This reminds me a bit of the situation we had in Zurich. The (city owned) electric utility had a few hundred million reserves and decided to invest it into a fiber network.
Actually - since the utility was owned by the city - the decision was based on a popular referendum, which sailed through. Needless to say that the established telcos and cable providers fought tooth and nail to kill the referendum.
The interesting thing was that Swisscom (the largest telco and ex-federal monopolist) argued that fiber is not necessary and too costly.
After EWZ (the utility) started construction the private providers went into hyperventilation mode and started their own construction. Later the networks merged into one fiber network.
The network is managed, and I think wisely so, in a way that EWZ grants equal access to private ISPs which then compete for customers. They don't act as an ISP.
While in the first step construction was in the most dense areas of the city the network is now extended to the entire city. Extension was also accepted by popular referendum.
Would construction not have been started by a government owned utility (well, that's us the citizens - we don't necessarily see government as the enemy) we could be sure to wait an additional 10 years until private entities would have deemed it profitable enough to step in.
> The network is managed, and I think wisely so, in a way that EWZ grants equal access to private ISPs which then compete for customers. They don't act as an ISP.
This is the model I see as ideal and it always baffles me why it's so rarely mentioned as an option. Make the fiber network a public grid like roads, water, sewer, power. Then sell access to private companies to deal with the connectivity, services (TV/VoIP) and support. I'd say the technology is mature enough that we don't need competition to pick what kind of network works best anymore.
edit: Rephrased: I don't understand why the cities would give so much free stuff to Google for them to set up their fiber network instead of just... setting up their own fiber network that's then actually owned by the public.
That is simple. The city doesn't know what it's doing. They know Google does. They don't have to give any money to do it, just not charge Google to put their stuff in. Essentially they have to do nothing, get an ass-load of credit for doing it, and if it all goes wrong... well how can you blame them for trusting the company that some people literally think IS the internet?
> That is simple. The city doesn't know what it's doing. They know Google does
In either case they're "picking winners". They also "know" that Comcast, Time Warner, etc "know what they're doing", and we've all seen how that turned out. At least if they're the one commissioning it, they have any kind of power to fix things when they go wrong.
Even AT&T knows how to run a service that requires customer contact/billing as telecoms does. Google has zero experience in both building/running/maintaining physical telco plant.
And Google has terrible /nonexistant customer service Ernestine the operator would be a major improvement in customer service for google.
Google has zero experience in both building/running/maintaining physical telco plant.
The network Google is deploying is nothing more than a bunch of glorified Ethernet network switches. I'm sure they have quite enough experience building/running/maintaining networks.. especially since it's well known that they get their own kit built specifically for them.
The Customer Service is an issue, but I think their innovative approach to CS could be one of the biggest benefits, throwing brains at problems as opposed to more clueless people answering phones seems like a good thing. Infact, on this note, analysing vast amounts of data for trends and problems is exactly the sort of thing Google is amazing at.. and most faults with internet service can be identified, and remotely resolved, in this very manner.
Customer service, from the telecom standpoint, isn't so much about troubleshooting as it is with customer relations and dealings.
- Setting up billing and payments
- Altering billing payments
- Adjusting for outages
- Scheduling repair vans
- Scheduling installation
- Answering clueless customer questions
Now I completely understand how Google may just defer much of those types of issues to a central website but I know plenty of people that refuse to use a service because of lacking telephone support. Google might be happy going that way but I wouldn't pretend it is good CS.
Thers a world of difference in doing a small network of say 3 buildings and 3k ports ie what you bog standard CCNA can do. And building infrastructure including the local loop is quite different to a few custom DC's which is where Googles experience lies.
Theres the whole "oles and poles" aspect and providing power to the cabs and the plant to name but two diferences.
and in Google datacentres they don't care of a blade or a rack drops off but in this case thats x subs that have just lost service.
>I don't understand why the cities would give so much free stuff to Google for them to set up their fiber network instead of just... setting up their own fiber network that's then actually owned by the public.
Isn't Google providing the actual capital to pay workers in trucks to dig holes and string fiber? It looks to me like the "free stuff" falls almost entirely into the category of the expedited cutting of red tape.
You have to remember that there is a level of politics with all of this too. A municipal network may benefit the public, but who is going to pay lobbyists and lawyers to beat back AT&T's efforts to stop it? Whereas in the case of Google Fiber the 'who' is clearly Google.
Maybe I'm too cynical, but public utilities are often seen as the bad guys. Cries of "socialism" often deter anyone from championing a public good, even if it actually goes further toward creating a robust competitive economy.
It's what's happening currently with the National Broadband Network (NBN) in Australia too. NBN Co (the government owned company building/running the network) is not an ISP but provides about 120 datacentres around the country where the retail service providers (the privately owned ISPs) bring their backhaul and hook into the network.
I agree that this is 100% the best way to do it - currently here, internet is delivered over a decaying copper network owned by privatised monopoly that is openly hostile to open access, who also competes in the retail space. So the new model should be so much better and encourage so much more competition.
We're just hoping that the opposition government (which are likely to come into power in September) will have enough pressure from voters and industry to not put in their awful policy which stops the fibre to the premises rollout and installs fibre to the node instead (costing almost as much, and offering a maximum of 50Mb/s instead of the 1Gb/s that the current plan will provide).
Fibre in the UK is rolled out by two providers: Virgin, which owns "all" of the cable network in the UK (there are one or two tiny little pockets left, I believe, but no other country wide providers), and BT OpenReach which is in a similar position: They're a subsidiary of the ex-monopolist that is required to offer access to anyone that wants to, and with caps on what they can charge. Currently they're mainly deploying fibre to the cabinet.
But the thing is, as much as I'm absolutely for a similar model to this, the technology is not mature enough that we know how to make it work best. BT OpenReach is struggling to provide the same speeds as Virgin. They claim to be able to offer up to 100Mbps, or 150Mbps in some regions, but my provider which packages BT OpenReach fibre access does not advertise more than 80Mbps and often advises to expect less (I was told to expect no more than 66Mbps based on distance from the cabinet because despite BT OpenReach's claims, they very rarely manage to meet it. Meanwhile Virgin reportedly have no problems reaching 100Mbps.
Without competition, there'd be little incentive for BT OpenReach to try to resolve the issues limiting their bandwidth. As it is, it matters so much that they keep misleadingly claiming they can deliver more (and many ISPs echo their claims).
I'd argue that while it is important to have a "baseline" provider that is required to offer 100% equal access, it is still important to provide wider access. There's really little reason not to require that every time a cable duct is put down to the local cabinet, that extra strands of fibre are laid down, for example, so other operators can rent dark fibre and install their own equipment. Or that cabinets be made big enough to accommodate some extra equipment for a small number of additional providers (and put similar access requirements on these providers, given that space in the cabinets will still be at a premium).
Today in the UK, other providers can put equipment in BT's exchanges, but apart from the densest city cores there's no practical way for them to provide connections to the end-user premises other than for Virgin (which is only in that situation because they merged UK's last two large cable providers who each had spent many years gobbling up smaller operators, often at bargain prices as competition got fierce, and had already written off most of the cost of building out the physical infrastructure).
It isn't necessary to have 10 providers all operating their own equipment and their own fibre, but there's little practical reason not to make space for at least 2-3 providers all the way to the local telco cabinets (even if not immediately), and allow the subscribers connection to be reconnected to the equipment of any of these based on the subscribers wishes.
I don't understand why the cities would give so much free stuff to Google for them to set up their fiber network instead of just... setting up their own fiber network that's then actually owned by the public.
Because cities don't have the first clue about running a fiber network. As is the case with most of the other stuff they get involved in.
This is quite usual in (Eastern?) Europe for DSL networks (on landlines). And surprisingly very similary for railways. What used to be state-owned companies split into two - infrastructure owner and service provider. Anti-monopoly restrictions grand access to infrastructure to other companies as well and they compete for customers.
The city of Munich in Germany does something similar (though without the battles) with FTTB service provided by M-Net (regional provider, closely affiliated with local utility Stadtwerke München)
But we are blessed compared to the rest of the country.
Our genius federal government built the infrastructure first and then created a private monopoly who owns all of it. The worst of both worlds. The funny thing is they bought with all the money an US provider and are now the underdog over there.
20+ years ago BT offered the then thatcher government FTC in return for a 20 year payback period - they where turned down as competition would magically build a competing network.
And of course vast amounts of capital was expended in building a cable network all the operators of which got into financial trouble and effectively got brought out of bankruptcy which is how virgin got its current network on the cheap.
And thank her for what the competition has brought us. One of the fastest and cheapest broadband Internet that I know of.
Just some facts of pre-privatisation: it typically took 6-12 months for bit to install a landline when it was state owned. Now: 0-4 weeks. Not to mention how much cheaper it is £4.99 for a broadband line?! It's insane!
Well, the price difference is largely because the investion cost of building the infrastructure is long since paid back, so all that has to be paid for now is a little maintenance and customer service.
I recall visiting my grandparents in Wales many years ago. Something that was astounding was that they paid every time you lifted the handset (a dial-tone access fee?). And then paid some more, depending on where you called. International calls required booking in advance.
We have basically the same model in Reykjavik, Iceland. High speed fiber managed by one company (owned by the energy company, which again is city owned), several ISPs compete for the customers.
Actually - since the utility was owned by the city - the decision was based on a popular referendum, which sailed through. Needless to say that the established telcos and cable providers fought tooth and nail to kill the referendum.
The interesting thing was that Swisscom (the largest telco and ex-federal monopolist) argued that fiber is not necessary and too costly.
After EWZ (the utility) started construction the private providers went into hyperventilation mode and started their own construction. Later the networks merged into one fiber network.
The network is managed, and I think wisely so, in a way that EWZ grants equal access to private ISPs which then compete for customers. They don't act as an ISP.
While in the first step construction was in the most dense areas of the city the network is now extended to the entire city. Extension was also accepted by popular referendum.
Would construction not have been started by a government owned utility (well, that's us the citizens - we don't necessarily see government as the enemy) we could be sure to wait an additional 10 years until private entities would have deemed it profitable enough to step in.