Home fiber, city fiber, where’s my fiber?
Who should own the last mile of fiber to your place? It’s been the telcos for years, but what if it were the cities or even you who owned that important bit of connectivity?
We’ve picked up on a couple of tales based on one topic: the last mile of fiber to the home. It’s fast, approaching the neighborhood of Internet connectivity enjoyed in countries that count basic service in double or even triple digit Mb speeds.
You can’t get it everywhere in the United States. Opportunities to deliver it to potential customers reside in the grip of the cable and telecom companies that own a duopoly on Internet connections.
What if municipalities could provide Internet connectivity as a utility? That’s the ultimate fear of the powers that be, who have dispatched legions of lobbyists to state and federal government offices to ban local governments from doing this. They have succeeded in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, as the prospect of more towns following the example of Glasgow, Kentucky forces greater concessions from competitors.
The town of Monticello, Minnesota, wants to offer fiber to the home, hooked to a central facility where any ISP may connect with those customer lines. Provide an effective service and people will want to buy; fail, and the customer simply chooses another ISP (hoping of course competitors exist) at the facility for service.
Ars Technica noted the snag with Monticello’s plan - a lawsuit from the local telco that has no plans to deploy fiber in the town. However, they are claiming a legal right to prevent Monticello from offering the service, which will be financed through municipal bonds in a plan approved by just about three-quarters of voters there.
The key of someone owning their fiber connection to the colocation facility is receiving a trial in Canada, and search ad giant Google has its ears perked up with interest. Google’s Public Policy blog cited the experiment with 400 homes in Ottawa, where the purchase price of a home includes its fiber connection to a central connection facility, just like the Monticello example.
Google noted how the phone companies used to own the actual telephone in the house, along with the connection. That seems absurd today, and hopefully the pathetic, overpriced Internet service many Americans use today will become a forgotten bit of trivia.
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