From: David C. Harris (dharris@best.com)
Date: Mon Jul 05 1999 - 01:21:13 MDT
[Inspired by a message about "Transact- optic fiber network throughout
Canberra"]
In Palo Alto, California, we have an active group of telecommunication
activists who have persuaded the city to do a trial of Fiber-to-the-Home
(FTTH), which we believe is worth doing now rather than doing something
"half fast" that has to be replaced in a few years.
Right now we have a multi-city cable television system that is
cooperatively owned by its viewers. It hasn't been financially
successful enough to meet its upcoming debt repayment, and is in
negotiations with AT&T Broadband (formerly mostly TCI cable company)
about being bought out.
The special thing is that we activists are looking for companies that
would be interested in leasing channel/bandwidth space on a general
telecomm system that could be an alternative to an AT&T monopoly. We
believe that an "open access" system, with different technologies and
different content (TV shows, IP telephony, videoconferencing, education
on demand, etc.) can produce greater economic and political freedom than
a monopoly owned system. This issue is exciting right now because of a
court decision in Portland, Oregon, saying that cities can require open
access. There have also been principled resignations in Los Angeles,
outcry in San Francisco, and lots of "buzz" among telecommunication
policy students.
We see our Cable Co-op situation as a natural testbed for open access.
If the dollars add up well, we viewer-owners could choose to reject the
AT&T monopoly and use the prospect of lease revenues to justify private
financing for an independent information utility that encourages
competition rather than monopoly control.
We believe that ISP's, new cable channels, long distance telephone
carriers, and a lot of new technologies would be the natural customers
for general bandwidth to the homes. The Palo Alto cable system is
currently coaxial cable, with cable modems available. It's easy to
envision fiber optic cables being extended to neighborhood nodes and
eventually all the way to the homes. The city of Palo Alto also has a
large backbone of unused ("dark") optic fiber strands that could be
incorporated in a system. And the existing optical fiber is connected
to the Palo Alto Information Exchange (PAIX), a major exchange point of
the Internet.
If anyone knows companies that would be interested in leasing bandwidth,
please get in touch with me at dharris@best.com or via phones at
650-494-7696 or 650-856-9126 (voicemail). Direct e-mail or calls are
best, as I can't keep up with postings on all the mailing lists where
you might see this.
Toward faster exchange of all sorts of information,
- David Harris, Palo Alto
dharris@best.com or 650-494-7696 or 650-856-9126
Brian D Williams wrote:
>
> From: "Eliezer S. Yudkowsky" <sentience@pobox.com>
>
> >"Canberra"? As in, Pham Nuwen's medieval home planet?
>
> >Oh, you mean Canberra, Australia.
>
> >For those of you who can't click on the link directly from your
> >email browsers, this is about 36 megabit/sec direct,
> >fiber-to-the-curb Internet access, without any coaxial "hybrid"
> >systems to slow things down. Also, it doesn't degrade when you
> >get more subscribers, unlike current cable Internet providers.
> >The way a planetary network *should* work, without legacy
> >infrastructure.
>
> >Sounds like a nice place to live, yep.
>
> DISCLAIMER: I do not speak for Ameritech or it's alliance partners.
> My .25 opinion is my own.
>
> Read it, typical marketing fluff piece, it is a hybrid system,
> fiber to the curb then VDSL probably on CAT 5 or better. And its
> only a test, just 200 homes....
>
> I liked the possibility of 36mbs (though they didn't claim they
> were running that) although a T-3 is 45mbs, and they pegged the
> consumer cost at $520 not counting the CO equipment and thats going
> to be a bitch, say a router $20,000 and $5000 a port for a max of
> 12 ports. now you've got to have a backbone faster that that (OC-
> 12) very big bucks, and thats just for 12 ports......
>
> We had planned to bring fiber to the door about 8 years ago, then
> the consummer groups, the long distance companies, the cable
> companies, the FCC and everybody else and their mothers jumped in.
>
> When they were done it wasn't worth building, they still whine and
> want to know why we haven't built it.... <SHEESH>
>
> Brian
> Member, Extropy Institute
> www.extropy.org
> Member, Life Extension Foundation
> www.lef.org
> Member, National Rifle Association
> www.nra.org
> 1.800.672.3888
> Ameritech Data Center
> Member, Local 134 I.B.E.W
>
> Reading: POLYMORPH by Scott Westerfield
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