Re: [PLUG] Verizon dumping DSL and copper

[Rich Freeman <r-plug@thefreemanclan.net>]

On Mon, Jul 23, 2012 at 3:59 PM, Jonathan Simpson
<jsimpson@jdsnetwork.com> wrote:
> I'm a fan of municipal owned last mile.
>
> In the grand scheme of things, it makes far more sense  (to me,at least) to
> have a single connection into each home, and a central point of presence
> where ISPs and media companies can compete to provide service without
> dropping their own cable down each street, to each home.

I've been a fan of this approach as well.

The last mile should be a boring utility - maybe public, maybe a
PUC-regulated company, but all it does is run cable and terminate both
ends.  For shared physical layers like cable they can meter by the
byte (maybe allowing for peak/off-peak, or priority service), and for
non-shared stuff like copper pairs they just meter by the pair/month.
The utility that runs this stuff can't discriminate who they work
with, can't care about what is going over the lines, and can't be
associated with any company that provides services over those lines.

Then ISPs, video providers, phone companies, or whoever can rent space
at fixed rates in the colo facility those cables terminate in.  Those
companies can have any TOS they want, can discriminate however they
want, and won't be regulated (well, aside from reigning in other
near-monopolies like channel providers - require them to have
non-discriminatory sales agreements).  Chances are that you might have
14 different ISPs available to you with such an arrangement, and a
group the size of PLUG might even be able to start their own if none
were acceptable, since nobody has to deal with the last mile.  I bet
you'd find aggregators who do nothing but drop in a box and forward
data to even larger colo facilities for smaller ISPs to economically
reach big areas without having stuff in 1400 racks, and those
aggregators would just resell bandwidth and not manage content.

The key is to heavily regulate the natural monopoly, and make the rest
of the system truly competitive - just as is being done with
electricity today.

Rich
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