ronpin
Imagine Reality
join:2002-12-06
Nirvana
 ·AT&T Southwest
1 edit | SBC opposes San Francisco Muni BB
SBC CEO Ed Whitacre | 
SBC CTO Chris Rice |
(San Francisco) In a precedent-setting vote late Tuesday, the City's Public Utilities Commission unanimously approved a $300k feasability study for implementation of a municipally-run broadband/Internet project. The 4-0 vote was hailed as a significant step forward by a broad coalition of public interest advocates working towards low-cost universal access to the Internet and other media."It's time for San Francisco to catch up with the rest of the world on this," said PUC Commissioner Adam Werbach.
Weighing in against the initiative were the SF Chamber of Commerce, the Committee on Jobs, the Pacific Research Institute, SBC and Comcast. ...
The caption for these pictures should read "We won't, and you'd better not!"
Mr. Whitacre, Mr. Rice please hear us. We want and expect fiber to our homes. Copper will not do -- we don't want it. We're not really interested in why you don't want to do it.
Finally -- if SBC fails to fun fiber to our homes -- we will do it ourselves -- we will do it ourselves! (some of us actually know how). You can't stop the rain.
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Lord protect me from your followers |
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starstuff
Fly By Wire
Premium
join:2001-12-05
Mcallen, TX
| I wonder what make municipalities decide to install their own fiber networks?
It doesn't make any sense to me why a local government want to get into the ISP business. Don't take me wrong, I like the idea but why?
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If something goes wrong at the plant, blame the guy who can't speak English--Homer Simpson. |
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DslTrblShoot
join:2004-09-23 | reply to ronpin
Funny how SBC was willing to run fiber 10 years ago, but people were complaining of the price and didnt want it at the time.....Now when SBC holds off everyone complains....... |
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Shad0wlore
Premium
join:2004-06-15
USA
| My sentiments exactly. A few years ago I was contracting out, and SBC approached my town (not the same place I'm at now) about running fiber, if the town would help pay for the initial costs of the installation. (it was going to equal out to something like 85% SBC, 15% muni...) Then SBC had placed offers to pay the town back as well. So ultimately, it'd be SBC that paid for it all (just not all up front)...
You'd think SBC had asked the town to slaughter all the schoolchildren within it. Public outcry, moreso, DEMAND was made that SBC stop all preparations, because they we're going to have any of it. The local contractors tried to explain to the citizens why it was a good idea (for future upgrades).
Fact is, no one cares about Future plans.. they care about the here and now. 'WE WANT FIBER NOW!!!... but don't ask us for help doing it....' seems to be the general mentality.
I'll happily admit, I want fiber now, so I'm living in the here and now... but I also understand what's required to do it. Do you really think Sally Smith is going to want SBC digging a trench thru her flower garden, to lay down fiber to her house?
The Munis will still have to get usage from another provider somewhere down the line.... Ok.. great.. you want to put your own fiber in... what's that? You only have copper running TO the muni in the first place? You're still gonna have that bottleneck. It's like seeing a 4 cylinder Ford Tempo with a performance exhaust system... it may sound like a racecar, even the exhaust may look like it... but ultimately... you're still limited by the crap engine.
Kinda an abstract post here, I apologize... I'm running low on sleep atm, since I'm actually having to travel 50miles into work since Monday when SBC decided it'd be fun change my profile to the 1.5 linespeed (which is too slow to telecommute over, thus I have to drive into the office and make all my users annoyed at my lack of response)
Shadowlore |
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nwrickert
sand groper
Premium,MVM
join:2004-09-04
Geneva, IL
 ·AT&T U-Verse
·AT&T Midwest
| reply to starstuff
I wonder what make municipalities decide to install their own fiber networks? Frustration, since nobody else is willing to do what is needed. Often the concern is to be attractive to businesses that they would like to locate to their municipality.
It doesn't make any sense to me why a local government want to get into the ISP business. Don't take me wrong, I like the idea but why?
I'm not convinced that they do want to get into the ISP business. Perhaps they want to provide the backbone, and allow existing ISPs to use it for providing ISP services. |
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jlhugh
Premium
join:2001-09-07
Wichita Falls, TX
clubs:
·AT&T Southwest
| reply to DslTrblShoot
said by DslTrblShoot  :Funny how SBC was willing to run fiber 10 years ago, but people were complaining of the price and didnt want it at the time.....Now when SBC holds off everyone complains....... Exactly....they are pointing the finger at the wrong person. |
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ronpin
Imagine Reality
join:2002-12-06
Nirvana
·AT&T Southwest
3 edits | reply to ronpin
said by starstuff :I wonder what make municipalities decide to install their own fiber networks?It doesn't make any sense to me why a local government want to get into the ISP business. Don't take me wrong, I like the idea but why? The article quotes the reasons from San Fran. Here is just one current, real example
said by Chris313 : (from » Where is Keller Tx? ) I'm looking to move somwhere that is live or is very close to going live with FiOS and my family is looking at Keller... ...
said by DslTrblShoot :Funny how SBC was willing to run fiber 10 years ago, but people were complaining of the price and didnt want it at the time.....Now when SBC holds off everyone complains Everything changed last year when Verizon started FTTP in Keller. Nobody can say it's not practical anymore -- Verizon is actually doing it! (many people just can't grasp that fact -- I understand) Besides, fiber FTTP really was too costly 10 years ago. The FSAN standards weren't even initiated until 1997. BPON was finalized 2 years ago. 2 years ago the outside ONT cost $1200 by itself -- now, in volume, it costs only ~$700. Let's not even mention advances in directional boring for conduit. The time is now.
...
said by Shad0wlore :Do you really think Sally Smith is going to want SBC digging a trench thru her flower garden, to lay down fiber to her house? Besides the fact that your not likely to even know where that 'lil vibrating plow was -- have you seen the rabid demand for FiOS over in the »Verizon Fiber Optics ? BBR called it »'Mad Fios Disease' Spreading today. SBC looks so feeble in the glare of Verizon's grass roots folk heroism. Verizon's customers actually LOVE them for their FiOS offering! (sorta the way some of us felt about SBC's 6mbs offering last year)
said by Shad0wlore : The Munis will still have to get usage from another provider somewhere down the line.... Ok.. great.. you want to put your own fiber in... what's that? You only have copper running TO the muni in the first place? You're still gonna have that bottleneck. Thankfully we've already worked through these issues. Carrier hotels and tier 1 providers abound. Getting to them does sometimes require a telco local-loop or a custom shunt from a local Interstate Highway fiber passing (Level3 is good for those kind of things). In the case of the telco local loop I can get several discounted DS3's for $2,000 each (OC3 for $9k)-- to the Dallas PAIX/EQUINIX or CoLo4 -- in a worst-case scenario. I still need local fiber to distribute that DS3 bundle -- for no speed/quality loss in the "last-mile". SBC didn't invent broadband -- I'm "the people" they have to hire to get these things done. I can do it for a muni just as easily -- and I will!
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Lord protect me from your followers |
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ronpin
Imagine Reality
join:2002-12-06
Nirvana
·AT&T Southwest
4 edits | reply to starstuff
said by starstuff :I wonder what make municipalities decide to install their own fiber networks? It doesn't make any sense to me why a local government want to get into the ISP business. Don't take me wrong, I like the idea but why? ...
Why do married men go after hookers? -- because they're not getting what they want at home ('got yer attention?) Why did our state and federal governments take-on the streets and Interstate Highway system? -- because the public faced an obstacle to growth that could not be adequately met by the private sector. Why do taxpayers fund NASA? or public schools? -- same reason.
Clearly "we the people" are aspiring to a common vision for cyberspace. Even non-techies have an intuitive grasp of the possibilities and limitations of the current state of broadband. The growing contrast between fiber enabled [Verizon] communities and "the rest of us" is starting to wear on our patience.
In the same way that citizens looked to their governments to solve the interstate highway, public schools and space exploration problems -- we are now resorting to our local governments to help solve the last-mile/fiber problem (especially when we hear telco CEO's say that fiber/FTTP isn't practical)
Sadly, telcos like SBC and BellSouth get defensive here. They can't/won't give us what we want -- but they scream bloody murder if a muni takes it on themselves to meet their own needs. Telcos are very active in statehouses everywhere lobbying for "anti-muni" broadband bills.
Do the telcos have a point? Yes! How can telcos possibly compete with a government entity that doesn't even need to make a profit? Further, muni's granted telcos de-facto monopolies many years ago because of the staggering infrastructure investment required to offer voice service. No company would've been willing to do it in a "price-war" environment -- yet we needed the telco services (many countries simply treated telecom like their highway systems and made them a function of the public sector)
from »Municipal Report
Sen. Kohl: So do I understand the lobbying of state legislatures around the country to stop cities from building new networks to deploy these new technologies, is not an activity that you all engage in? Or you do engage in that?
Whitacre: [Cuts off Kohl] Oh, we’ve engaged in that.
Sen. Kohl: You do engage in that?
Whitacre: You bet. You bet we will. I mean, the basic standpoint again – those municipalities, those governing bodies regulate us and at the same time they are competing with us that makes no sense. So we are certainly going to lobby against that. (ummm...muni's don't regulate telcos do they?, states and the FCC do)
So now what?
1. Our needs and desires for broadband are not being fully met by the private sector -- so we turn to our muni's for help...and
2. The telcos could be unfairly priced-out of business by their own governments muni broadband efforts.
...Two valid and seemingly contradictory problems. Is there a solution?
I'd love to hear your ideas on how to solve this impasse.
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Lord protect me from your followers |
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