with modern phones that don't have mechanical ringers. Keeping the ethernet port up on battery if there is link makes sense. For that matter a Wake-on-LAN style polling to power it for a second every 30 to detect carrier would be even better. -- Jay Hennigan - CCIE #7880 - Network Engineering - j...@impulse.net Impulse Internet Service - http://www.impulse.net/ Your local telephone and internet company - 805 884-6323 - WB6RDV
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
If all of the POTS attached phones on the emergency circuit are on-hook and there are no incoming calls, then not much power should be required. If a phone goes off-hook it should be much easier to detect. If the network facing side is up it can power up the POTS circuit when an incoming call is detected. Carrier detection for ethernet port power sounds reasonable. For the best of both world, maybe someone needs to build a black wall phone that is also the NID and integrates rechargeable D-cells (so flashlight batteries can always be swapped in if the rechargeables are dead). The box would then, of course, know whether it was on or off-hook and could even have a nice display for fiber-carrier status etc... On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 3:46 PM, Jay Hennigan j...@west.net wrote: William Herrin wrote: You would suggest treating the Ethernet and POTS ports the same for power backup purposes until the ethernet port drops its carrier for 60 seconds or so? Maybe do the same for the POTs ports wrt detecting whether any phones are attached? Nah, that would make far too much sense; there must be something fatally wrong with the idea. Detecting whether an idle phone is attached to a POTS port isn't exactly trivial. This is more true now with modern phones that don't have mechanical ringers. Keeping the ethernet port up on battery if there is link makes sense. For that matter a Wake-on-LAN style polling to power it for a second every 30 to detect carrier would be even better. -- Jay Hennigan - CCIE #7880 - Network Engineering - j...@impulse.net Impulse Internet Service - http://www.impulse.net/ Your local telephone and internet company - 805 884-6323 - WB6RDV
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
Walter Keen wrote: I agree, while the majority of government and service providers have the opinion that POTS is a lifeline service, and ethernet is not, I disagree. I know the service provider I work for is starting to change their views on this, but it will take time for the general populous of managers, etc throughout the nation to realize this. Since no one is mentioning it, the batteries often can only power POTS for 8 hours. If ethernet is left on, it drastically drops the runtime. This is not acceptable, yet I haven't seen a good setup that can provide 8+ hours for both. Of course, it's been a non-issue for me. We run weeks without power just fine with FTTC. Jack
RE: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
And how many of them also have a cable/DSL wireless router thingie plugged into the wall in between? (Sure, you can unplug it -- if you know to do that, without being able to phone anyone to be told to do so...) - S -Original Message- From: Marshall Eubanks t...@americafree.tv Sent: Friday, August 28, 2009 12:36 To: Luke Marrott luke.marr...@gmail.com Cc: nanog@nanog.org nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband On Aug 28, 2009, at 3:17 PM, Luke Marrott wrote: One thing that I think service providers take into account is that while many people still have phones that do not have their own power source, battery backups for home computers aren't that common as a general rule. There is no need to have battery backup for internet services if the computer doesn't have power. Most people I know use laptops as their primary computers. These most definitely have battery backup. Regards Marshall :Luke On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 1:10 PM, Walter Keen walter.k...@rainierconnect.net wrote: I agree, while the majority of government and service providers have the opinion that POTS is a lifeline service, and ethernet is not, I disagree. I know the service provider I work for is starting to change their views on this, but it will take time for the general populous of managers, etc throughout the nation to realize this. William Herrin wrote: On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 2:15 PM, Carlos Alcantar[1]car...@race.com wrote: The dropping of internet is done on purpose to preserve the battery for the pots when ac power is lost. This is an actual setting in just about all manufacturers of ftth equipment. You'll probably have a hard time to get them to change the profile on the equipment tho but it is possible. Hi Carlos, I realize why it's done. I merely point out that there are common configurations in which the having the FTTH NID power the POTS circuitry and drop the Internet circuitry is exactly the opposite of correct. Where instead of preserving access to emergency responders, it is intentionally designed to cut that access. Regards, Bill Herrin -- Walter Keen Network Technician Rainier Connect (o) 360-832-4024 (c) 253-302-0194 References 1. mailto:car...@race.com -- :Luke Marrott
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
Maybe an NID with an integrated phone and a hand-crank-generator so you can always crank it to make a call :) On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 1:59 PM, William Herrin herrin-na...@dirtside.comwrote: On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 9:47 AM, Jack Batesjba...@brightok.net wrote: I've yet to hear an ILEC suggest that they not have batteries in the NID to support the voice in power outages. The battery in my FTTH NID is completely useless. It maintains the voice side of the NID but drops the Internet side. Only, I cancelled the POTS service years ago and use a Vonage phone. So now I need a second UPS for the already-battery-backed NID or I lose phone service. Brilliant design that. IIRC, when my FTTH was installed, I was told: here's the battery. It's now your problem. When this light goes red, call the number here to BUY a new one. Folks handle batteries for their flashlights and emergency radios and cars and cordless phones. I fail to understand why asking the customer to handle one more battery would stymie them. Regards, Bill Herrin -- William D. Herrin her...@dirtside.com b...@herrin.us 3005 Crane Dr. .. Web: http://bill.herrin.us/ Falls Church, VA 22042-3004
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
Dorn Hetzel wrote: Maybe an NID with an integrated phone and a hand-crank-generator so you can always crank it to make a call :) Oh, man. If only I were old enough for that to be nostalgic. ;) Jack
RE: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
James: I'm not following you here -- which party has the right of first refusal? If I had to guess, what really happened here is that the rural LEC is able to build out FTTH because they are counting on USF (high cost loop support and interstate common line support) to help pay it, while the LEC in an urban area receives no USF, and is not able to financially justify it even with a dense customer base. Frank -Original Message- From: James Downs [mailto:e...@egon.cc] Sent: Friday, August 28, 2009 1:07 AM To: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband On Aug 26, 2009, at 5:00 PM, Roy wrote: I think it has become obvious that the correct definition of broadband depends on the users location. A house in the boonies is not going to get fiber, Perhaps the minimum acceptable bandwidth should vary by area. A definition of area could be some sort of user density Except this is exactly what happened. The players with vested interests were allowed a sort of first refusal on projects. In areas where they had lots of customers, they passed on the projects. So, we find that in urban areas, you can't get fiber in the home, but there are countless rural farms and homes that have fiber just lying around. I have an acquaintance 60 miles from the closest commercial airport in TN, telling me about the fiber internet he has. -j
RE: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
Jc: Remember, some rural and high-cost areas can't support multiple wireline providers. May not even a wireless and wireline provider (though satellite is a given). So yes, pricing in these near-monopoly areas might be higher than in an area with real competition, but does that pricing mean the provider is earning an exorbitant rate of return? In the worst case, the price go as high, but no higher, than what would sustain a competitor to enter the market. Other than price regulation, I'm not sure what can be done to get around this potential problem. The areas that are unserved/underserved are the ones that have been least attractive to provide broadband, otherwise someone would have done it. The requirement to provide open access to competitors has obviously been a disincentive for the ILECs to apply. Frank -Original Message- From: JC Dill [mailto:jcdill.li...@gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, August 27, 2009 11:51 PM To: NANOG list Subject: Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband Leo Bicknell wrote: What Telecom companies have done is confused infrastructure and equipment. It would be stupid to plan on making a profit on your GSR over 30 years, after 10 it will be functionally obsolete. When it comes to equipment the idea of 1-3 year ROI's makes sense. However, when it comes to fiber or copper in the ground or on a pole it has a 20, 30, 40, or even 50 year life span. To require those assets to have a 1-3 year ROI is absurd. What happens if we have improvements in data transmission systems such that whatever we put in now is obsolete in 15 years? What happens if we put in billions of dollars of fiber, only to have fiber (and copper) obsolete as we roll out faster and faster wireless solutions? IMHO the biggest obstacle to defining broadband is figuring out how to describe how it is used in a way that prevents an ILEC from installing it so that only the ILEC can use it. If the customer doesn't have at least 3 broadband choices, there's no real choice, and pricing will be artificially high and service options will be stagnant and few. Look at what happened to long distance rates and telephone services once Ma Bell was broken up and businesses started competing for customers. I remember when we paid more than $35 a month for long distance fees alone (and about that much more for our basic service, including phone rental) when I was a teenager in the 1970s. Without competition, with inflation, that same long distance bill would easily be over $100/month today. Yest today, more than 30 years later you can get a cell phone with unlimited minutes, unlimited domestic long distance, for $35/month (e.g Metro PCS). Let's not make this mistake again and let the ILECs use TARP funds to build broadband to the curb/home that only they get to use to provide internet services to the customers. jc
RE: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
That deadline is for video. Frank -Original Message- From: David Barak [mailto:thegame...@yahoo.com] Sent: Friday, August 28, 2009 8:25 AM To: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband - Original Message From: James Downs e...@egon.cc Except this is exactly what happened. The players with vested interests were allowed a sort of first refusal on projects. In areas where they had lots of customers, they passed on the projects. So, we find that in urban areas, you can't get fiber in the home, but there are countless rural farms and homes that have fiber just lying around. I have an acquaintance 60 miles from the closest commercial airport in TN, telling me about the fiber internet he has. As an example of the above, Verizon has until 2017 to get FIOS to all of the neighborhoods of Washington DC (http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/stories/2008/11/24/daily8.html). I am envious of many of my suburban-dwelling coworkers and friends who already have it. David Barak Need Geek Rock? Try The Franchise: http://www.listentothefranchise.com
RE: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
Since the features/function/success of the service is so intimately tied to the control/maintenance of that last mile/alley/drop, how do the takers make sure they get what they need? Or that it uses the technology they want? It's an attractive idea from the surface, but one that erodes competitive differentiation. Frank -Original Message- From: Chris Adams [mailto:cmad...@hiwaay.net] Sent: Friday, August 28, 2009 12:31 PM To: NANOG list Subject: Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband Once upon a time, Peter Beckman beck...@angryox.com said: And where does that fiber go to? Home runs from a central point in the development, so any provider can hook up to any house at the street? Deregulation means those lines should be accessible to any company for a fee. How do you give House A Verizon and House B Cox, especially if Cox doesn't support fiber? I have two cable TV providers available at my house. They each have their own cable plant in my neighborhood; there are two runs in each easment, two sets of pylons for access (although they mostly alternate yards, so they aren't digging at the same place when burying new wires). If you switch from one to the other, the new one runs a new wire from their nearest tap and sends somebody else around in a few weeks to bury (under maybe 2 of dirt) the wire. On my block, the cable lines are at the back edge of the yard, running between the houses (down the middle of the block), while the phone company wires run along the easment at the front edge of the yard with the utility (power/water/sewer) lines. Not sure why it was done that way, except maybe to keep the cable guys from digging up important stuff on a regular basis (since people switch cable a lot). However, I've seen pictures of the old power lines in New York City and such, when there were a dozen or more power companies. I sure wouldn't want to see anything like that again. IMHO, we'd be better off with a public utility that manages nothing but the cable plant, running one set of wires (a few copper pairs, a coax or two, and a couple of fiber pairs) to each house, and then selling equal access to all takers (ILEC, CLEC, cable TV, direct to ISPs, etc.). The utility would be banned from selling any kind of service themselves, and would be a non-profit; they'd charge everybody the same fees for access to the same type of cable and they'd maintain the plant and colo facilities. -- Chris Adams cmad...@hiwaay.net Systems and Network Administrator - HiWAAY Internet Services I don't speak for anybody but myself - that's enough trouble.
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
On Wednesday 26 August 2009 23:16:17 Robert Enger - NANOG wrote: As tedious as the downstream can be, engineering the upstream path of a cable plant is worse. A lot of older systems were never designed for upstream service. Even if the amps are retrofitted, the plant is just not tight enough. Desirably, fiber should be pushed deeper; the quantity of cascaded amps reduced, coax fittings and splitters replaced and so on. On 8/26/2009 10:25 AM, Richard Bennett wrote: The trouble with broadband in rural America is the twisted pair loop lengths that average around 20,000 feet. To use VDSL, the loop length needs to down around 3000, so they're stuck with ADSL unless the ILEC wants to install a lot of repeaters. And VDSL is the enabler of triple play over twisted pair. An interesting question: as the population gets sparser, the average trench mileage per subscriber increases. At some point this renders fibre deployment uneconomic. Now, this point can change: 1) as we deploy fibre we'll get more efficient at it - I think VZ's cost per sub has come down quite a lot since they started the FIOS rollout. 2) the flip side of the cost to serve a subscriber is of course revenue, and if you can find other services to sell'em you can go further. may also be scope for tiered pricing 3) public sector investment Going the other way, as the population gets denser, it becomes harder to provide an acceptable broadband wireless service because of spectrum limitations. You either need more and more cells (=more and more sites and more and more backhaul), or more and more spectrum. Where's the crossover point? There are clearly places where some fibre investment (like L(3)'s proposed deployment of many more POPs) would make it possible to get good service out using radio from the end of the fibre, precisely because they are sparse. There are clearly places where fibre to the home will eventually arrive. Is there a broadband gap between the two groups, however, where it's not dense enough to ever deploy fibre and too dense to deploy good wireless? Or can we rely on FTTH for one lot and RTTR (Radio to the Ranch) for the other? signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
Fred,
I picked Aroostook, Washington, and Lincoln counties for a 4g wireless
with backhaul infrastructure proposal. A wireline infrastructure
proposal for these counties (BIP) would, for some arbitrary amount of
capital expense, serve some of the population in towns, but leave the
non-in-town populations with no change in infrastructure. I thought
about adding a western (mountainous) county to the mix, but for a
proof-of-concept those three are representative of most of rural Maine.
All qualify as rural remote, being more than 50 miles from a city of
20,000, or a suburban area of 50,000 (USDA RUS definition of rural
remote). Not many of either of those in Maine anyway.
As I wrote yesterday, triple play simply hasn't sold broadband
(source: USDA stats and Maine ISP experience), therefore uptake and
post-stimulus subscriber retention are wicked important. The BTOP
vehicle provides two additional non-infrastructure grant opportunities,
for public computer centers and for sustainable broadband adoption,
so as I wrote those I attempted to make best use of link properties and
to-the-centers (not home, or curb) and whatever sustainable might mean
and the available statutory purposes and therefore services above link
to propose something innovative.
My guess (its in my proposal so I guess its my proposal writing money
bet) is that rural broadband means something other than IPv4 DHCP
provisioned, fat but flaky pipes allowing access to asymmetric content.
That works in the suburban and urban markets, but its failed, according
to the USDA and my Maine ISP competitors, in rural USA and Maine.
While I share (other hat, we signed our first zone last year and our
second zone will be signed this year) the suggesting special favors for
deployment of DNSSEC discussion with myself, I think this misses the
gambled mandatory-to-implement-feature (see gamble, above) of
locality. {Packet|Connection} users in rural areas have some requirement
more pressing than parity of access to the service model that meets the
requirements of non-rural {Packet|Connection} users.
Eric
Fred Baker wrote:
If it's about stimulus money, I'm in favor of saying that broadband
implies fiber to the home. That would provide all sorts of stimuli to
the economy - infrastructure, equipment sales, jobs digging ditches,
and so on. I could pretty quickly argue myself into suggesting special
favors for deployment of DNSSEC, multicast, and IPv6. As in, use the
stimulus money to propel a leap forward, not just waste it.
On Aug 26, 2009, at 9:44 AM, Carlos Alcantar wrote:
I think the big push to get the fcc to define broadband is highly based
on the rus/ntia setting definitions of what broadband is. If any anyone
has been fallowing the rus/ntia they are the one handing out all the
stimulus infrastructure grant loan money. So there are a lot of
political reasons to make the definition of broadband a bit slower than
one would think. I guess it doesn't hurt that the larger lec's with the
older infrastructure are shelling out the money to lobby to make sure
the definition stays as low as can be. They don't want to see the gov
funding there competition. Just my 2 cents.
-carlos
-Original Message-
From: Ted Fischer [mailto:t...@fred.net]
Sent: Wednesday, August 26, 2009 8:50 AM
To: nanog@nanog.org
Subject: Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
Paul Timmins wrote:
Fred Baker wrote:
On Aug 24, 2009, at 9:17 AM, Luke Marrott wrote:
What are your thoughts on what the definition of Broadband should be
going
forward? I would assume this will be the standard definition for a
number of
years to come.
Historically, narrowband was circuit switched (ISDN etc) and
broadband
was packet switched. Narrowband was therefore tied to the digital
signaling hierarchy and was in some way a multiple of 64 KBPS. As the
term was used then, broadband delivery options of course included
virtual circuits bearing packets, like Frame Relay and ATM.
of or relating to or being a communications network in which the
bandwidth can be divided and shared by multiple simultaneous signals
(as
for voice or data or video)
That's my humble opinion. Let them use a new term, like High Speed
Internet.
Seconded
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
In a message written on Thu, Aug 27, 2009 at 09:58:22AM +0100, Alexander Harrowell wrote: An interesting question: as the population gets sparser, the average trench mileage per subscriber increases. At some point this renders fibre deployment uneconomic. Now, this point can change: This statement makes no sense to me. The cost to dig a trench is cheaper in rural areas than it is in urban areas. A lot cheaper. Rather than closing a road, cutting a trench, avoiding 900 other obsticals, repaving, etc they can often trench or go aerial down the side of a road for miles with no obsticals and nothing but grass to put back. So while mileage per subscriber increases, cost per mile dramatically increases. The only advantage in an urban enviornment is that one trench may serve 200 families in a building, where as a rural trench may serve 20 familes. But more puzzling to me is the idea that fiber becomes uneconomic. This may have once been true, but right now you can buy 10km or even 40km lasers quite cheaply. Compare with copper which for even modest speeds requires a repeater every 2-4km. If you have to reach someone 20km from the CO, the cost of running the ditch-wich down the road in a rural area is not the dominate cost over the next 20 years. It's equipment. If the copper plant takes 4 repeaters to do the job, that's 4 bits of equipment that can fail, and will need to be upgraded at some point. Running something as simple as point to point fiber they can be provided with GigE speeds today with no intermediate equipment; the cost of a 20km GBIC is far less than the cost of installing 4 repeaters. The problem with all of these is ROI, not cost. Somewhere along the line we've decided very short ROI's are required. Do you work at a company where an ROI of over a year is laughed at? When the original rural telephone network was pushed ROI's of 50 years were talked about. There's plenty of infrastructure built every day with ROI's of 20 years. So it would cost $2000 per home to put in fiber. The margin on the service is $5 per month. It's a 33 year ROI. That's ok with me, it's infrastructure, like a road, or a bridge. We're still using copper in the ground put in during the 60's, 70's, and 80's. -- Leo Bicknell - bickn...@ufp.org - CCIE 3440 PGP keys at http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/ pgpIXyo0PKndV.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
On Aug 27, 2009, at 10:04 AM, Leo Bicknell wrote: In a message written on Thu, Aug 27, 2009 at 09:58:22AM +0100, Alexander Harrowell wrote: An interesting question: as the population gets sparser, the average trench mileage per subscriber increases. At some point this renders fibre deployment uneconomic. Now, this point can change: This statement makes no sense to me. The cost to dig a trench is cheaper in rural areas than it is in urban areas. A lot cheaper. Rather than closing a road, cutting a trench, avoiding 900 other obsticals, repaving, etc they can often trench or go aerial down the side of a road for miles with no obsticals and nothing but grass to put back. So while mileage per subscriber increases, cost per mile dramatically increases. I think you meant, decreases, here. Marshall The only advantage in an urban enviornment is that one trench may serve 200 families in a building, where as a rural trench may serve 20 familes. But more puzzling to me is the idea that fiber becomes uneconomic. This may have once been true, but right now you can buy 10km or even 40km lasers quite cheaply. Compare with copper which for even modest speeds requires a repeater every 2-4km. If you have to reach someone 20km from the CO, the cost of running the ditch-wich down the road in a rural area is not the dominate cost over the next 20 years. It's equipment. If the copper plant takes 4 repeaters to do the job, that's 4 bits of equipment that can fail, and will need to be upgraded at some point. Running something as simple as point to point fiber they can be provided with GigE speeds today with no intermediate equipment; the cost of a 20km GBIC is far less than the cost of installing 4 repeaters. The problem with all of these is ROI, not cost. Somewhere along the line we've decided very short ROI's are required. Do you work at a company where an ROI of over a year is laughed at? When the original rural telephone network was pushed ROI's of 50 years were talked about. There's plenty of infrastructure built every day with ROI's of 20 years. So it would cost $2000 per home to put in fiber. The margin on the service is $5 per month. It's a 33 year ROI. That's ok with me, it's infrastructure, like a road, or a bridge. We're still using copper in the ground put in during the 60's, 70's, and 80's. -- Leo Bicknell - bickn...@ufp.org - CCIE 3440 PGP keys at http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
Leo Bicknell wrote: If you have to reach someone 20km from the CO, the cost of running the ditch-wich down the road in a rural area is not the dominate cost over the next 20 years. It's equipment. If the copper plant takes 4 repeaters to do the job, that's 4 bits of equipment that can fail, and will need to be upgraded at some point. Running something as simple as point to point fiber they can be provided with GigE speeds today with no intermediate equipment; the cost of a 20km GBIC is far less than the cost of installing 4 repeaters. The problem with all of these is ROI, not cost. Somewhere along the line we've decided very short ROI's are required. Do you work at a company where an ROI of over a year is laughed at? When the original rural telephone network was pushed ROI's of 50 years were talked about. There's plenty of infrastructure built every day with ROI's of 20 years. So it would cost $2000 per home to put in fiber. The margin on the service is $5 per month. It's a 33 year ROI. That's ok with me, it's infrastructure, like a road, or a bridge. We're still using copper in the ground put in during the 60's, 70's, and 80's Seems like a good idea to the technical side of me, but the business side sees a problem: that the employees like to eat in the 33 year span wherein the company isn't making a dime on its customers. -Paul
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
Once upon a time, Leo Bicknell bickn...@ufp.org said: When the original rural telephone network was pushed ROI's of 50 years were talked about. There's plenty of infrastructure built every day with ROI's of 20 years. How much of that was built in the last 15 years though (where now it needs to be replaced before it has been paid for)? In the 1990s, BellSouth pushed hard here, rolled out fiber to the neighborhoods, and deployed ISDN-capable equipment everywhere. ISDN was available at every single address in town by around 1995 (allegedly we were one of if not the first moderate-sized city with ISDN everywhere). Then it turned out ISDN was a flop, and DSL came along, which wouldn't run over that nice big fiber plant. They had to start rolling out remote DSLAMs all over town. Shortly after they had most of the city covered, ADSL2 came along, and they had to start upgrading again. Granted, the cable plant (whether copper, fiber, coax, or avian datagram) is not quite the same, but the bean-counters look at it as we were supposed to have bignum-year ROI on project 1, 2, and 3, and we didn't get it; why should I believe we'll get it on project 4?. -- Chris Adams cmad...@hiwaay.net Systems and Network Administrator - HiWAAY Internet Services I don't speak for anybody but myself - that's enough trouble.
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
In a message written on Thu, Aug 27, 2009 at 10:47:01AM -0400, Paul Timmins wrote: Seems like a good idea to the technical side of me, but the business side sees a problem: that the employees like to eat in the 33 year span wherein the company isn't making a dime on its customers. The last letter of ROI is Investment. When Ford decides to build a new car it sinks in billions of dollars over a 5 year period where it makes nothing. It then starts selling the new model, and finally reaches a point where it makes a profit, and uses that to find the next Investment. What Telecom companies have done is confused infrastructure and equipment. It would be stupid to plan on making a profit on your GSR over 30 years, after 10 it will be functionally obsolete. When it comes to equipment the idea of 1-3 year ROI's makes sense. However, when it comes to fiber or copper in the ground or on a pole it has a 20, 30, 40, or even 50 year life span. To require those assets to have a 1-3 year ROI is absurd. I remember when Cable TV was new. I lived in a neighborhood without it, and the men with ditch wiches came through and wired the entire neighborhood. I don't think it had an ROI of a year, or even 5, but it has now, 30 years later, spawned a multi-billion dollar industry and allowed us to have things like Cable Internet, which weren't even invented at the time. Someone loaned them the money to do it, and it appears to me the investment performed well, overall. -- Leo Bicknell - bickn...@ufp.org - CCIE 3440 PGP keys at http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/ pgpcMR9WKvgrC.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
Leo Bicknell wrote: So while mileage per subscriber increases, cost per mile dramatically increases. The only advantage in an urban enviornment is that one trench may serve 200 families in a building, where as a rural trench may serve 20 familes. Cost per subscriber is the only cost that matters. That is what defines your recoup time and profit margins. BTW, in many cases it's actually cheaper to bore the entire way then intermix boring and trenching. And out here, they are heavily against you trenching right through someone's driveway or a road. Then there's the rivers and creeks. But more puzzling to me is the idea that fiber becomes uneconomic. This may have once been true, but right now you can buy 10km or even 40km lasers quite cheaply. Compare with copper which for even modest speeds requires a repeater every 2-4km. Maintenance. The reason rural companies prefer active equipment in the plant is because of maintenance. 20 splices to restore service to 20 customers vs 1 splice to restore service to 20 customers. This is oversimplified, in reality, many of the FTTH comments in this thread imply bringing all customers back to the CO to keep active equipment out of the plant. This will tend to imply large fiber bundles leaving the CO and breaking down smaller and smaller as you get further from the CO. A large fiber cut may mean 128+ splices to restore service at 1 splice per customer. In addition, it throws away all the money and investment of plant already in the ground from key points to the customers. I haven't seen an installation running repeaters for copper. More common is a remote system fed by a fiber ring (so when the 20km fiber is cut, service isn't lost while repairs are done) and the last 1.5 miles fed by copper which is already there. with GigE speeds today with no intermediate equipment; the cost of a 20km GBIC is far less than the cost of installing 4 repeaters. If someone is setting up like this, I'd agree. More common: Traditional POTS was often served off double ended carrier and load coils, which later became fiber fed integrated carrier with gr303 and load coils. Cheapest solution, replace carrier with DSL capable carrier, remove load coils when not necessary and extend from there for closer carriers where applicable (shorten copper loops, and removal of more load coils). Here locally, we dropped over 90% of our load peds. Only the furthest reaches still have them and of course cannot get DSL. There's plenty of infrastructure built every day with ROI's of 20 years. Hope they have disaster insurance. A good tornado or wildfire (or backhoe) can do some serious damage. I had both this year in Lone Grove. Fun. Fun. Fiber rings to remote field equipment still gives the best redundancy and maintenance cost (as there is less to splice over the longhaul to the remote system). service is $5 per month. It's a 33 year ROI. That's ok with me, it's infrastructure, like a road, or a bridge. We're still using copper in the ground put in during the 60's, 70's, and 80's. You bet. We're also using fiber and copper put in the ground yesterday. Copper is amazingly resilient. Most of the copper that has to be replaced is old aircore in the ground (which is why aircore shouldn't be in the ground, as it collects water and leads to shorts over long distances) or rehab of aircore in aerial due to bad boots that weren't maintained. The switch to fiber fed remote systems abandoned most of the problematic copper, though. Jack
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
- Original Message - From: Chris Adams cmad...@hiwaay.net To: nanog@nanog.org Sent: Thursday, August 27, 2009 4:52 PM Subject: Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband Once upon a time, Leo Bicknell bickn...@ufp.org said: When the original rural telephone network was pushed ROI's of 50 years were talked about. There's plenty of infrastructure built every day with ROI's of 20 years. How much of that was built in the last 15 years though (where now it needs to be replaced before it has been paid for)? In the 1990s, BellSouth pushed hard here, rolled out fiber to the neighborhoods, and deployed ISDN-capable equipment everywhere. ISDN was available at every single address in town by around 1995 (allegedly we were one of if not the first moderate-sized city with ISDN everywhere). Then it turned out ISDN was a flop, and DSL came along, which wouldn't run over that nice big fiber plant. They had to start rolling out remote DSLAMs all over town. Shortly after they had most of the city covered, ADSL2 came along, and they had to start upgrading again. I don't think ISDN was a flop. In the middle of the 90 years. The most KMU and bigger Companies have ISDN. At home it was at 1997 a trend two with Internet. Ok in Europe we haven't till begin of the 2000 no Clip Informations on a analoge line. This will be come to begin of the 2000. With ADSL and Clipinformations has the most people at home chanched back to an analog Line. For the companies is ISDN allready a must. You must see. At the End of the last century the most people has a phone, has a fax, has a Modem... The best way was ISDN. Now The childern are skypeing... or take an other IP Fon. Fax doesn't exist at home. The people has E-Mail. And Internet we have on ADSL or VDSL. with many speed. For phoneing 2/3 of the people take the handy (celuar phone) or IP fon. I think this is the bigest part in the last 10 years. Greetings Xaver
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
In a message written on Thu, Aug 27, 2009 at 09:57:56AM -0500, Jack Bates wrote: oversimplified, in reality, many of the FTTH comments in this thread imply bringing all customers back to the CO to keep active equipment out of the plant. This will tend to imply large fiber bundles leaving the CO and breaking down smaller and smaller as you get further from the CO. A large fiber cut may mean 128+ splices to restore service at 1 splice per customer. The interesting technology here of course is split optical networks. A single fiber from the CO to a remote splice box, split to 10-100 customers. I'm not really up on this technology, but my understanding is that development is rapid in this space. Hope they have disaster insurance. A good tornado or wildfire (or backhoe) can do some serious damage. I had both this year in Lone Grove. Fun. Fun. Fiber rings to remote field equipment still gives the best redundancy and maintenance cost (as there is less to splice over the longhaul to the remote system). I hate to say it, but this was an advantage to Ma Bell. Insurance is about spreading risk out over many participants. An alternative strategy is to pool everything into one company! :) My perception is that the rural telecom market is fragmented by many smaller players, which amplifies this problem. -- Leo Bicknell - bickn...@ufp.org - CCIE 3440 PGP keys at http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/ pgpUztEENs23B.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
Leo Bicknell wrote: My perception is that the rural telecom market is fragmented by many smaller players, which amplifies this problem. I have 12 ILEC and 1 CLEC under my umbrella. I can guarantee that not a single one is the same at the plant, equipment, or business level. That being said, I think we are luckier than Bell, who has only a few dozen concentrated CO's in the state which feed the smaller CO's, or in some cases, entire towns are fed by double ended carrier (where 14.4 is considered the best connection one can hope for). We see unlicensed wireless in a lot of these places, but their customers honestly beg for better service. Jack
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
On Thursday 27 August 2009 15:04:59 Leo Bicknell wrote: In a message written on Thu, Aug 27, 2009 at 09:58:22AM +0100, Alexander Harrowell wrote: An interesting question: as the population gets sparser, the average trench mileage per subscriber increases. At some point this renders fibre deployment uneconomic. Now, this point can change: This statement makes no sense to me. The cost to dig a trench is cheaper in rural areas than it is in urban areas. A lot cheaper. Rather than closing a road, cutting a trench, avoiding 900 other obsticals, repaving, etc they can often trench or go aerial down the side of a road for miles with no obsticals and nothing but grass to put back. So while mileage per subscriber increases, cost per mile dramatically increases. The only advantage in an urban enviornment is that one trench may serve 200 families in a building, where as a rural trench may serve 20 familes. But more puzzling to me is the idea that fiber becomes uneconomic. This may have once been true, but right now you can buy 10km or even 40km lasers quite cheaply. Compare with copper which for even modest speeds requires a repeater every 2-4km. True. But there is - there has to be - a limit, when the 70% or so civil works cost eats everything else. The limit may be more or less restrictive, but limit there is. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
RE: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
As one of the workshops discussed, does the definition of underserved and unserved include the clause for a reasonable price? If the price is unreasonable, do you think its government money well-spent to subsidize bringing a competitor to a market that couldn't make it before? Or are there perhaps other ways to deal with that pricing issue? Frank -Original Message- From: William Herrin [mailto:herrin-na...@dirtside.com] Sent: Wednesday, August 26, 2009 4:46 PM To: Fred Baker Cc: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband snip Really where they need the swift kick in the tail is in the product tying where you can't buy a high speed connection to J. Random ISP, you can only buy a high speed connection to monopoly provider's in-house ISP. Which means you can only get commodity service since monopoly provider isn't in the business of providing low-dollar custom solutions. But it sounds like that's outside the scope of what Congress has approved. Regards, Bill Herrin -- William D. Herrin her...@dirtside.com b...@herrin.us 3005 Crane Dr. .. Web: http://bill.herrin.us/ Falls Church, VA 22042-3004
RE: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
Estimates to bring FTTH to all of America is in the $100 to $300B range. So yes, the $7.2B is a drop in the bucket. Frank -Original Message- From: Sean Donelan [mailto:s...@donelan.com] Sent: Wednesday, August 26, 2009 9:53 PM To: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband On Wed, 26 Aug 2009, Fred Baker wrote: If it's about stimulus money, I'm in favor of saying that broadband implies fiber to the home. That would provide all sorts of stimuli to the economy - infrastructure, equipment sales, jobs digging ditches, and so on. I could pretty quickly argue myself into suggesting special favors for deployment of DNSSEC, multicast, and IPv6. As in, use the stimulus money to propel a leap forward, not just waste it. Broadband stimulus money = $7,200,000,000 Housing units in USA (2000) = 115,904,641 Stimulus money per housing unit = $62.12 one-time What definition of broadband can you achieve for that amount of money? Or for rural housing units (2000) = 25,938,698 Stimulus money per rural housing unit = $277.58 one-time What definition of broadband can you achieve for that amount of money in a rural build-out? How much will fiber to the home cost in a rural area?
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
The background issue is whether satellite-based systems at around 200 Kb/s and high latency can be defined as broadband. Since everyone in America - including the Alaskans - has access to satellite services, defining that level of service as broadband makes the rest of the exercise academic: everyone is served. There's no economic argument for government subsidies to multiple firms in a market, of course. It's more interesting considering that DirecTV is about to launch a new satellite with a couple orders of magnitude more capacity than the existing ones offer. I seem to recall their claiming that the service would then improved to some respectable number of megabits/sec. Satellite ISPs locate their ground stations in IXP-friendly locations, so there aren't any worries about backhaul or fiber access costs. But to your actual question, under-served is of course quite subjective and cost is clearly part of it. RB Frank Bulk - iName.com wrote: As one of the workshops discussed, does the definition of underserved and unserved include the clause for a reasonable price? If the price is unreasonable, do you think its government money well-spent to subsidize bringing a competitor to a market that couldn't make it before? Or are there perhaps other ways to deal with that pricing issue? Frank -Original Message- From: William Herrin [mailto:herrin-na...@dirtside.com] Sent: Wednesday, August 26, 2009 4:46 PM To: Fred Baker Cc: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband snip Really where they need the swift kick in the tail is in the product tying where you can't buy a high speed connection to J. Random ISP, you can only buy a high speed connection to monopoly provider's in-house ISP. Which means you can only get commodity service since monopoly provider isn't in the business of providing low-dollar custom solutions. But it sounds like that's outside the scope of what Congress has approved. Regards, Bill Herrin -- Richard Bennett Research Fellow Information Technology and Innovation Foundation Washington, DC
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
Leo Bicknell wrote: What Telecom companies have done is confused infrastructure and equipment. It would be stupid to plan on making a profit on your GSR over 30 years, after 10 it will be functionally obsolete. When it comes to equipment the idea of 1-3 year ROI's makes sense. However, when it comes to fiber or copper in the ground or on a pole it has a 20, 30, 40, or even 50 year life span. To require those assets to have a 1-3 year ROI is absurd. What happens if we have improvements in data transmission systems such that whatever we put in now is obsolete in 15 years? What happens if we put in billions of dollars of fiber, only to have fiber (and copper) obsolete as we roll out faster and faster wireless solutions? IMHO the biggest obstacle to defining broadband is figuring out how to describe how it is used in a way that prevents an ILEC from installing it so that only the ILEC can use it. If the customer doesn't have at least 3 broadband choices, there's no real choice, and pricing will be artificially high and service options will be stagnant and few. Look at what happened to long distance rates and telephone services once Ma Bell was broken up and businesses started competing for customers. I remember when we paid more than $35 a month for long distance fees alone (and about that much more for our basic service, including phone rental) when I was a teenager in the 1970s. Without competition, with inflation, that same long distance bill would easily be over $100/month today. Yest today, more than 30 years later you can get a cell phone with unlimited minutes, unlimited domestic long distance, for $35/month (e.g Metro PCS). Let's not make this mistake again and let the ILECs use TARP funds to build broadband to the curb/home that only they get to use to provide internet services to the customers. jc
RE: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
That's why I believe all the major lecs are refusing to submit for funds due to all the red tape that comes with that money. Eg. (Nondiscrimination and interconnection obligation) they are really pushing network openness something I don't think the lecs want to do with their fiber plant. Carlos Alcantar Race Telecommunications, Inc. 101 Haskins Way South San Francisco, CA 94080 P: 650.649.3550 x143 F: 650.649.3551 -Original Message- From: JC Dill [mailto:jcdill.li...@gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, August 27, 2009 9:51 PM To: NANOG list Subject: Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband Leo Bicknell wrote: What Telecom companies have done is confused infrastructure and equipment. It would be stupid to plan on making a profit on your GSR over 30 years, after 10 it will be functionally obsolete. When it comes to equipment the idea of 1-3 year ROI's makes sense. However, when it comes to fiber or copper in the ground or on a pole it has a 20, 30, 40, or even 50 year life span. To require those assets to have a 1-3 year ROI is absurd. What happens if we have improvements in data transmission systems such that whatever we put in now is obsolete in 15 years? What happens if we put in billions of dollars of fiber, only to have fiber (and copper) obsolete as we roll out faster and faster wireless solutions? IMHO the biggest obstacle to defining broadband is figuring out how to describe how it is used in a way that prevents an ILEC from installing it so that only the ILEC can use it. If the customer doesn't have at least 3 broadband choices, there's no real choice, and pricing will be artificially high and service options will be stagnant and few. Look at what happened to long distance rates and telephone services once Ma Bell was broken up and businesses started competing for customers. I remember when we paid more than $35 a month for long distance fees alone (and about that much more for our basic service, including phone rental) when I was a teenager in the 1970s. Without competition, with inflation, that same long distance bill would easily be over $100/month today. Yest today, more than 30 years later you can get a cell phone with unlimited minutes, unlimited domestic long distance, for $35/month (e.g Metro PCS). Let's not make this mistake again and let the ILECs use TARP funds to build broadband to the curb/home that only they get to use to provide internet services to the customers. jc
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
Fred Baker wrote: On Aug 24, 2009, at 9:17 AM, Luke Marrott wrote: What are your thoughts on what the definition of Broadband should be going forward? I would assume this will be the standard definition for a number of years to come. Historically, narrowband was circuit switched (ISDN etc) and broadband was packet switched. Narrowband was therefore tied to the digital signaling hierarchy and was in some way a multiple of 64 KBPS. As the term was used then, broadband delivery options of course included virtual circuits bearing packets, like Frame Relay and ATM. of or relating to or being a communications network in which the bandwidth can be divided and shared by multiple simultaneous signals (as for voice or data or video) That's my humble opinion. Let them use a new term, like High Speed Internet.
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
Paul Timmins wrote: Fred Baker wrote: On Aug 24, 2009, at 9:17 AM, Luke Marrott wrote: What are your thoughts on what the definition of Broadband should be going forward? I would assume this will be the standard definition for a number of years to come. Historically, narrowband was circuit switched (ISDN etc) and broadband was packet switched. Narrowband was therefore tied to the digital signaling hierarchy and was in some way a multiple of 64 KBPS. As the term was used then, broadband delivery options of course included virtual circuits bearing packets, like Frame Relay and ATM. of or relating to or being a communications network in which the bandwidth can be divided and shared by multiple simultaneous signals (as for voice or data or video) That's my humble opinion. Let them use a new term, like High Speed Internet. Seconded
RE: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
I think the big push to get the fcc to define broadband is highly based on the rus/ntia setting definitions of what broadband is. If any anyone has been fallowing the rus/ntia they are the one handing out all the stimulus infrastructure grant loan money. So there are a lot of political reasons to make the definition of broadband a bit slower than one would think. I guess it doesn't hurt that the larger lec's with the older infrastructure are shelling out the money to lobby to make sure the definition stays as low as can be. They don't want to see the gov funding there competition. Just my 2 cents. -carlos -Original Message- From: Ted Fischer [mailto:t...@fred.net] Sent: Wednesday, August 26, 2009 8:50 AM To: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband Paul Timmins wrote: Fred Baker wrote: On Aug 24, 2009, at 9:17 AM, Luke Marrott wrote: What are your thoughts on what the definition of Broadband should be going forward? I would assume this will be the standard definition for a number of years to come. Historically, narrowband was circuit switched (ISDN etc) and broadband was packet switched. Narrowband was therefore tied to the digital signaling hierarchy and was in some way a multiple of 64 KBPS. As the term was used then, broadband delivery options of course included virtual circuits bearing packets, like Frame Relay and ATM. of or relating to or being a communications network in which the bandwidth can be divided and shared by multiple simultaneous signals (as for voice or data or video) That's my humble opinion. Let them use a new term, like High Speed Internet. Seconded
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
In the applications I wrote earlier this month for BIP (Rural Utilities Services, USDA) and BTOP (NTIA, non-rural) infrastructure, for Maine's 2nd, I was keenly aware that broadband hasn't taken off as a pervasive, if not universal service in rural areas of the US. I don't think the speed metric is the metric that will make non-adoption in sparce clustered demographics distinguishable from adoption in denser demographics. I suspect that issues like symmetry of state signaling, latency, jitter, ... metrics that resemble what I looked for from MPI runs when benchmarking parallel systems, will characterize applications that may be distinguishable from the adoption, market penetration, renewal criteria from the applications that for reasons I can only conjecture, the standard triple play killer apps, which simply aren't driving broadband (whatever that is) adoption in rural areas. And no, I don't know what those better-than-triple-play-killer-apps-in-suburbia are. Eric Luke Marrott wrote: I read an article on DSL Reports the other day ( http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/FCC-Please-Define-Broadband-104056), in which the FCC has a document requesting feedback on the definition of Broadband. What are your thoughts on what the definition of Broadband should be going forward? I would assume this will be the standard definition for a number of years to come. Thanks.
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
In the applications I wrote earlier this month for BIP (Rural Utilities Services, USDA) and BTOP (NTIA, non-rural) infrastructure, for Maine's 2nd, I was keenly aware that broadband hasn't taken off as a pervasive, if not universal service in rural areas of the US. I don't think the speed metric is the metric that will make non-adoption in sparce clustered demographics distinguishable from adoption in denser demographics. I suspect that issues like symmetry of state signaling, latency, jitter, ... metrics that resemble what I looked for from MPI runs when benchmarking parallel systems, will characterize applications that may be distinguishable from the adoption, market penetration, renewal criteria from the applications that for reasons I can only conjecture, the standard triple play killer apps, which simply aren't driving broadband (whatever that is) adoption in rural areas. And no, I don't know what those better-than-triple-play-killer-apps-in-suburbia are. My meta-point is that I suspect there are two broadbands, one where triple-play sells recurring subscriber drops, and one where it doesn't, and for the later a better definition would be more useful than a definition that reads (in fine print) not available here. Eric Luke Marrott wrote: I read an article on DSL Reports the other day ( http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/FCC-Please-Define-Broadband-104056), in which the FCC has a document requesting feedback on the definition of Broadband. What are your thoughts on what the definition of Broadband should be going forward? I would assume this will be the standard definition for a number of years to come. Thanks.
RE: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
The trouble with broadband in rural America is the twisted pair loop lengths that average around 20,000 feet. To use VDSL, the loop length needs to down around 3000, so they're stuck with ADSL unless the ILEC wants to install a lot of repeaters. And VDSL is the enabler of triple play over twisted pair. And apparently a number of rural cablecos, who have a suitable copper co-ax plant, haven't seen fit to offer what they call data service. It's ironic, since cable TV was actually invented to help the rural user. Apparently the purpose of the definition is to ensure that the subsidies don't do down the rathole of supporting easy upgrades, but as others have mentioned, one definition for broadband isn't very useful unless it's something like 10 times faster than what I had yesterday. I like to say first gen broadband is 10 times faster than a modem or 500 Kb/s; second gen is 5 Mb/s, and third is 50 or faster. Richard Bennett -Original Message- From: Eric Brunner-Williams [mailto:brun...@nic-naa.net] Sent: Wednesday, August 26, 2009 10:00 AM To: Luke Marrott Cc: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband In the applications I wrote earlier this month for BIP (Rural Utilities Services, USDA) and BTOP (NTIA, non-rural) infrastructure, for Maine's 2nd, I was keenly aware that broadband hasn't taken off as a pervasive, if not universal service in rural areas of the US. I don't think the speed metric is the metric that will make non-adoption in sparce clustered demographics distinguishable from adoption in denser demographics. I suspect that issues like symmetry of state signaling, latency, jitter, ... metrics that resemble what I looked for from MPI runs when benchmarking parallel systems, will characterize applications that may be distinguishable from the adoption, market penetration, renewal criteria from the applications that for reasons I can only conjecture, the standard triple play killer apps, which simply aren't driving broadband (whatever that is) adoption in rural areas. And no, I don't know what those better-than-triple-play-killer-apps-in-suburbia are. My meta-point is that I suspect there are two broadbands, one where triple-play sells recurring subscriber drops, and one where it doesn't, and for the later a better definition would be more useful than a definition that reads (in fine print) not available here. Eric Luke Marrott wrote: I read an article on DSL Reports the other day ( http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/FCC-Please-Define-Broadband-104056) , in which the FCC has a document requesting feedback on the definition of Broadband. What are your thoughts on what the definition of Broadband should be going forward? I would assume this will be the standard definition for a number of years to come. Thanks.
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
I agree we should all be telling the FCC that broadband is fiber to the home. If we spend all kinds of $$ to build a 1.5M/s connection to homes, it's outdated before we even finish. On Wed, Aug 26, 2009 at 1:38 PM, Fred Bakerf...@cisco.com wrote: If it's about stimulus money, I'm in favor of saying that broadband implies fiber to the home. That would provide all sorts of stimuli to the economy - infrastructure, equipment sales, jobs digging ditches, and so on. I could pretty quickly argue myself into suggesting special favors for deployment of DNSSEC, multicast, and IPv6. As in, use the stimulus money to propel a leap forward, not just waste it. On Aug 26, 2009, at 9:44 AM, Carlos Alcantar wrote: I think the big push to get the fcc to define broadband is highly based on the rus/ntia setting definitions of what broadband is. If any anyone has been fallowing the rus/ntia they are the one handing out all the stimulus infrastructure grant loan money. So there are a lot of political reasons to make the definition of broadband a bit slower than one would think. I guess it doesn't hurt that the larger lec's with the older infrastructure are shelling out the money to lobby to make sure the definition stays as low as can be. They don't want to see the gov funding there competition. Just my 2 cents. -carlos -Original Message- From: Ted Fischer [mailto:t...@fred.net] Sent: Wednesday, August 26, 2009 8:50 AM To: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband Paul Timmins wrote: Fred Baker wrote: On Aug 24, 2009, at 9:17 AM, Luke Marrott wrote: What are your thoughts on what the definition of Broadband should be going forward? I would assume this will be the standard definition for a number of years to come. Historically, narrowband was circuit switched (ISDN etc) and broadband was packet switched. Narrowband was therefore tied to the digital signaling hierarchy and was in some way a multiple of 64 KBPS. As the term was used then, broadband delivery options of course included virtual circuits bearing packets, like Frame Relay and ATM. of or relating to or being a communications network in which the bandwidth can be divided and shared by multiple simultaneous signals (as for voice or data or video) That's my humble opinion. Let them use a new term, like High Speed Internet. Seconded
RE: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
I believe a lot of people are thinking the same way that fiber to the home is broadband. Looking at some poll results from a calix webinar it looks like most people submitting for stimulus money are going down that path of fiber to the home as gpon and active Ethernet seem to be the front runners. If anyone cares to look at the poll http://www.calix.com/bbs/ bottom right. -carlos -Original Message- From: jim deleskie [mailto:deles...@gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, August 26, 2009 10:57 AM To: Fred Baker Cc: Carlos Alcantar; nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband I agree we should all be telling the FCC that broadband is fiber to the home. If we spend all kinds of $$ to build a 1.5M/s connection to homes, it's outdated before we even finish. On Wed, Aug 26, 2009 at 1:38 PM, Fred Bakerf...@cisco.com wrote: If it's about stimulus money, I'm in favor of saying that broadband implies fiber to the home. That would provide all sorts of stimuli to the economy - infrastructure, equipment sales, jobs digging ditches, and so on. I could pretty quickly argue myself into suggesting special favors for deployment of DNSSEC, multicast, and IPv6. As in, use the stimulus money to propel a leap forward, not just waste it. On Aug 26, 2009, at 9:44 AM, Carlos Alcantar wrote: I think the big push to get the fcc to define broadband is highly based on the rus/ntia setting definitions of what broadband is. If any anyone has been fallowing the rus/ntia they are the one handing out all the stimulus infrastructure grant loan money. So there are a lot of political reasons to make the definition of broadband a bit slower than one would think. I guess it doesn't hurt that the larger lec's with the older infrastructure are shelling out the money to lobby to make sure the definition stays as low as can be. They don't want to see the gov funding there competition. Just my 2 cents. -carlos -Original Message- From: Ted Fischer [mailto:t...@fred.net] Sent: Wednesday, August 26, 2009 8:50 AM To: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband Paul Timmins wrote: Fred Baker wrote: On Aug 24, 2009, at 9:17 AM, Luke Marrott wrote: What are your thoughts on what the definition of Broadband should be going forward? I would assume this will be the standard definition for a number of years to come. Historically, narrowband was circuit switched (ISDN etc) and broadband was packet switched. Narrowband was therefore tied to the digital signaling hierarchy and was in some way a multiple of 64 KBPS. As the term was used then, broadband delivery options of course included virtual circuits bearing packets, like Frame Relay and ATM. of or relating to or being a communications network in which the bandwidth can be divided and shared by multiple simultaneous signals (as for voice or data or video) That's my humble opinion. Let them use a new term, like High Speed Internet. Seconded
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
jim deleskie wrote: I agree we should all be telling the FCC that broadband is fiber to the home. If we spend all kinds of $$ to build a 1.5M/s connection to homes, it's outdated before we even finish. I disagree. I much prefer fiber to the curb with copper to the home. Of course, I haven't had a need for 100mb/s to the house which I can do on copper, much less need for gigabit. Pro's for copper from curb: 1) power over copper for POTS 2) Majority of cuts occur on customer drops and copper is more resilient to splicing by any monkey. Jack
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
Joel Esler wrote: I have fiber to the home. I can't imagine going back to cable modems now. eww.. I couldn't imagine leaving my VDSL2. I've seen broadband sent to the house via fiber, coax, and copper. I've seen them all done well, and I've seen them all done poorly. All are capable of hitting 50mb/s. I personally like copper for the splice and cost on drops as well as cost of NID/CPE. Coax has a lot of bandwidth, but requires you to get as close as you would with copper to do it right and has other issues. Fiber is the fastest and can run off fewer remote systems, but it has higher costs and maintenance issues. I would probably run fiber in a densely populated area. In rural America, I would stick with copper off 1.5 mile short loop remotes. A lot depends on what the bandwidth is for. Most of the telco's I work with rarely have a corporate customer paying for more than 10mb/s. Jack
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
Joel Esler wrote: On Wed, Aug 26, 2009 at 3:06 PM, Jack Batesjba...@brightok.net wrote: jim deleskie wrote: I agree we should all be telling the FCC that broadband is fiber to the home. If we spend all kinds of $$ to build a 1.5M/s connection to homes, it's outdated before we even finish. I disagree. I much prefer fiber to the curb with copper to the home. Of course, I haven't had a need for 100mb/s to the house which I can do on copper, much less need for gigabit. Pro's for copper from curb: 1) power over copper for POTS 2) Majority of cuts occur on customer drops and copper is more resilient to splicing by any monkey. I have fiber to the home. I can't imagine going back to cable modems now. eww.. The problem that the FCC faces is making a realistic definition that can apply to the whole US and not just cities. How does fiber (home or curb) figure in the rural sections of the country?
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
On Wed, Aug 26, 2009 at 3:06 PM, Jack Batesjba...@brightok.net wrote: jim deleskie wrote: I agree we should all be telling the FCC that broadband is fiber to the home. If we spend all kinds of $$ to build a 1.5M/s connection to homes, it's outdated before we even finish. I disagree. I much prefer fiber to the curb with copper to the home. Of course, I haven't had a need for 100mb/s to the house which I can do on copper, much less need for gigabit. Pro's for copper from curb: 1) power over copper for POTS 2) Majority of cuts occur on customer drops and copper is more resilient to splicing by any monkey. I have fiber to the home. I can't imagine going back to cable modems now. eww..
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
Roy wrote: The problem that the FCC faces is making a realistic definition that can apply to the whole US and not just cities. How does fiber (home or curb) figure in the rural sections of the country? It figures in nicely, thank you. Of course, our definition of curb might be 1.5 miles further than your definition. ;) 2 miles is the cutoff for 10mb/s reliability, but to deal with future stuff, most of my telco customers have dropped it down to 1.5 miles. This also suited them for handling smaller remote systems with 48 ports and shifting from gr303 to SIP/MGCP, some with gr303 translators at the home office. Our highest supported circuits currently top at 100/50, but customers don't need them, and the telco's aren't pushing video down them. We honestly hope Internet video will continue to grow and we'll just shift into higher Internet bandwidth and stick with transport. We're good at transport. Jack
RE: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
We're way past the time in which broadband meant more bits than baud, huh? Was it the other way around? I forget... :) Anyway: Broadband could be defined as a duplex channel that is some positive multiple of the BW needed to carry the lowest resolution, full-power, public broadcast TV channel currently permitted by FCC regulation. As technology and regulation changes, we'd always have a definition of broadband that is implementation independent, technology agnostic, and easy to grasp for most people. David Hiers CCIE (R/S, V), CISSP ADP Dealer Services 2525 SW 1st Ave. Suite 300W Portland, OR 97201 o: 503-205-4467 f: 503-402-3277 -Original Message- From: Dorn Hetzel [mailto:dhet...@gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, August 26, 2009 1:16 PM To: nanog@nanog.org Subject: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband not to mention all the lightning-blasted-routers that will be prevented by FTTH :) even with several layers of protection I still accumulate about one dead interface of some sort each year on my very rural T-1... On Wed, Aug 26, 2009 at 1:57 PM, jim deleskie deles...@gmail.com wrote: I agree we should all be telling the FCC that broadband is fiber to the home. If we spend all kinds of $$ to build a 1.5M/s connection to homes, it's outdated before we even finish. On Wed, Aug 26, 2009 at 1:38 PM, Fred Bakerf...@cisco.com wrote: If it's about stimulus money, I'm in favor of saying that broadband implies fiber to the home. That would provide all sorts of stimuli to the economy - infrastructure, equipment sales, jobs digging ditches, and so on. I could pretty quickly argue myself into suggesting special favors for deployment of DNSSEC, multicast, and IPv6. As in, use the stimulus money to propel a leap forward, not just waste it. On Aug 26, 2009, at 9:44 AM, Carlos Alcantar wrote: I think the big push to get the fcc to define broadband is highly based on the rus/ntia setting definitions of what broadband is. If any anyone has been fallowing the rus/ntia they are the one handing out all the stimulus infrastructure grant loan money. So there are a lot of political reasons to make the definition of broadband a bit slower than one would think. I guess it doesn't hurt that the larger lec's with the older infrastructure are shelling out the money to lobby to make sure the definition stays as low as can be. They don't want to see the gov funding there competition. Just my 2 cents. -carlos -Original Message- From: Ted Fischer [mailto:t...@fred.net] Sent: Wednesday, August 26, 2009 8:50 AM To: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband Paul Timmins wrote: Fred Baker wrote: On Aug 24, 2009, at 9:17 AM, Luke Marrott wrote: What are your thoughts on what the definition of Broadband should be going forward? I would assume this will be the standard definition for a number of years to come. Historically, narrowband was circuit switched (ISDN etc) and broadband was packet switched. Narrowband was therefore tied to the digital signaling hierarchy and was in some way a multiple of 64 KBPS. As the term was used then, broadband delivery options of course included virtual circuits bearing packets, like Frame Relay and ATM. of or relating to or being a communications network in which the bandwidth can be divided and shared by multiple simultaneous signals (as for voice or data or video) That's my humble opinion. Let them use a new term, like High Speed Internet. Seconded This message and any attachments are intended only for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged and confidential. If the reader of the message is not the intended recipient or an authorized representative of the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by e-mail and delete the message and any attachments from your system.
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
On 26-Aug-2009, at 13:38, Fred Baker wrote: If it's about stimulus money, I'm in favor of saying that broadband implies fiber to the home. I'm sure I remember hearing from someone that the timelines for disbursement of stimulus money were tight enough that many people expected much of the money to remain unspent. Does narrowing the scope of the funding to mandate fibre have the effect of funding more and better infrastructure, or will it simply result in less money being made available? Does it matter?
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 7:30 PM, Fred Bakerf...@cisco.com wrote: On Aug 24, 2009, at 9:17 AM, Luke Marrott wrote: What are your thoughts on what the definition of Broadband should be going forward? I would assume this will be the standard definition for a number of years to come. Historically, narrowband was circuit switched (ISDN etc) and broadband was packet switched. Narrowband was therefore tied to the digital signaling hierarchy and was in some way a multiple of 64 KBPS. As the term was used then, broadband delivery options of course included virtual circuits bearing packets, like Frame Relay and ATM. Fred, Historically there was no such thing as a narrowband Internet connection. We used bandwidth as slang for the speed of an Internet connection, possibly because in communications in general you can send more information in a wide frequency band than you can in a narrow frequency band and we knew that a phone line used a 4khz frequency band while a T1 used a 1.5mhz frequency band. When we started selling residential Internet connections that were significantly faster than a modem (i.e. DSL, cable modems) some marketing guru somewhere came up with the idea that if Internet speed is bandwidth then fast internet must be -broad- bandwidth. The same marketing gurus wouldn't be particularly guruish if they had then started referring to their modem products as narrowband. So the choice was dialup or broadband not narrowband or broadband. As the term caught on, it was the expanded by various marketing and salesfolk to encompass any kind of commodity Internet connection (commodity = not custom, that is not doing anything uncommon like dynamic routing or multiplexing) which was better than a dialup modem. When you start assigning CIDR blocks and what not, that's generally a business service rather than broadband. So historically speaking, broadband is anything faster than POTS dialup. What it -should- mean for stimulus purposes is another matter... But I'd personally prefer to see the stimulus money only used for delivering rural high speed. The telcos and cable companies are in a race to deliver fast residential Internet access in any densely packed area where the governing authority isn't making it a costly PIA to install. Where they need the swift kick in the tail is in the low density areas. Really where they need the swift kick in the tail is in the product tying where you can't buy a high speed connection to J. Random ISP, you can only buy a high speed connection to monopoly provider's in-house ISP. Which means you can only get commodity service since monopoly provider isn't in the business of providing low-dollar custom solutions. But it sounds like that's outside the scope of what Congress has approved. Regards, Bill Herrin -- William D. Herrin her...@dirtside.com b...@herrin.us 3005 Crane Dr. .. Web: http://bill.herrin.us/ Falls Church, VA 22042-3004
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
As tedious as the downstream can be, engineering the upstream path of a cable plant is worse. A lot of older systems were never designed for upstream service. Even if the amps are retrofitted, the plant is just not tight enough. Desirably, fiber should be pushed deeper; the quantity of cascaded amps reduced, coax fittings and splitters replaced and so on. On 8/26/2009 10:25 AM, Richard Bennett wrote: The trouble with broadband in rural America is the twisted pair loop lengths that average around 20,000 feet. To use VDSL, the loop length needs to down around 3000, so they're stuck with ADSL unless the ILEC wants to install a lot of repeaters. And VDSL is the enabler of triple play over twisted pair. And apparently a number of rural cablecos, who have a suitable copper co-ax plant, haven't seen fit to offer what they call data service. It's ironic, since cable TV was actually invented to help the rural user. Apparently the purpose of the definition is to ensure that the subsidies don't do down the rathole of supporting easy upgrades, but as others have mentioned, one definition for broadband isn't very useful unless it's something like 10 times faster than what I had yesterday. I like to say first gen broadband is 10 times faster than a modem or 500 Kb/s; second gen is 5 Mb/s, and third is 50 or faster. Richard Bennett -Original Message- From: Eric Brunner-Williams [mailto:brun...@nic-naa.net] Sent: Wednesday, August 26, 2009 10:00 AM To: Luke Marrott Cc: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband In the applications I wrote earlier this month for BIP (Rural Utilities Services, USDA) and BTOP (NTIA, non-rural) infrastructure, for Maine's 2nd, I was keenly aware that broadband hasn't taken off as a pervasive, if not universal service in rural areas of the US. I don't think the speed metric is the metric that will make non-adoption in sparce clustered demographics distinguishable from adoption in denser demographics. I suspect that issues like symmetry of state signaling, latency, jitter, ... metrics that resemble what I looked for from MPI runs when benchmarking parallel systems, will characterize applications that may be distinguishable from the adoption, market penetration, renewal criteria from the applications that for reasons I can only conjecture, the standard triple play killer apps, which simply aren't driving broadband (whatever that is) adoption in rural areas. And no, I don't know what those better-than-triple-play-killer-apps-in-suburbia are. My meta-point is that I suspect there are two broadbands, one where triple-play sells recurring subscriber drops, and one where it doesn't, and for the later a better definition would be more useful than a definition that reads (in fine print) not available here. Eric Luke Marrott wrote: I read an article on DSL Reports the other day ( http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/FCC-Please-Define-Broadband-104056) , in which the FCC has a document requesting feedback on the definition of Broadband. What are your thoughts on what the definition of Broadband should be going forward? I would assume this will be the standard definition for a number of years to come. Thanks.
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
The push to dumb down the definition is not only to benefit the legacy providers. It also benefits the politicians. A lower standard means that a greater quantity of citizens can be deemed to have been given broadband. The politicians will claim that they have served more Americans... The hard underlying issue is cost-justifying expensive OSP builds in low-density areas. Yes, aerial construction is cheaper than UG. But, it is still hard to build a business case for providing service in a low-density area, especially as an over-builder. (And any terrestrial provider is essentially an over-builder now that DBS tv service is so pervasive.) One cannot count on ~100% penetration, as was possible when there was only one game in town. I don't know if we can ever cost-justify bringing *real* broadband (un-capped FE, GigE, fiber) service to the hinterland. Many of the countries with higher speed service that we compare ourselves against (e.g. S.Korea) are able to build at a very low price point because they have a very high percentage of MDUs. MDU builds are comparatively low cost. Urban MDU, where you can piggy-back on an existing building-entrance conduit are even cheaper. This is like farm subsidy or foreign aid. The tax payer is asked to subsidize bringing the benefits of modern urban/suburban technology to the middle of nowhere. However, if the program succeeds in increasing broadband penetration (whatever broadband is) perhaps it will have the beneficial effect of making the nation more homogeneous and harmonious. On 8/26/2009 10:38 AM, Fred Baker wrote: If it's about stimulus money, I'm in favor of saying that broadband implies fiber to the home. That would provide all sorts of stimuli to the economy - infrastructure, equipment sales, jobs digging ditches, and so on. I could pretty quickly argue myself into suggesting special favors for deployment of DNSSEC, multicast, and IPv6. As in, use the stimulus money to propel a leap forward, not just waste it. On Aug 26, 2009, at 9:44 AM, Carlos Alcantar wrote: I think the big push to get the fcc to define broadband is highly based on the rus/ntia setting definitions of what broadband is. If any anyone has been fallowing the rus/ntia they are the one handing out all the stimulus infrastructure grant loan money. So there are a lot of political reasons to make the definition of broadband a bit slower than one would think. I guess it doesn't hurt that the larger lec's with the older infrastructure are shelling out the money to lobby to make sure the definition stays as low as can be. They don't want to see the gov funding there competition. Just my 2 cents. -carlos -Original Message- From: Ted Fischer [mailto:t...@fred.net] Sent: Wednesday, August 26, 2009 8:50 AM To: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband Paul Timmins wrote: Fred Baker wrote: On Aug 24, 2009, at 9:17 AM, Luke Marrott wrote: What are your thoughts on what the definition of Broadband should be going forward? I would assume this will be the standard definition for a number of years to come. Historically, narrowband was circuit switched (ISDN etc) and broadband was packet switched. Narrowband was therefore tied to the digital signaling hierarchy and was in some way a multiple of 64 KBPS. As the term was used then, broadband delivery options of course included virtual circuits bearing packets, like Frame Relay and ATM. of or relating to or being a communications network in which the bandwidth can be divided and shared by multiple simultaneous signals (as for voice or data or video) That's my humble opinion. Let them use a new term, like High Speed Internet. Seconded
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
CON: active devices in the OSP. On 8/26/2009 12:06 PM, Jack Bates wrote: jim deleskie wrote: I agree we should all be telling the FCC that broadband is fiber to the home. If we spend all kinds of $$ to build a 1.5M/s connection to homes, it's outdated before we even finish. I disagree. I much prefer fiber to the curb with copper to the home. Of course, I haven't had a need for 100mb/s to the house which I can do on copper, much less need for gigabit. Pro's for copper from curb: 1) power over copper for POTS 2) Majority of cuts occur on customer drops and copper is more resilient to splicing by any monkey. Jack
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
I would argue that broadband is the upper X percentile of bandwidth options available to residential users. For instance, something like Verizon FiOS would be broadband while a 7 Mbps cable wouldn't. Jeff On Wed, Aug 26, 2009 at 6:39 PM, Richard Bennettrich...@bennett.com wrote: They have a saying in politics to the effect that the perfect is the enemy of the good. This is a pretty good illustration. We have the opportunity to improve connectivity in rural America through the wise expenditure of taxpayer funding, and it's best not to squander it by insisting on top-shelf fiber or nothing at all. Let's push the fiber a little deeper, and bridge the last 20,000 feet with something that won't be too expensive to replace in 3-5 years. The budget ($7B) just isn't there to give every barn some nice GigE fiber, even though it would make the cows happy. Richard Bennett -Original Message- From: Joe Abley [mailto:jab...@hopcount.ca] Sent: Wednesday, August 26, 2009 1:42 PM To: Fred Baker Cc: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband On 26-Aug-2009, at 13:38, Fred Baker wrote: If it's about stimulus money, I'm in favor of saying that broadband implies fiber to the home. I'm sure I remember hearing from someone that the timelines for disbursement of stimulus money were tight enough that many people expected much of the money to remain unspent. Does narrowing the scope of the funding to mandate fibre have the effect of funding more and better infrastructure, or will it simply result in less money being made available? Does it matter? -- Jeffrey Lyon, Leadership Team jeffrey.l...@blacklotus.net | http://www.blacklotus.net Black Lotus Communications of The IRC Company, Inc. Platinum sponsor of HostingCon 2010. Come to Austin, TX on July 19 - 21 to find out how to protect your booty.
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
Key characteristics of broadband : always on capability (reasonably, DSL ok, dial up no). I would argue 7mb is broadband even if its over carrier pigeon. (meets always on criteria). I think the threshold for cut off is somewhere between 256kbit/s and 1.5mbit/s. If you don't think 1.5mbit is broadband, you need to consider tiers... Most of the worlds population will not see *that* speed in 20yrs. Deepak - Original Message - From: Jeffrey Lyon jeffrey.l...@blacklotus.net To: nanog@nanog.org nanog@nanog.org Sent: Wed Aug 26 19:09:47 2009 Subject: Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband I would argue that broadband is the upper X percentile of bandwidth options available to residential users. For instance, something like Verizon FiOS would be broadband while a 7 Mbps cable wouldn't. Jeff On Wed, Aug 26, 2009 at 6:39 PM, Richard Bennettrich...@bennett.com wrote: They have a saying in politics to the effect that the perfect is the enemy of the good. This is a pretty good illustration. We have the opportunity to improve connectivity in rural America through the wise expenditure of taxpayer funding, and it's best not to squander it by insisting on top-shelf fiber or nothing at all. Let's push the fiber a little deeper, and bridge the last 20,000 feet with something that won't be too expensive to replace in 3-5 years. The budget ($7B) just isn't there to give every barn some nice GigE fiber, even though it would make the cows happy. Richard Bennett -Original Message- From: Joe Abley [mailto:jab...@hopcount.ca] Sent: Wednesday, August 26, 2009 1:42 PM To: Fred Baker Cc: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband On 26-Aug-2009, at 13:38, Fred Baker wrote: If it's about stimulus money, I'm in favor of saying that broadband implies fiber to the home. I'm sure I remember hearing from someone that the timelines for disbursement of stimulus money were tight enough that many people expected much of the money to remain unspent. Does narrowing the scope of the funding to mandate fibre have the effect of funding more and better infrastructure, or will it simply result in less money being made available? Does it matter? -- Jeffrey Lyon, Leadership Team jeffrey.l...@blacklotus.net | http://www.blacklotus.net Black Lotus Communications of The IRC Company, Inc. Platinum sponsor of HostingCon 2010. Come to Austin, TX on July 19 - 21 to find out how to protect your booty.
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
And 640k is enough. When I started in this game 15 or so yrs back the 'backbone' in Canada was a 56k figure 8 loop, running frame relay. We moved to T1 a yr or so later. Buy the time I left Canada to work for internetMCI a yr later, we're @ DS3's in Canada. Technology evolves quickly. Just because some place does not have 'high-speed' internet now, doesn't mean they will not in 5 yrs. I sure we could site here and site all the places in the world they will not due to politics/poverty/all other bad things in the world, but its not reason to limit the goals of people that are part of these projects. -jim On Wed, Aug 26, 2009 at 7:17 PM, Deepak Jaindee...@ai.net wrote: Key characteristics of broadband : always on capability (reasonably, DSL ok, dial up no). I would argue 7mb is broadband even if its over carrier pigeon. (meets always on criteria). I think the threshold for cut off is somewhere between 256kbit/s and 1.5mbit/s. If you don't think 1.5mbit is broadband, you need to consider tiers... Most of the worlds population will not see *that* speed in 20yrs. Deepak - Original Message - From: Jeffrey Lyon jeffrey.l...@blacklotus.net To: nanog@nanog.org nanog@nanog.org Sent: Wed Aug 26 19:09:47 2009 Subject: Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband I would argue that broadband is the upper X percentile of bandwidth options available to residential users. For instance, something like Verizon FiOS would be broadband while a 7 Mbps cable wouldn't. Jeff On Wed, Aug 26, 2009 at 6:39 PM, Richard Bennettrich...@bennett.com wrote: They have a saying in politics to the effect that the perfect is the enemy of the good. This is a pretty good illustration. We have the opportunity to improve connectivity in rural America through the wise expenditure of taxpayer funding, and it's best not to squander it by insisting on top-shelf fiber or nothing at all. Let's push the fiber a little deeper, and bridge the last 20,000 feet with something that won't be too expensive to replace in 3-5 years. The budget ($7B) just isn't there to give every barn some nice GigE fiber, even though it would make the cows happy. Richard Bennett -Original Message- From: Joe Abley [mailto:jab...@hopcount.ca] Sent: Wednesday, August 26, 2009 1:42 PM To: Fred Baker Cc: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband On 26-Aug-2009, at 13:38, Fred Baker wrote: If it's about stimulus money, I'm in favor of saying that broadband implies fiber to the home. I'm sure I remember hearing from someone that the timelines for disbursement of stimulus money were tight enough that many people expected much of the money to remain unspent. Does narrowing the scope of the funding to mandate fibre have the effect of funding more and better infrastructure, or will it simply result in less money being made available? Does it matter? -- Jeffrey Lyon, Leadership Team jeffrey.l...@blacklotus.net | http://www.blacklotus.net Black Lotus Communications of The IRC Company, Inc. Platinum sponsor of HostingCon 2010. Come to Austin, TX on July 19 - 21 to find out how to protect your booty.
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
I think it has become obvious that the correct definition of broadband depends on the users location. A house in the boonies is not going to get fiber, Perhaps the minimum acceptable bandwidth should vary by area. A definition of area could be some sort of user density measurement by census tract. Deepak Jain wrote: Key characteristics of broadband : always on capability (reasonably, DSL ok, dial up no). I would argue 7mb is broadband even if its over carrier pigeon. (meets always on criteria). I think the threshold for cut off is somewhere between 256kbit/s and 1.5mbit/s. If you don't think 1.5mbit is broadband, you need to consider tiers... Most of the worlds population will not see *that* speed in 20yrs. Deepak - Original Message - From: Jeffrey Lyon jeffrey.l...@blacklotus.net To: nanog@nanog.org nanog@nanog.org Sent: Wed Aug 26 19:09:47 2009 Subject: Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband I would argue that broadband is the upper X percentile of bandwidth options available to residential users. For instance, something like Verizon FiOS would be broadband while a 7 Mbps cable wouldn't. Jeff On Wed, Aug 26, 2009 at 6:39 PM, Richard Bennettrich...@bennett.com wrote: They have a saying in politics to the effect that the perfect is the enemy of the good. This is a pretty good illustration. We have the opportunity to improve connectivity in rural America through the wise expenditure of taxpayer funding, and it's best not to squander it by insisting on top-shelf fiber or nothing at all. Let's push the fiber a little deeper, and bridge the last 20,000 feet with something that won't be too expensive to replace in 3-5 years. The budget ($7B) just isn't there to give every barn some nice GigE fiber, even though it would make the cows happy. Richard Bennett -Original Message- From: Joe Abley [mailto:jab...@hopcount.ca] Sent: Wednesday, August 26, 2009 1:42 PM To: Fred Baker Cc: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband On 26-Aug-2009, at 13:38, Fred Baker wrote: If it's about stimulus money, I'm in favor of saying that broadband implies fiber to the home. I'm sure I remember hearing from someone that the timelines for disbursement of stimulus money were tight enough that many people expected much of the money to remain unspent. Does narrowing the scope of the funding to mandate fibre have the effect of funding more and better infrastructure, or will it simply result in less money being made available? Does it matter?
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
Why should I person be disadvantage from another in the same country, maybe its the Canadian in me, but isn't there something in the founding documents of the US that define's all men as being equal. I though it was Orewell that made some more equal then others. :) -jim On Wed, Aug 26, 2009 at 8:00 PM, Royr.engehau...@gmail.com wrote: I think it has become obvious that the correct definition of broadband depends on the users location. A house in the boonies is not going to get fiber, Perhaps the minimum acceptable bandwidth should vary by area. A definition of area could be some sort of user density measurement by census tract. Deepak Jain wrote: Key characteristics of broadband : always on capability (reasonably, DSL ok, dial up no). I would argue 7mb is broadband even if its over carrier pigeon. (meets always on criteria). I think the threshold for cut off is somewhere between 256kbit/s and 1.5mbit/s. If you don't think 1.5mbit is broadband, you need to consider tiers... Most of the worlds population will not see *that* speed in 20yrs. Deepak - Original Message - From: Jeffrey Lyon jeffrey.l...@blacklotus.net To: nanog@nanog.org nanog@nanog.org Sent: Wed Aug 26 19:09:47 2009 Subject: Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband I would argue that broadband is the upper X percentile of bandwidth options available to residential users. For instance, something like Verizon FiOS would be broadband while a 7 Mbps cable wouldn't. Jeff On Wed, Aug 26, 2009 at 6:39 PM, Richard Bennettrich...@bennett.com wrote: They have a saying in politics to the effect that the perfect is the enemy of the good. This is a pretty good illustration. We have the opportunity to improve connectivity in rural America through the wise expenditure of taxpayer funding, and it's best not to squander it by insisting on top-shelf fiber or nothing at all. Let's push the fiber a little deeper, and bridge the last 20,000 feet with something that won't be too expensive to replace in 3-5 years. The budget ($7B) just isn't there to give every barn some nice GigE fiber, even though it would make the cows happy. Richard Bennett -Original Message- From: Joe Abley [mailto:jab...@hopcount.ca] Sent: Wednesday, August 26, 2009 1:42 PM To: Fred Baker Cc: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband On 26-Aug-2009, at 13:38, Fred Baker wrote: If it's about stimulus money, I'm in favor of saying that broadband implies fiber to the home. I'm sure I remember hearing from someone that the timelines for disbursement of stimulus money were tight enough that many people expected much of the money to remain unspent. Does narrowing the scope of the funding to mandate fibre have the effect of funding more and better infrastructure, or will it simply result in less money being made available? Does it matter?
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
In a message written on Mon, Aug 24, 2009 at 10:17:02AM -0600, Luke Marrott wrote: I read an article on DSL Reports the other day ( http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/FCC-Please-Define-Broadband-104056), in which the FCC has a document requesting feedback on the definition of Broadband. What are your thoughts on what the definition of Broadband should be going forward? I would assume this will be the standard definition for a number of years to come. I'm not sure the defintion of Broadband matters, what matters is that we keep moving forward. We should set a goal of all American's having a speed twice as fast in 5 years. And after that twice as fast again in another 5 years. There is no bar we reach where we are done. -- Leo Bicknell - bickn...@ufp.org - CCIE 3440 PGP keys at http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/ pgpzae6BxWtBu.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
We are talking government handouts here and they never make sense jim deleskie wrote: Why should I person be disadvantage from another in the same country, maybe its the Canadian in me, but isn't there something in the founding documents of the US that define's all men as being equal. I though it was Orewell that made some more equal then others. :) -jim On Wed, Aug 26, 2009 at 8:00 PM, Royr.engehau...@gmail.com wrote: I think it has become obvious that the correct definition of broadband depends on the users location. A house in the boonies is not going to get fiber, Perhaps the minimum acceptable bandwidth should vary by area. A definition of area could be some sort of user density measurement by census tract.
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
Once upon a time, jim deleskie deles...@gmail.com said: Why should I person be disadvantage from another in the same country, maybe its the Canadian in me, but isn't there something in the founding documents of the US that define's all men as being equal. Nobody is forcing anybody to live out where high-speed Internet is not currently feasible (or at least not at a price that those residents want to pay). I live half a mile from a six lane highway; that doesn't mean that we have to build six lane highways to within half a mile of everybody in the country. -- Chris Adams cmad...@hiwaay.net Systems and Network Administrator - HiWAAY Internet Services I don't speak for anybody but myself - that's enough trouble.
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
Wrong analogy, you have no way to use all 6 lanes @ once. The highway is an aggregation device not access method. Unless you have 6 lanes into your driveway :) On Wed, Aug 26, 2009 at 10:11 PM, Chris Adamscmad...@hiwaay.net wrote: Once upon a time, jim deleskie deles...@gmail.com said: Why should I person be disadvantage from another in the same country, maybe its the Canadian in me, but isn't there something in the founding documents of the US that define's all men as being equal. Nobody is forcing anybody to live out where high-speed Internet is not currently feasible (or at least not at a price that those residents want to pay). I live half a mile from a six lane highway; that doesn't mean that we have to build six lane highways to within half a mile of everybody in the country. -- Chris Adams cmad...@hiwaay.net Systems and Network Administrator - HiWAAY Internet Services I don't speak for anybody but myself - that's enough trouble.
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
On Wed, 26 Aug 2009, Fred Baker wrote: If it's about stimulus money, I'm in favor of saying that broadband implies fiber to the home. That would provide all sorts of stimuli to the economy - infrastructure, equipment sales, jobs digging ditches, and so on. I could pretty quickly argue myself into suggesting special favors for deployment of DNSSEC, multicast, and IPv6. As in, use the stimulus money to propel a leap forward, not just waste it. Broadband stimulus money = $7,200,000,000 Housing units in USA (2000) = 115,904,641 Stimulus money per housing unit = $62.12 one-time What definition of broadband can you achieve for that amount of money? Or for rural housing units (2000) = 25,938,698 Stimulus money per rural housing unit = $277.58 one-time What definition of broadband can you achieve for that amount of money in a rural build-out? How much will fiber to the home cost in a rural area?
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
heh. I've seen 3 different plans for FTTH in 3 different telco's; different engineering firms. All 3 had active devices in the OSP. Apparently they couldn't justify putting more fiber in all the way back to the office. Don't get me wrong. I've heard wonderful drawn out arguments concerning vendors that failed to properly handle Oklahoma summers or draw too much power. Brings up new PRO: active devices in the OSP providing longhaul redundancy on fiber rings Another PRO: simple, inexpensive NID Jack Robert Enger - NANOG wrote: CON: active devices in the OSP. On 8/26/2009 12:06 PM, Jack Bates wrote: jim deleskie wrote: I agree we should all be telling the FCC that broadband is fiber to the home. If we spend all kinds of $$ to build a 1.5M/s connection to homes, it's outdated before we even finish. I disagree. I much prefer fiber to the curb with copper to the home. Of course, I haven't had a need for 100mb/s to the house which I can do on copper, much less need for gigabit. Pro's for copper from curb: 1) power over copper for POTS 2) Majority of cuts occur on customer drops and copper is more resilient to splicing by any monkey. Jack
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
Sean Donelan wrote: Stimulus money per rural housing unit = $277.58 one-time What definition of broadband can you achieve for that amount of money in a rural build-out? How much will fiber to the home cost in a rural area? For 1-2k customers in small rural towns I've been hearing numbers in the millions of dollars without FTTH. FTTH projects exceeded all DSL in price and had higher cost NIDs. There are also more engineering details that must be considered in FTTH (and standard telco engineering firms sometimes screw up on it; running the bill up more) to cover voice concerns. And while everyone is arguing about this, I'll let you know right now it is much MUCH harder to get money when putting copper in than fiber; including many of the different types of loans. I've seen people screwed over because of the push to fiber which has often made it cost prohibitive for them to get service and strained the telco finances reducing their overall ability to support service. So, yeah. I'd be happy if everyone would back down and quit pushing FTTH so hard and support sound, reliable, inexpensive FTTC technologies. They both have their place. Just for the record, I still have over 50% of my customer base in dialup. Of course, 98% of those dialups are in ATT territory. My ILEC/CLEC customers have done well in providing DSL to a majority of their customers. They have even increased bandwidth where they can and tariffs allow. I hope to see ATT expand further out than 3 miles from the CO, upgrading some of their double ended carrier and putting in DSL capable remotes. Given they probably can't recover costs on some of the existing plant, it is doubtful they'll put in more fiber than necessary. Jack
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
Jack Bates wrote: Roy wrote: The problem that the FCC faces is making a realistic definition that can apply to the whole US and not just cities. If I'm reading this question right, the issue is that Congress appropriated some pork for rural broadband and now it's up to the FCC to guess what Congress intended that to mean so they can determine which applicants will be allowed to feed at the public trough. I'd say that most laymen currently consider broadband to be an always-on service at 1Mb/s or faster, regardless of the particular technology used. FTTH sounds attractive, but there's just not enough pork to actually do it for a non-trivial number of rural homes; it's barely feasible for (sub)urban homes. FTTC is the only realistic option, with the last mile being either existing copper or existing coax. The curb has a slightly different meaning in a rural area, of course, but that doesn't need to be specified in the definition anyway. How does fiber (home or curb) figure in the rural sections of the country? It figures in nicely, thank you. Of course, our definition of curb might be 1.5 miles further than your definition. ;) 2 miles is the cutoff for 10mb/s reliability, but to deal with future stuff, most of my telco customers have dropped it down to 1.5 miles. My ILEC's techs claim they can run VDSL2 several miles but lose about 1Mb/s per 1000ft from the head end. Luckily I'm about 1500ft from mine, and my line tested out at ~58Mb/s -- though they'll only sell me 10Mb/s of that for data and 25Mb/s of it for TV. It's amazing how far we've come in the last two decades since I got my first 2400bps modem. If VDSL2 can't go far enough for rural areas and/or would require more remote units than is feasible, I'd say that ADSL is fast enough that it should also qualify. Supporting triple-play should not be a requirement, IMHO, as customers can always use DBS for TV and most people who claim to have broadband today don't have or can't get triple-play. I wouldn't go as far as accepting ISDN/IDSL, though, if anyone is even still selling that junk. S -- Stephen Sprunk God does not play dice. --Albert Einstein CCIE #3723 God is an inveterate gambler, and He throws the K5SSSdice at every possible opportunity. --Stephen Hawking smime.p7s Description: S/MIME Cryptographic Signature
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
It's not a technical question, it's a political one, so feel free to squelch this for off-topicness if you want. Technically, broadband is faster than narrowband, and beyond that it's fast enough for what you're trying to sell; tell me what you're trying to sell and I'll tell you how fast a connection you need. ulliIf you're trying to sell email, VOIP, and lightly-graphical web browsing, 64kbps is enough, and 128 is better. liIf you're trying to sell wireless data excluding laptop tethering, that's also fast enough for anything except maybe uploading hi-res camera video. liIf you're trying to sell talking-heads video conferencing, 128's enough but 384's better. liIf you're trying to sell internet radio, somewhere around 300 is probably enough. liIf you're trying to sell online gaming, you'll need to find a WoW addict; I gather latency's a bit more of an issue than bandwidth for most people. liIf you're trying to sell home web servers - oh wait, they're not! - 100-300k's usually enough, unless you get slashdotted, in which case you need 50-100Mbps for a couple of hours. liIf you're trying to sell Youtube-quality video, 1 Mbps is enough, 3 Mbps is better. liIf you're trying to sell television replacement, 10M's about enough for one HD channel, 20's better, but the real question is what kind of multicast upstream infrastructure you're using to manage the number of channels you're selling, and whether you're price-competitive with cable, satellite, or radio broadcast, and how well you get along with your city and state regulators who'd like a piece of the action. li If what you're trying to sell is the relevance of the FCC to the Democratic political machines, the answer is measured in TV-hours, newspaper-inches, and letters to Congresscritters, which isn't my problem. /ul
Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
On Aug 24, 2009, at 9:17 AM, Luke Marrott wrote: What are your thoughts on what the definition of Broadband should be going forward? I would assume this will be the standard definition for a number of years to come. Historically, narrowband was circuit switched (ISDN etc) and broadband was packet switched. Narrowband was therefore tied to the digital signaling hierarchy and was in some way a multiple of 64 KBPS. As the term was used then, broadband delivery options of course included virtual circuits bearing packets, like Frame Relay and ATM. The new services I am hearing about include streamed video to multiple HD TVs in the home. I think I would encourage the FCC to discuss broadband to step away from the technology and look at the bandwidth usably delivered (as in I don't care what the bit rate of the connection at the curb is if the back end is clogged; how much can a commodity TCP session move through the network). http://tinyurl.com/pgxqzb suggests that the average broadband service worldwide delivers a download rate of 1.5 MBPS; having the FCC assert that the new definition of broadband is that it delivers a usable data rate in excess of 1 MBPS while narrowband delivers less seems reasonable. That said, the US is ~15th worldwide in broadband speed; Belgium, Ireland, South Korea, Taiwan, and the UK seem to think that FTTH that can serve multiple HDTVs simultaneously is normal.
