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AbeNexus
join:2014-08-09

AbeNexus

Member

Fiber for building [Consultants welcome]

Hi,

I've been away from Canada for a while and planning on returning soon. A while back I partnered with a few people and managed to purchase a residential building in Ottawa.

I work in a technology field and looking to expand a bit, I am thinking of proposing to my partners and tenants the deployment of our own fiber network for the building with speeds of 100Mbps+ for each apartment.

Back in the days, I was in talks with someone from Atria Networks but I got busy and had to leave. Now Atria has been acquired by Rogers. Atria had originally owned the fiber lines laid down by the power company I believe. I am not sure if I can still lease the lines from them or contract them to do the construction. I don't plan on laying too much fiber, I mainly just want to ride on existing infrastructure.

This might later develop into establishing a TPIA or something of the sorts. Maybe with TV options but this is too far away for now. Also maybe peer with YouTube/Google or Netflix.

I am interested in finding a consultant to work with. I'd be interested in at least discussing it. I don't mind discussing it openly so everyone can also benefit from it.

Now bear in mind, I heard of building owners in Toronto being pressured into not doing this by having for example cable TV cut off from the building, or poor wireless coverage, etc... These are only rumors and never got any sources on this. So this might be something I'd have to consider.

I am open to suggestions that can help me convince the tenants and partners. I am not out to compete with the big guys, as this would require billions, just want to use existing infrastructure to make something great, in the hopes that Google Fiber will someday arrive to our side of the border.

Consultants interested, please send me your resumes, detailing past projects you worked, your successes and failures, budgets you had to manage, return on investments, and a small blurb on the workflow that would need to be established. If you are a contractor/provider, please let me know you exist, I might send RFPs if things get more serious.

Otherwise, just having an open discussion that can be useful to everyone would be great.

PS: I searched the forum for similar topics but found nothing similar.

twizlar
I dont think so.
Premium Member
join:2003-12-24
Brantford, ON

2 edits

twizlar

Premium Member

Are you attempting to run fibre within the building as well? At face value it is pretty easy to setup service for an MDU. I've done this in 5-6 buildings in the last year and it works quite well provided you know what you are doing. One thing you may not have thought about yet is how you plan on providing tech support to the tenants or the costs involved in doing that.

That issue aside it really depends on the construction of the building and what sort of wiring structure is available. In our case we had wiring closets on each floor that we installed switches in to and ran CAT6 to every unit. All of the floor level switches were connected via fibre to a router in the basement, which was backhauled over rogers/atria fibre to 151 front street.

You also may not be aware of who owns what portion of the wiring in the building. Often the telco/cable company will own the wiring all the way to the units.

How many units are in the building?

Datalink
@99.224.154.x

Datalink to AbeNexus

Anon

to AbeNexus
If you don't have much luck with responses, do a search for structured wire installer ottawa

From there its a matter of determining who designs and installs fibre infrastructure on that scale. The essence of what you are doing is really simple: replacing the multi-floor copper runs, and all of its headaches with a fibre run that in theory presents a constant input / output impedance at both ends, no matter if its the first floor, 20th floor, etc. The design is the key, simple approach with separate fibre modems on single fibre runs per client, or multiplex. I would think you should be able to do much better than 100 Mb/s, but that will depend on the design and where you want to cap it. I really wish you much success with your search.

infamouskid
join:2007-01-24
White Rock, BC

infamouskid to AbeNexus

Member

to AbeNexus
give teksavvy a shout.
AbeNexus
join:2014-08-09

AbeNexus to twizlar

Member

to twizlar
For tech support, I would probably contract a part-time or full-time technician to take care of any maintenance required. As for the cost, it's just like any cost of running a business, and will be paid from any revenue made by providing the service to the tenants.

I will probably not be removing any existing lines, just adding my own fiber. I don't want to force the clients to pay for something they can't afford or don't need, but at the same time I need to make sure there is enough interest to at least break even long-term.

Can you elaborate on the process of backhauling with Atria?

I have 32 units in the building.
AbeNexus

AbeNexus to Datalink

Member

to Datalink
Thank you, I will search for that. And thank you for your kind wishes.

I'm not sure I can do better than 100 Mb/s, I just need to gauge interest and see, in addition I am not sure how much the line would cost me with Atria for example for backhaul if I go for 100Mb/s line or something around 200-300Mb/s

twizlar
I dont think so.
Premium Member
join:2003-12-24
Brantford, ON

twizlar to AbeNexus

Premium Member

to AbeNexus
Backhauling with atria/rogers is pretty simple. Purchase tls service and they will provide you a vlan from your building to their router at 151 front street. From there you can cross connect to any of the providers to purchase bandwidth. In our case we have 2x 1gbit tls links from our pop to 151 front and then have additional vlans from other buildings back to our pop as well as several buildings linked via wireless.

Guspaz
Guspaz
MVM
join:2001-11-05
Montreal, QC

Guspaz to AbeNexus

MVM

to AbeNexus
Does running fibre to each apartment really make sense? You need to provide optical terminal equipment to every apartment, then.

Instead, you can run fiber to the building for the backhaul, and then run ethernet to each apartment, terminating in an ethernet jack somewhere in their unit. That way, no extra hardware is required for the end-user except an ethernet cable (or a home router if they want to use multiple devices).

Depending on the size of the building, you may want to run fibre to a switch on each floor and then ethernet to the units.

twizlar
I dont think so.
Premium Member
join:2003-12-24
Brantford, ON

twizlar

Premium Member

This is how I would do it for a 32 unit building. There is no need to fibre to each unit, you can get the same speeds with ethernet and it is much more convenient.
WebBluenet
join:2009-05-30
Sainte-Rose, QC

WebBluenet

Member

INHO Running fiber to each apt is darn almost the same cost as running coppper. A fiber cable with a single pair inside riser rated is maybe $100 more expensive than copper today. An ont costs maybe $30 if not less. I would think that the small added cost can somehow be absorbed in the service offering or building construction. There might not be a huge advantage to actual fiber lit apts's as copper will do 1Gbps nicely but with more distance limitations, but it might be an actual selling point that its actually fiber right to the client.. People want the best thing they hear, and theres alot of fiber in the air amongst the big guy ads, so theres bragging rights for the client, network owner and fiber just sells better. This is just my opinion ofcourse. If you can justify the a few more dollars, I would go the fiber route.

Oh, and FiberMedia.ca is building out there Ottawa network, so theres definitly a huge cost advantag there in terms of transit.
Regards,

pstewart
Premium Member
join:2005-10-12
Peterborough, ON

pstewart

Premium Member

said by WebBluenet:

INHO Running fiber to each apt is darn almost the same cost as running coppper. A fiber cable with a single pair inside riser rated is maybe $100 more expensive than copper today. An ont costs maybe $30 if not less. I would think that the small added cost can somehow be absorbed in the service offering or building construction. There might not be a huge advantage to actual fiber lit apts's as copper will do 1Gbps nicely but with more distance limitations, but it might be an actual selling point that its actually fiber right to the client.. People want the best thing they hear, and theres alot of fiber in the air amongst the big guy ads, so theres bragging rights for the client, network owner and fiber just sells better. This is just my opinion ofcourse. If you can justify the a few more dollars, I would go the fiber route.

Oh, and FiberMedia.ca is building out there Ottawa network, so theres definitly a huge cost advantag there in terms of transit.
Regards,

Was that a typo - $30 for an ONT?

Guspaz
Guspaz
MVM
join:2001-11-05
Montreal, QC

Guspaz to AbeNexus

MVM

to AbeNexus
Monoprice seems to indicate fiber is twice the cost of cat6, and I did find GPON ONTs for sale for $40 or so. But even a cost of $100 extra per apartment, that would mean $35,000 extra to service my building. That's a pretty big extra cost to cover!
prairiesky
join:2008-12-08
canada

prairiesky to AbeNexus

Member

to AbeNexus
where are these ont's for $30? Then there's the added cost of the OLT. You then have to manage the fiber system.

I'm just starting to get into this same market here, I have almost 10 building lined up. We're planning on doing cat 6, which should be good to 1gig, maybe 10 depending on lengths.

The end user won't have a fiber interface, and if it does, will it be compatible with your olt. They'll have ethernet. My theory is keep it simple. The extra costs and complexities aren't justified. Just about anyone can terminate a cat 6 cable. it has enough capacity for a LONG time and you don't have the added hassles of extra equipment in between.

That's my conclusion for MDU's. I also have a small FTTH deployment so I am aware of the costs and benefits of both systems.

Work yourself a spreadsheet and see what has the lowest operating and capital costs. Then take the capital costs, amortize them, compare that to what you could charge and see how much $$$ you could make. I can guarantee the cat6 will be a much better investment.

twizlar
I dont think so.
Premium Member
join:2003-12-24
Brantford, ON

twizlar

Premium Member

This was the conclusion we came to as well. There is really no added benefit to going fibre for the connections to the units and all it does is add to the complexity and cost of the overall project.

pstewart
Premium Member
join:2005-10-12
Peterborough, ON

pstewart

Premium Member

said by twizlar:

This was the conclusion we came to as well. There is really no added benefit to going fibre for the connections to the units and all it does is add to the complexity and cost of the overall project.

If you want to provide triple or quad play then putting ONT's or GPON in place has advantages but if you are just looking at Internet service then cat5/6 makes more sense in my opinion.

Right now, there are significant fiber shortages as well which will probably drive the price up in the market as well - not a good time to be buying

Guspaz
Guspaz
MVM
join:2001-11-05
Montreal, QC

Guspaz to prairiesky

MVM

to prairiesky
cat6 is rated for 10 gigabit at 55 metres. Cat6a and Cat7 are rated to do it the full 100 metres.

For relative cable pricing, this is what I see for 1000 foot lengths of cable at monoprice:

Cat 5e UTP: $81
Cat 5e STP: $136
Cat 6 UTP: $107
Cat 6 STP: $157

Monoprice does not sell 1000 foot spools of Cat6a or Cat7, so here is the normalized price taken from multiplying shorter lengths of pre-terminated cable until they hit 1000 feet:

Cat 6a STP: $197
Cat 7 STP: $301

The cat 7 price is probably not very accurate, it's a lot of 10 metre cables multipied by 30.5 :P
Guspaz

Guspaz to pstewart

MVM

to pstewart
said by pstewart:

If you want to provide triple or quad play then putting ONT's or GPON in place has advantages but if you are just looking at Internet service then cat5/6 makes more sense in my opinion.

You can do a triple play (or quad play, but for the wireless it doesn't matter what you hook up homes with) over cat6 just fine... VoIP and IPTV are already being provided by some ISPs.

pstewart
Premium Member
join:2005-10-12
Peterborough, ON

pstewart to Guspaz

Premium Member

to Guspaz
said by Guspaz:

Monoprice seems to indicate fiber is twice the cost of cat6, and I did find GPON ONTs for sale for $40 or so. But even a cost of $100 extra per apartment, that would mean $35,000 extra to service my building. That's a pretty big extra cost to cover!

For the cost of deploying fiber, I wouldn't trust my reputation to $40 ONT's.....
pstewart

pstewart to Guspaz

Premium Member

to Guspaz
said by Guspaz:

said by pstewart:

If you want to provide triple or quad play then putting ONT's or GPON in place has advantages but if you are just looking at Internet service then cat5/6 makes more sense in my opinion.

You can do a triple play (or quad play, but for the wireless it doesn't matter what you hook up homes with) over cat6 just fine... VoIP and IPTV are already being provided by some ISPs.

Sure you can - but what would you put at the endpoints for management? There's obviously many different ways to deliver services - just saying that ONT/PON has many advantages (and costs).

Gone
Premium Member
join:2011-01-24
Fort Erie, ON

Gone

Premium Member

With fibre you're not limited to just IPTV.

pstewart
Premium Member
join:2005-10-12
Peterborough, ON

pstewart

Premium Member

said by Gone:

With fibre you're not limited to just IPTV.

That is correct ..

Guspaz
Guspaz
MVM
join:2001-11-05
Montreal, QC

Guspaz to AbeNexus

MVM

to AbeNexus
Sure, but why would you want to do RFoG if you're not an incumbent cableco trying to migrate existing digital cable customers?

Gone
Premium Member
join:2011-01-24
Fort Erie, ON

Gone

Premium Member

said by Guspaz:

Sure, but why would you want to do RFoG if you're not an incumbent cableco trying to migrate existing digital cable customers?

Simplified headend equipment, and off-the-shelf commodity set-top boxes that are a lot cheaper than IPTV equipment.

That, and RFoG and GPON can co-exist peacefully on a single piece of fibre.
yyzlhr
join:2012-09-03
Scarborough, ON

yyzlhr

Member

said by Gone:

said by Guspaz:

Sure, but why would you want to do RFoG if you're not an incumbent cableco trying to migrate existing digital cable customers?

Simplified headend equipment, and off-the-shelf commodity set-top boxes that are a lot cheaper than IPTV equipment.

That, and RFoG and GPON can co-exist peacefully on a single piece of fibre.

IPTV boxes are a lot cheaper than STBs with QAM tuners. Also the head end equipment is far less complicated with IPTV.

Gone
Premium Member
join:2011-01-24
Fort Erie, ON

Gone

Premium Member

Really? QAM stuff has been around a whole lot longer. I would have thought it the other way around as far as cost went simply due to maturity and scale of availability.

Guspaz
Guspaz
MVM
join:2001-11-05
Montreal, QC

Guspaz to AbeNexus

MVM

to AbeNexus
Think of it this way: IPTV boxes don't really do anything that STBs don't have to do, but STBs have to do a whole lot more because they need to do the analog to digital tuning and conversion.

Basically the STB is like an IPTV box plus cable modem rolled into one.

That said, Zazeen's IPTV boxes are $150 and $200, while Videotron's HD STB is $99
yyzlhr
join:2012-09-03
Scarborough, ON

yyzlhr to Gone

Member

to Gone
IPTV boxes have less components hence why they're cheaper. Also there are few options for QAM boxes. You either buy them from Cisco, Arris (Motorola), Pace or Samsung. If you're not a large MSO you won't have the buying power to get them at a decent price.
prairiesky
join:2008-12-08
canada

prairiesky to Guspaz

Member

to Guspaz
said by Guspaz:

That said, Zazeen's IPTV boxes are $150 and $200, while Videotron's HD STB is $99

retail, or wholesale? because there's a BIG difference.

Gone
Premium Member
join:2011-01-24
Fort Erie, ON

Gone

Premium Member

Videotron is probably selling their boxes for near cost or even at a small loss. Zazeen on the other hand is probably making 10 to 20 points on theirs.

Which was my entire point. IPTV boxes may be cheaper to manufacture, this I never disputed. But that doesn't mean you can buy it or the equipment to drive it cheaper as an end-provider than you can qam equipment.

Guspaz
Guspaz
MVM
join:2001-11-05
Montreal, QC

Guspaz to prairiesky

MVM

to prairiesky
said by prairiesky:

retail, or wholesale? because there's a BIG difference.

Neither. Direct to their IPTV customers. I'm not sure that it makes much sense to put a profit margin on your STB, because it's a barrier to getting people signed up for recurring revenue. You want the barriers to acquisition to be as low as possible.