Houses With Tails 307
nnfiber writes "What if home owners could also own their Internet connection? Tim Wu, of New America Foundation and Derek Slater, Google's Policy Analyst, say this can be a new effective way to encourage broadband deployment — an important issue in 'America's economic growth.' In his post, Timothy B. Lee says: 'That might sound like a crazy idea at first blush, but Wu and Slater do a great job of explaining how it might work. The key idea is "condominium fiber," an arrangement in which a number of neighboring households pool their resources to install fiber to all the homes in their neighborhoods. Once constructed, each home would own its own fiber strand, while the shared costs of maintaining the "trunk" cable from the individual homes to a central switching location would be managed in the same way that condominium and homeowners' associations currently manage the shared areas of condos and gated communities.'"
Yeah, and get flooded with "tech support" calls? (Score:5, Insightful)
As soon as something on the trunk broke due to any reason, all the neighbors are going to come banging down my door as being the "tech-savvy" person.
Neighbor 1: "Umm... the internet won't work anymore."
Neighboar 2: "My emails won't send!"
Neighbor 3's kids: "unmm liek i cn't tlk to my bff jill?"
how is this better then ISPs? (Score:4, Insightful)
now, maybe as a renter my view of Home Owners Associations (HOA) and condos are a little flawed... but condering there have been cases where HOAs have stopped people from putting up solar panals, fences, planting trees, even a back yard clothes line... what is to stop them from likewise restricting and controlling broadband?
sorry, your torrenting is degrading the value of our community internet, we are going to have to block that.
instead of a half dozen telcos to deal with for net neutrality, you will have thousands on thousands of HOAs
Obviously never been to a condo assoc meeting (Score:5, Insightful)
Can't rely on homeowners' associations (Score:5, Insightful)
"Once constructed, each home would own its own fiber strand, while the shared costs of maintaining the "trunk" cable from the individual homes to a central switching location would be managed in the same way that condominium and homeowners' associations currently manage the shared areas of condos and gated communities."
So, that is to say - not at all? We have a hard enough time collecting homeowner's fees as it is. I can only speculate that it would be harder at a higher cost.
And what are you supposed to do if/when one home stops paying its part? Not upkeep that portion of fiber? Have everyone else absorb the costs?
lowest common denominator (Score:3, Insightful)
Great, all I need is my homeowners' association determining what kind of internet connection I get. What if half of them are happy with dialup? What if some of them don't even want to pay for an internet connection? What if some of them are delinquent on their payments and my connection gets cut off?
How about fuck those guys and let me manage my own connection instead of unnecessarily making it a shared responsibility where decisions are made by a committee of people with no mutual interest?
Re:Silly to create the organization (Score:5, Insightful)
Before long, you will be talking thousands of homes. Some enterprising group of guys will start a small business of 'managing HOA & condo communications'. The various HOAs will contract out to these guys, because it is easier (and may be cheaper) than trying to do it themselves. Eventually, that company will run all of the HOA/condo/subdivision comms in an area or city.
Hey, look...we just reinvented Comcast!
HOAs do this already. Frequently, the HOA is not run by the 'homeowners', but rather a faceless company that provides that same functionality.
Re:Yeah, and get flooded with "tech support" calls (Score:5, Insightful)
Bloody stupid idea (Score:5, Insightful)
At which point your neighbors will then begin to dictate what content will and will not be allowed on the connection, "in the same way that condominium and homeowners' associations currently manage the shared areas of condos and gated communities" now.
No thanks.
Already Done With WiFi (Score:3, Insightful)
This kind of sharing at the edges is already exactly what people do with WiFi attached to wired broadband. Lots of people use neighbors' broadband when they first move in, before their own wire is installed. Lots of other people too cheap to pay for expensive broadband are piggybacking on their neighbors' WiFi. And plenty of other people's guests just use neighbors' WiFi because it's easier than plugging in with more cables, especially if the broadband adapter doesn't have extra hub ports.
The problem is that the telcos/cablecos prohibit sharing one's broadband account with the neighbors. They insist on monopolizing the delivery of broadband to everyone, even after years of failing to deliver it to lots of people (usually because it's priced too expensive, but often because the telco/cableco has higher profit elsewhere while they ignore wiring whole neighborhoods).
If people weren't prohibited from sharing their broadband connections, they would include more people in the broadband Net. Some people would offer WiFi, others would offer wires. Competition among them (lacking in the telco/cableco duopoly) would force everyone's prices lower.
The telcos/cablecos would hate it. But so what? We all hate them, for many good reasons.
Great idea, forget it. (Score:5, Insightful)
If would probably think this a great idea, if
I had not lived in appartments or houses with shared facilites - parking spaces, pools, whatever.
1. Everybody treats 'shared' resources with zero respect.
2. Everybody bitches about the cost. Some don't pay.
3. There's a regular shitfest disguised as a 'resident's association meeting' or something. Always dominated by a few activists whose opinions inevitably are the reverse of yours.
4. The people hired by the 'association council' to do installation & maintenance are always more expensive and less competent than people you've picked.
5. Whenever something breaks, it's always faster and cheaper to fix it yourself, so the vaguely competent end up doing everything if they want their hall lights, garage door, cable to work...
So, I can do without the pool, but depend on this setup for my (vital for work) broadband?
Noooooooooooooooo!
Re:how is this better then ISPs? (Score:5, Insightful)
Correct. The HOA is not interested in meeting your demands as an individual homeowner. The HOA's purpose is to meet the demands of the majority that show up to the monthly meetings. And guess who shows up to those meetings? The most anal and controlling homeowners. The result is an inefficient corporation that has no customers yet maintains books and funds that rarely benefit the actual homeowners.
However when you have a customer and business relationship, the business has an interest in keeping you a paying customer. Even if you do sign contracts, the contracts will only apply till the end of the term. When you do have a legal issue with the business you have a contract with, you can take them to court and potentially get reasonable recovery. But if you sue an HOA you are technically suing yourself. The business also receives pressure from competitors in a well regulated market (yes this is not true for monopolies). So theoretically you should always have a second choice. With the HOA your only choice is to sell your property and move elsewhere.
Some HOAs might be okay in terms of purposes served and not being run down by anal homeowners. But in my experience, even then the HOA provides little services that you can't manage yourself better. For example consider the common "pool/spa" arrangement. Suppose you pay the HOA $50 a month for this cost to maintain a pool and spa for the facility. The pool will probably be very small and outdoors. Meanwhile if you sign up at a local club at say $40 a month, you can get an indoor pool and access to other facilities. When you no longer need to access the club or are unsatisfied with the service, you can terminate your membership and/or find a new club. Any HOA run service is generally more expensive to maintain and you are stuck with it forever. When you allow a business to fill in this role, however, you will often get better service at cheaper rates or at least varying options of service at different rates. The only advantage the HOA has is that the facilities are located conveniently.
Another example is HOA provided cable TV service. I know someone that has one of these and the contract basically states he can only use the HOA tv service, and he cannot order his own. This means he is stuck with the quality of service the HOA provides. Even if you live in an area where you only have 1 option for TV service, you can at least have options within that service to get access to other services like special channels or different packages. With the HOA this is not the case.
I believe the implementation of HOAs is flawed in the US. HOAs have too much power and are beginning to grow outside of their purpose which was to basically force people to keep their property is decent order. Technically, the local government should be in charge of enforcing rules maintaining reasonable condition of properties, not HOAs. Unfortunately, HOAs are becoming too popular and people would never vote to pay taxes or allow the government to enforce such rules. Which is somewhat contradictory since the HOA dues are often more than what you would pay in taxes as well as more restrictive.
Damned if I trust homeowner's assoc. with my pipe (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Won't work (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmm..do they still even have neighborhood pools anymore? It was great to meet kids around you...have fun during the summers...but, hell, that was so long ago for me, we even had a quality diving board...something I guess most kids of today haven't got a clue about except for maybe seeing one on the olympics.
*sigh* damned lawyers....
Re:Yeah, and get flooded with "tech support" calls (Score:5, Insightful)
My mom lives in a gated retirement community, where the overwhelming majority of the population is seniors. Many of them have computers, which they use to do all sorts of things, from browsing the Web to making Skype calls to their family around the country. Few of them are really what you would call "computer literate." Most of them seem to know some guy who lives in the neighborhood who has taken it upon himself to be smarter than your average bear. They might not necessarily pay that guy out at "market rates," but when you start to add up free dinners, free bottles of scotch, etc., plus just being a well-known and respected member of your community, being the local "tech guy" has its plus side.
It only takes one person to ruin it for everyone.. (Score:1, Insightful)
Laws governing these associations don't allow them to be pure democracies. It's very easy for one or a few disgruntled individuals to cause major headaches for the majority even if the majority is working in the best interest of the collective.
Re:Won't work (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Already Done With WiFi (Score:3, Insightful)
Absolutely, it is just because the greedy monopoly wants to maximize their profits.
And liability has nothing to do with it, nothing whatsoever. Sure. Because everyone knows that you aren't responsible for anything that happens with YOUR connection. You can't connect an IP address to an individual so whatever happens on the Internet stays on the Internet. Right.
So your neighbor, sharing your Internet connection, decides to use LimeWire to share their 10,000 song collection. Which finally comes to the notice of someone who asks the ISP who this IP address belongs to. Well, it turns out that YOU are the account holder at YOUR address.
No, it would be impossible for anyone to actually be harrassed legally because of this. Everyone knows these days that the account holder has no responsibility whatsoever. After all your wireless router has an SSID of FreeLeechn just to emphasize the point.
Magnify the above by 10,000 and you will begin to understand why ISPs do not allow sharing. Is the legal system behind the times? Sure. But just exactly who would you hold responsible when all the tracks come back to your front door? Trust me, the answer that society is looking for is not "nobody."
Re:Silly to create the organization (Score:3, Insightful)
True,
But still the Management Company does not own anything, unlike Comcast.
So, it would be much easier for another Management Company to compete.
The point is that the homeowners (as a whole) would have more choice -- at least for the Management Company.
But off course, individually, the homeowner will loose some his individual choice and be subject to his neighbors wishes.
And, most importantly it will remain to be seen if your "tails" will be able to connect to more than one ISP. If not then I doubt there will be any benefits.
Re:Silly to create the organization (Score:3, Insightful)
Before long, you will be talking thousands of homes. Some enterprising group of guys will start a small business of 'managing HOA & condo communications'. The various HOAs will contract out to these guys, because it is easier (and may be cheaper) than trying to do it themselves. Eventually, that company will run all of the HOA/condo/subdivision comms in an area or city. Hey, look...we just reinvented Comcast! HOAs do this already. Frequently, the HOA is not run by the 'homeowners', but rather a faceless company that provides that same functionality.
It may be a faceless company, but it's your faceless company. My new apartment has a discounted cable service, discounted PVR rental, discounted broadband access and all because we are many (not just block but association) and got market power. Sure, they probably take their own cut but they squeeze the ISPs to provide either better service or at lower prices to keep us happy with their management. So no, it would not be reinventing Comcast but rather their worst nightmare. Expect them to fight anything like this like crazy.
Re:Silly to create the organization (Score:1, Insightful)
by two routers utilizing XRRP or some kind of redundant routing protocol.
The only way it gets tricky is if you have to NAT anything or if you want to go IPv6 on the community facing loop while IPv4 out the Internet. Monitoring companies can keep track of the device once it's install for quite reasonable fees at that.
I don't think the neighbors are going to understand a thing you just said. So good luck with launching that proposal. Most leaders of homeowners associations are people who want some semblance of power, so bringing in something they don't understand is going to be difficult, because they can't control it. And they usually have a lot more time to politic about these things and are willing to do it.
If I were looking for a house and found out that the internet connection was part of the home owners association, then I would not buy it.
I've seen and had enough crap, from the neighborhood police ( you can't install satellite dishes, you can't park in front of the house, you should cut your lawn to 1.5 inches and can not be higher than 3.5 inches, that kind of crap.)
My favorite rebuttal, was when a neighbor bought an antique truck and installed a 20 foot pole on the back and attached a satellite antennae to it and parked it in back.
I wanted to do the same, but my wife wouldn't let me. She felt it was impractical, since we didn't have satellite TV. Women, they just don't get it.
Then next best was a neighbor who mowed his lawn to the request 1.5 inches and then dropped it down .5 inches to write a message in his lawn, wish I choose not to repeat. But in so doing he killed the grass where the message was and it was much more readable about 3 days out. So he went out and killed the rest of the grass.
Ahhhh, the good ole days.
Re:Won't work (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Won't work (Score:3, Insightful)
Shieldwolf, what planet do you live on? Your posts are always vague and nonsensical.
Re:Won't work (Score:5, Insightful)
Your premise is incorrect. Businesses aren't bankrupt, the stockmarket is recovering, and your drama is understandable but extreme beyond reality.
Pushing nodes to the edges and the cost to the edges is a scheme as old as wired communications. The 'bells' that are out there today slowly swallowed up all of the coops that were out there. Interconnect wasn't very well done back then. Things have improved.
Interconnect doesn't and hasn't ever followed the philosophy you cite. Ever. Utilities were once huge coops. Returning to that model might send a jolt of much needed electricity into the monopolies they've become.
Do you *actually* have neighbors??? (Score:4, Insightful)
What idiot thinks that negotiating cost, authority, accountability and responsibility for a fiber trunk with any number of neighbors greater than zero is going to be feasible?
What planet are you from? Because on my planet my one neighbor maintains an unsightly junkyard of decaying plumbing supplies in his backyard. My other neighbor always parks their cars in front of my yard because their garage is full of useless shit and they don't want cars in front of their yard. The neighbor across the street?? Well, he maintains two vicious junkyard dogs in his concrete/gated frontyard. They spend all day leaping at and barking at everything that moves. The neighbor next to him? he's abandoned one dead, totaled in a car crash, Toyota Rav-4 on the street like some sort of mad-max art tribute.
And somebody thinks there's going to be some magical, happy, functional negotiation about a shared high-tech resource with these kinds of people??
Puuuuhleeeease!
Re:Yeah, and get flooded with "tech support" calls (Score:3, Insightful)
This is whyas part of the monthly maintenance fee is set aside for repairs.
Then you bill your rate.
Segregated pools... (Score:3, Insightful)
The same neighborhood pools that were segregated by banning blacks in the south as late as the late 1950s?
And the modern cyber equivalent would be only the middle and upper middle class would be able to afford net access under this system leading to a permanent marginally employed and under informed cyber underclass of "untouchable" manual laborers.
Thanks but no thanks. Hasn't the financial crises shown that the cut throat "ownership society" not only is not cruel and greedy, but doesn't work very well. Do we really want a fiber bubble and then fiber crash?
More Sweden, less Dicken's England please.
Re:how is this better then ISPs? (Score:1, Insightful)
A draconian HOA is just an HOA where you are not represented by the majority view.
Re:Silly to create the organization (Score:3, Insightful)
That's only true until this theoretical company that only maintains the wires realizes that all the money is in the content. And while I suppose that having two Comcasts competing with each other is an improvement over the current situation, there's so much collusion in the industry that it really doesn't matter.
Re:Segregated pools... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, there isn't segregation any more...as you mentioned, pretty much a thing of the past since the 50's, so not a concern.
And not everyone can afford to live in every neighborhood, sorry, fact of life. No reason that people with good jobs and extra income cannot live in a nice area and spend a little extra disposable $$ on pools and high speed connectivity,eh?
Re:Agree... internet access should be infrastructu (Score:2, Insightful)
We believe electricity (and natural gas in many places) should be public infrastructure, and it is, yet it's delivered by private companies, not the government. However, those companies are considered public utilities, and as such are heavily regulated, to the point that their prices are set by the government. Water and sewage in some places is the same way, but in other places is run by municipal governments. Trash in many places is a utility, and is either government or privately run.
I'm not sure I see the advantage in having the government deliver internet access, when not just one, but multiple methods (telcos and cablecos) of connection exist in most places through private industry. I do think there's some room for more regulation by the local or state governments, but what we have is already working decently. If the government wanted to do it, it'd either have to buy out some company's infrastructure, or pay billions to lay their own fiber to everyone's house.
It sucks that internet access isn't cheaper than it already is, and is more expensive than some other countries, but we also don't live nearly as densely as people do in places like Europe and Korea, so naturally it's more expensive to install infrastructure here.
The problem in the USA is that the government is generally much more corrupt here than in industrialized countries, which is why we have many of these problems. Maybe in my lifetime, we can become an industrialized country, rather than a corrupt 3rd-world country, but I'm not hopeful.
Re:Any real benefit? (Score:3, Insightful)
The difference is that in the current model the ISP puts up the cash to build the last-mile connection to your home.
They don't do this for free; you pay for it in your monthly bill. It is in fact the largest part of your internet connection bill.
If you pay $50/month for internet access it is probably about $30 for the last mile and $20 for IP service.
The differnece is that when you have 'paid off' your last-mile infrastructure after about 5 years of service with your ISP they do not stop charging you for it.
It is the differnece between renting a car perpetually and buying it.
Furthermore, the ISPs have very little incentive to upgrade ancient infrastrcture. That is why so many of us are still on DSL/cable systems when fiber is the same cost.
Why should they upgrade when you continue to rent the old stuff?
Re:Segregated pools... (Score:5, Insightful)
Cry me a fucking river. Something bad happened fifty years ago. Get over it. Feeling sorry for yourself and thinking that other people should have to take care of you because you can't take care of yourself is stupid. If you want something, get off your ass and get after it.
Not HOAs (Score:5, Insightful)
The whole point of this (which has been overshadowed by TFA bringing HOAs into it) is to separate the last-mile infrastructure from the IP service.
(TFA is NOT the originator of this concept)
Nobody in their right mind is suggesting that your HOA should be your ISP or that you should buy Internet service from anyone other than existing ISPs.
What is being suggested is that we should stop this system of perpetualy renting the physical cables that run into our homes.
Paying up front the true cost of running a fiber strand from your house to the nearest carrier neutral datacentre frees you from monopoly opression forever.
In this scenario you can switch Internet or phone or even TV providers at the push of a button. That puts you in the position of power.
- the cost of the last-mile is 60-80% of your current Internet service bill.
- if you are going to buy your house rather than rent it then why not buy rather than rent your last-mile fiber?
BTW, I'd like to offer to buy your driveway and rent it back to you for the next 40 years.
Be warned, I may at some point be 'forced' to restrict the weight of your car so as not to unduly stress my poorly maintainted ashphalt.
Re:Segregated pools... (Score:5, Insightful)
Leftism in a nutshell no hungry homeless people with festering sores on the streets of Swedish cities like we have in the U.S. AND a thriving high tech economy with a more stable banking system, stronger currency, and high rate of growth than the U.S.
All factual unlike AC's scurrilous unsupported smear he pulled out of his butthole.
Next!
that was my thought (Score:4, Insightful)
Just about the only organization I have to deal with that I like less than the cable companies and phone companies is the local homeowner's association.
Re:Won't work (Score:4, Insightful)
The markets are failing. The stock market had the bottom fall out of it. Nobody is lending money. Nobody is spending money. Nobody has any idea what real value means anymore. Credit markets are the tightest we've seen in decades. Nearly every measure of economic prosperity points to a worsening condition (and we're already in a pretty bad spot).
It doesn't mean that the idea of the free market system has failed entirely, but the collapse of the financial industry had fuck-all to do with protectionism.
Re:Won't work (Score:3, Insightful)
I think one of the reasons why it gets like that is that nobody with a real life is willing to give their own time to community projects like that; thus it ends up in the hands of small-minded bullies. It works like that on all levels - just see how the political agenda is constantly taken over by the worst elements in society, simply because the good, honest, ordinary people don't make the necessary effort.