zitch
join:2002-07-08
Lafayette, LA
 ·LUS Fiber
| Re: I wonder... I've talked to the director myself about this, and he really understands what he's selling: an IP fiber pipe within the city of Lafayette. The idea is that anybody within the city on fiber can use the full capacity of the fiber network to connect to anybody else in the city that's also on fiber. Whether that ends being 100 Mbps or 1 Gbps, this is a serious boon for businesses within the city (VPNs, video conferencing, or just transferring huge amounts of data from one branch to another). In other words, it's not just the physical fiber, but the TCP/IP connection that serves the city becomes the infrastructure for everything else (whether it's browsing the World Wide Web, an IP phone system, or a high-definition TV box getting video to display, it all works on top of TCP/IP).
Basically, LUS is providing a triple Internet/Phone/TV package to get the area residents on their side, as it's easier to sell them on "cheaper and faster internet" than on "an IP infrastructure", but what they're really providing is the fiber connection; it looks like they are contracting everything else out as possible.
From what I talked to the director, he's very open to private companies building a link between the fiber network and an Internet backbone, set up a gateway, and sell services as a ISP to residents. Or make deals with content providers and offer TV over IP on the network. It looked like he would be pleased to have multiple companies "compete" with LUS's offerings. And he hopes that new, innovative companies will start to offer services that we haven't even thought of yet.
So yeah, I was a grudging supporter for the LUS fiber plan for a long time before that talk (which was several months ago). After that talk, you can remove the "grudging" part, as much of my wariness of the plan was erased (though not all) as I changed my perspective as to what the "infrastructure" really is. As it is, I'm in a wait-and-see mode when it comes to seeing it in action at home (My company is already using LUS fiber; they've been selling fiber internet to local business for a long time now). |
