A New Neutral, Long-Haul Fiber Network 129
techclicker sends word on the ambitious plans of Allied Fiber to disrupt the long-haul business in the US. The company is embarking on the first phase of a planned six-phase build-out of dark fiber, towers, and co-lo facilities ringing the US. The first three phases are budgeted at $670M; the last three are not yet laid out in detail (announcement, PDF). Phase 1 is scheduled for completion in 2010. Allied's business model of selling wholesale bandwidth to all comers is in sharp contrast to that of incumbents such as AT&T, who won't sell backhaul to potential competitors. "Allied is deploying a 432-count, long-haul cable coupled with the 216-count, short-haul cable that will be a composite of Single-Mode and Non-Zero Dispersion Shifted fibers. Allied Fiber has implemented a new, multi-duct design for intermediate access to the long-haul fiber duct through a parallel short-haul fiber duct all along the route. This enables all points between the major cities, including wireless towers and rural networks, to gain access to the dark fiber. In addition, the Allied Fiber neutral colocation facilities, located approximately every 60 miles along the route, accommodate and encourage a multi-tenant interconnection environment integrated with fiber that does not yet exist in the United States on this scale."
Queue lawsuits in three, two... (Score:3, Insightful)
I fully expect the cartels to lodge complain of some kind (no matter how absurd) any day now...
Re:Hmmmm....Can someone explain...... (Score:5, Insightful)
At the least, more backhaul bandwidth. Ideally, it would allow new ISPs to enter the market and compete with the current conglomerates. However, I suspect the incumbents to buy up all the access to the new bandwidth.
Re:Queue lawsuits in three, two... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why would do that when they can just buy up all the access to the new bandwidth?
Re:Hmmmm....Can someone explain...... (Score:4, Insightful)
As a cable user, yes. Someone will have to provide the 'backhaul' and since it's traditionally very expensive to [lease|build|maintain] long distance links, it's likely that cable ISPs will jump all over this. Since Allied doesn't offer last mile service, either as fiber or anything else, then the cable company won't be helping their competitors. You might even find that a regional or national phone company will be able to use their service, and offer reduced rates or more bandwidth with DSL or some other connection.
Re:Hmmmm....Can someone explain...... (Score:5, Insightful)
The incumbents are almost universally public utilities. They are granted a local monopoly as having more than one company digging up the streets to lay cable/phone/fiber would be insanity.
This will have absolutely no effect at all on the consumers situation.
Re:Hmmmm....Can someone explain...... (Score:4, Insightful)
Absolutely not.
What it means is that there will be a new powerful player in a game that has seemed to be heading for a huge win for the big telecoms and cable companies and a huge loss for consumers. The consumers will still almost certainly be the big losers, but there will be a more interesting contest for first place.
The shame of it is that "The first three phases are budgeted at $670M; the last three are not yet laid out in detail" which means that for less than a billion dollars the government could have laid the groundwork for insuring a level of true net "neutrality" for decades to come that would have given the broader US economy and probably the entire world economy an excellent shot in the arm while forcing AT&T and company to start working for their customers again instead of the other way around.
By building the internet, and then giving it away, the US government created the widest and deepest increase in worldwide wealth (WWW) that we've seen since WWII. Instead of renewing this legacy with a relatively modest investment, they've allowed to a cartel to seize one of the most important inventions of the 21st century and turn it into another tool with which to funnel wealth from the lower 95% of the population to the top 5%.
Re:Hmmmm....Can someone explain...... (Score:4, Insightful)
except that the interconnect between the municipalities will be faster. And the consumers have jobs at companies that get high-speed network between offices, and they send their kids to schools that get high-speed interconnect between campuses. And then there's just the raising the bar part.
But other than those things yeah, I suspect no one would notice at all.
Re:Hmmmm....Can someone explain...... (Score:5, Insightful)
The last time I heard this much enthusiasm... (Score:2, Insightful)
about a project of this scale was Iridium: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridium_satellite_constellation [wikipedia.org].
Re:100Mb/s for pennies (Score:2, Insightful)
Except you still need a cable to bring each consumer to the aggregation points where the fiber is, and those are expensive....
Also, what happens when a big carrier like AT&T just buys out all the dark fiber between two places to hold onto it, and doesn't use WDM?
I was thinking the same thing. (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually Level 3 is doing OK now (despite the low stock price) but it sure seems like Level3 is already doing what these guys plan to, and in fact I'd be really surprised if new conduits are being laid or if it's just running fiber through Level3 conduits... Level3 even has I think the access points along the cable routes they were describing, since they have to repeat the signal every so often anyway.
Also 675 million sounds REALLY low to put in a nationwide fiber network, I think Level3 spent more like ten billion...
I would buy into them (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Hmmmm....Can someone explain...... (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you think, for one second, that the "free market" would have created anything like the free and exuberant place we call the internet?
If it hadn't been for the basic R&D by the DoD and then passing it off to mainly publicly funded universities, there would never, ever have been anything like the openness, the opportunities, the sheer explosion of ideas and energy that became the internet. No "world wide web" for sure. You forget that there were attempts by "private industry" to create something like the internet, and it turned out to be AOL. And if there was anything at all good about AOL, it was because they were trying their best to live up to expectations that the Internet created. Without government, the Internet would be cable television. Do you remember how "interactive" cable television was going to become in the 1980s and 90s?
There's been a lot of noise from know-nothing politicians about how "big government" kills the private sector and takes all the innovation out of it. It's the kind of conventional "wisdom" you read a lot here, and certain segments of the political spectrum have come to take it as gospel. But the Internet is just one example where every single one of us reading Slashdot today can experience the opposite, the fact that government can be the private sector's best friend and not by "getting out of the way" either.
Re:Heard it all before (Score:4, Insightful)
They still do have to peer with someone for rest of the internet access. Fiber in itself has absolutely no use and value, unless you connect it to hundreds of millions to other devices.
Good (Score:2, Insightful)
More competition is always good for the consumer.
Re:Hmmmm....Can someone explain...... (Score:3, Insightful)
I currently have 3 separate conduits run into my house, and one more is out at the street. The one in the street and two of the three running into my house are owned and maintained by the City. Municipalities are very experienced with building and maintaining pipes that reach from central stations to each and every home.
"Natural Monopoly" is only the answer to describe the last mile for data if the wrong question is asked.