dark fiber – Steve Blum's Blog

Why traffic signals are lavishly lit but muni IT networks are frugal with fiber

30 November 2020 by Steve Blum
community networks, dark fiber, muni broadband

The classic make versus buy question asks whether it’s cheaper or otherwise more advantageous for a company to manufacture a product or create a service, or to buy it from an outside source. When municipal fiber is involved, the same metrics and equation apply, but the answers are sometimes surprising.

If a city wants to use fiber to connect facilities or for traffic management, make and buy are completely different scenarios. Public agencies have a tendency to favor solutions that are light on ongoing operating costs, particularly given the uncertainty cities in California face regarding revenue and the uncontrolled long term growth of contractual obligations such as employee pensions and health care.… More

Riverside's open access muni fiber network is open for business

6 February 2018 by Steve Blum
dark fiber, muni broadband, riverside

Municipal dark fiber is now available for lease on an open access basis in Riverside, California. Riverside Public Utilities (RPU) – the City of Riverside’s municipal electric and water utility – has gone live with its dark fiber webpage, which sets out the rates and terms for leasing strands on its 120 mile network.

The base rate is $125 per strand-mile per month (one mile minimum, by tenth of mile after that), which can fall to $70 with term and volume discounts.… More

FCC misses night and day difference between lit and dark fiber

7 November 2017 by Steve Blum
broadband, dark fiber, fcc, monopoly, public policy

The Federal Communications Commission’s decision to allow CenturyLink to buy Level 3 Communications might have broken with merger review practices, but it is solidly in line with its past nonsense regarding wholesale broadband services. Earlier this year, the FCC justified backing away from common carrier regulation of business-to-business service with the circular argument that if ISPs – Comcast and Charter Communications, in particular – don’t follow common carrier rules, then common carrier rules don’t apply.… More

Fiber network planned to run alongside California high speed rail

5 November 2015 by Steve Blum
conduit, dark fiber, high speed rail

At least the fiber will be fast.

California’s high speed rail project is supposed to connect San Francisco to Los Angeles (well, maybe Burbank) with 200 mile an hour trains in 2029. The entire system, which is planned to extend 800 miles and include Sacramento and San Diego, would be completed some time after that. The first operational segment – location still undecided – is slated to start running in 2022. That’s assuming it’s actually built and the current schedule holds.… More

Watsonville growing economy and cash with muni dark fiber

30 December 2013 by Steve Blum
ccbc, community networks, cpuc, dark fiber, municipal broadband, public policy, regional consortia, santa cruz, watsonville

“We want to be able to service other business”, said Bob Berry, public works project manager for the City of Watsonville. “We think we want to turn this into an enterprise fund”.

The city is installing dark fiber between key public buildings and, incidentally, through core business areas of Watsonville. The project was launched after Charter Communications raised the price it was charging for similar connections from free to $150,000 a year, a move made possible by its shift from local to statewide cable franchising.… More

Metro broadband: without the political cards, you're not playing with a full deck

27 December 2012 by Steve Blum
business, business model, capital cost, casf, dark fiber, demand, fiber market study, ftth, fttp, funding, lit san leandro, municipal broadband, palo alto, private capital, public policy, public private partnership, seattle

Political value: the need for speed at the San Leandro public library.

There’s an argument to the effect that the prices charged for broadband service by telcos and cable companies in urban areas are higher than necessary to provide that service and make a reasonable profit.

It’s not crazy talk. You can make a case that more densely populated areas have lower per household costs – opex and capex – and that more affluent areas have higher profit margins.… More

The problem with FTTH is there's no problem

17 December 2012 by Steve Blum
business, business model, capital cost, dark fiber, demand, feasibility study, fiber market study, ftth, fttp, funding, gigabit squared, municipal broadband, private capital, public private partnership, seattle

It’s not about finding a mass market solution. It’s about finding a sufficiently acute mass market problem.

The struggle to develop a general fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) or premises (FTTP) business model for city-wide deployments doesn’t result from a market failure. Quite the contrary. It’s evidence that the laws of supply and demand are in full effect.

Demand, meet supply.

People generally get the broadband service someone else – a business or government agency mostly – is willing to give them for the price they’re willing to pay.… More

Gigabit Seattle's financial vehicle is still a concept car

16 December 2012 by Steve Blum
business, business model, capital cost, dark fiber, demand, fiber market study, ftth, fttp, funding, gigabit squared, municipal broadband, private capital, public private partnership, seattle

Car of the Future as conceived by Studebaker's Director of Styling, Raymond Loewy, in the August 1950 issue of Science and Mechanics. Loewy wrote about the new styling for tomorrow's rocket age population. Via Wikimedia Commons.

Thanks for the down payment. Just need to find someone to co-sign the loan.

“Gigabit Squared is providing the capital, although details of the financing model aren’t clear,” wrote Stacey Higginbotham in a story for GigaOM following Gigabit Squared’s announcement last May that it had formed a partnership with Gig.U and was bringing $200 million to the table to fund fiber networks in as many as six cities.

The financing model was equally unclear last week when the City of Seattle and the University of Washington blessed a plan by Gigabit Squared to build a demonstration fiber-to-the-premises network in 12 Seattle neighborhoods.… More

Seattle passes the fiber (50 mega) buck

14 December 2012 by Steve Blum
business, business model, capital cost, dark fiber, demand, feasibility study, fiber market study, ftth, fttp, funding, gigabit squared, municipal broadband, palo alto, private capital, public private partnership, seattle

The unveiling of Gigabit Seattle yesterday is just the first step on a long road to building a fiber to the premises (FTTP) service for residents. The City of Seattle and the University of Washington have endorsed a plan by a consulting firm – Gigabit Squared – to “begin raising the capital needed” for a demonstration project.

It’s not small change. The 200 miles of fiber needed to reach 50,000 homes and businesses in 12 neighborhoods will cost something like $50 million to install and light up.… More

Eastern California lights up in July

12 December 2012 by Steve Blum
ARRA, broadband stimulus, BTOP, business, casf, cetf, community networks, cpuc, dark fiber, economic development, escrbc, middle mile, regional consortia, rural broadband

“We have started and we will finish,” said Michael Ort, CEO of Praxis Associates, the company behind the Digital 395 project. “There have been people who have bet against us and that’s a great motivator. It’s going to happen.”

The ambitious, ARRA-funded network will connect Reno to Barstow, in the California desert east of Los Angeles, installing nearly 600 miles of fiber optic cable. Most of the path runs along U.S. 395, down the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada through towns like Carson City, Mammoth Lakes, Bishop and Ridgecrest.… More