City Builds Open-Access Broadband Network With Google Fiber As Its First ISP (arstechnica.com) 39
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Google Fiber's wireline broadband is expanding to a new city for the first time in several years as part of a public-private partnership to build an open-access network that any ISP can use to offer service. The new network will be in West Des Moines, Iowa. Google Fiber "paused" plans to expand to new cities in October 2016 amid lawsuits filed by incumbent ISPs and construction problems that eventually led to the Alphabet-owned ISP's complete exit from Louisville. But in West Des Moines, Google Fiber will rely on the city to build a network of fiber conduits. "Municipalities like West Des Moines excel at building and maintaining infrastructure. At digging and laying pipes under the roads, restoring and preserving the sidewalks and green spaces, reducing traffic congestion, and lowering construction disruption," Google Fiber said in an announcement yesterday.
The West Des Moines government's announcement said that "once the City installs conduit in the public right of way, broadband providers will pay a license fee to install their fiber in the City's conduit. Google Fiber will be the first tenant in the network." A conduit-license agreement "calls for Google Fiber to cover a portion of the construction cost to build conduit... through their monthly lease payments." "On a monthly basis, Google Fiber would pay the city $2.25 for each household that connects to the network," according to the Des Moines Register. Google Fiber would pay the city a minimum of $4.5 million over 20 years. Construction is expected to begin this fall and be completed in about two and a half years, the city said. While Google Fiber is slated to be the first tenant offering fiber service over the West Des Moines network, the city is hoping to spur broadband competition by letting other ISPs install their own fiber in the conduits. Current ISPs in West Des Moines include CenturyLink and Mediacom. "Every home and business in West Des Moines is eligible for a free connection point from their property to the municipal fiber conduit," the city said. "The City will be installing these connections and will contact every business and resident in the near future to ensure everyone has the opportunity to participate." The city also said it aims to make high-speed broadband available to "all residents, regardless of their means."
"West Des Moines plans to invest nearly $40 million" in the project, the Des Moines Register wrote, adding that city officials intend to "solicit bids for laying the underground conduit that would house the fiber-optic cables."
The West Des Moines government's announcement said that "once the City installs conduit in the public right of way, broadband providers will pay a license fee to install their fiber in the City's conduit. Google Fiber will be the first tenant in the network." A conduit-license agreement "calls for Google Fiber to cover a portion of the construction cost to build conduit... through their monthly lease payments." "On a monthly basis, Google Fiber would pay the city $2.25 for each household that connects to the network," according to the Des Moines Register. Google Fiber would pay the city a minimum of $4.5 million over 20 years. Construction is expected to begin this fall and be completed in about two and a half years, the city said. While Google Fiber is slated to be the first tenant offering fiber service over the West Des Moines network, the city is hoping to spur broadband competition by letting other ISPs install their own fiber in the conduits. Current ISPs in West Des Moines include CenturyLink and Mediacom. "Every home and business in West Des Moines is eligible for a free connection point from their property to the municipal fiber conduit," the city said. "The City will be installing these connections and will contact every business and resident in the near future to ensure everyone has the opportunity to participate." The city also said it aims to make high-speed broadband available to "all residents, regardless of their means."
"West Des Moines plans to invest nearly $40 million" in the project, the Des Moines Register wrote, adding that city officials intend to "solicit bids for laying the underground conduit that would house the fiber-optic cables."
Full conduits? (Score:5, Interesting)
If you just provide conduits and let anyone put their own fibre in it's still expensive for the companies, could lock out smaller players, and is going to get congested.
Much better for the city to provide fibre from every premises to a central datacenter location, and then allow providers to provide upstream services from that datacenter.
Re:Full conduits? (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah, here in Huntsville, Alabama, the public-owned utility built out a fiber network to the curb, with Google Fiber (and anyone else that wants to connect) connecting to the house. This was the first partnership like this for Google Fiber, and it has worked great. The utility build-out is close to complete I believe, and part of the deal is that Google Fiber is offering service at every address (unlike where they built their own network only in small spots). I've had it a little over two years, and it's been great. Only one significant outage that I remember (and they automatically issued a credit on the next bill); otherwise a very reliable gig (up and down) link for less than I was paying Comcast for 150M/10M (and Google doesn't require a contract).
The utility is installing smart meters and other infrastructure monitoring using the fiber network (their reason for the build). AFAIK the only issues we've had have been with the contractor doing the fiber build (cutting other wires, water lines, etc.). I don't think I've heard anybody complain about the Google Fiber service.
I've worked in the Internet service provider world since the days of 28.8kbps dialup, and I had said for years this kind of design would be ideal. People don't want their yards dug up repeatedly for every new competitor (or dozens of wires strung on poles; look at pictures some of the early electric service in New York City for example - so many wires the poles were pulled down), and the last mile is the hardest to build. But at the same time, I don't want my government controlling the Internet access itself. Just provide the infrastructure and make it open access.
Trying to share conduits though sounds like a recipe for unhappiness; every telco I've seen sharing usually cuts at least one other telco's fiber when running their own.
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To enter the market, a small ISP needs to have deep pockets, deep enough to compete with Google and build out Their own private fiber plant.
Wonder if Google will ever be required to share their fiber plant with their competitors? Think that's crazy, think it could never happen? Well, back in the DSL days the federal government decided rental prices and forced Telcos to rent out their DSLAM ports to competitors.
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IIRC, this is not completely accurate. TCA of 1996 required the ILECs to charge themselves the same as they charged the CLECs for access. The net result was that smaller players tended to actually be cheaper than the ILEC for similar services, because they didn't have the same overhead on the retail side. So obviously, we had to walk that back to protect the ILECs (who, as noted above, were doing fine on the core business but failing on the "fucks the customer" side of the house).
Re: Full conduits? (Score:2)
Thats not what happened. We got access to the DSLAMs due to the 1994 Telecom act. However, Verizon and SBC got the FCC to decide that newer technologies are excluded. This is why verizon began ripping out copper when they turned up fiber to a building. They did not want a CLEC being able to offer service. They removed your choice of whom you could do business with.
SBC later bought out a bunch of LEC like bell south, and changed its name to ATT (not to be confused with cigular wireless that changed its name
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Competition is good for business, and business hates competition. So there's a quandary from the start. This system of capitalism only works if there is effective government oversight and regulation. But then that breaks down because the government itself is corrupted and bought by the businesses is it supposed to oversee, ending in regulatory capture (essentially regulation that only affects the small players). The solution then is the public, at least in democracies, making sure the government is not
Re:Full conduits? (Score:5, Interesting)
That's how it works in Japan, you have a choice of ISPs over the same bit of fibre. When you want to switch ISP you just change the username and password on your router.
It seems to work well. Service is 10Gbit symmetrical, with 20Gbit rolling out this month (if it wasn't delayed). Since most routers only have 1Gbit network ports and can't come close to routing 1Gbit/sec of traffic anyway most users are only utilizing less than 10% of what they pay for. Oh and they only pay about 5,000 yen/month which is about 50 Euro/Dollars.
Idem in CH (Score:2)
That's how it works in Japan, you have a choice of ISPs over the same bit of fibre.
Same here around in Switzerland.
In most region, fiber was installed by the local public "industrial services" utilities or by the former state's national telecom. (Even if this is now a private company, the state is still majority share holder and still steers them toward public service instead of for profit).
And then various ISP are available over those fibers, with 1GB to 10GB available depending on the exact bandwidth sharing solution.
Thus the big public institution who can afford it pay the immense init
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Don't go patting yourself on the back too hard. There are plenty of places in the US that have a similar arrangement, I live in such a city. In my case, it was a group of cities that banded together to build a fiber network. They all terminate into the same NOC and any ISP is welcome to provide service on the network (as well as TV and phone providers). Even though I live in a very conservative state and there was a ton of opposition to "government competing with private business" it still is a reality
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This makes sense for especially for fiber. A single fiber to the home is plenty fast that the last mile and is likely not going to be the bottleneck for the foreseeable future. It does require someone to maintain the router/switch technology though. Where I'm at the final line from the house to the neighborhood hub is shared but each company has their own equipment at the neighborhood hub so presumably you would do something like unplug a house from one switch and plug it into another switch if a custome
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Yeah, we call that local loop unbundling in the UK but in Japan they just have one company that maintains it and each ISP pays them rent to use it and supplies external bandwidth to the local hubs (or rents that too).
Of course they offer more than just internet, you can get POTS and video.
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The problem in the US. The Infrastructure and the Services are part of the same company. I would rather pay Charter $40 for access to the Cable System, then pay an other company $40 a month for access to their ISP network. vs Paying Charter $75 a month of Internet Access. Because this would allow me to shop and change services. So the other ISP may offer more speed or some additional services. Or I can get a budget one and let me do things myself.
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Contrasted with the US where state governments are bullied into banning municipal broadband by whingey ISPs that don't want any taxpayer funded competition.
One case where "interstate commerce" should apply to make the states keep their paws off the internet market and let the cities compete.
As for unfair competition, if their citizens want it bad enough they're willing to cough up the tax money to pay for it, let them have it!
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Not to mention it provides an opportunity for sleazy providers to directly sabotage their competition, with the added opportunity to get away with it, hide their tracks, or worse, even set someone else up to take the blame for it.
Lack of accountability is an invitation for foul play, it would be far better if the city owned the fiber and was kept responsible for protecting it and maintaining it.
Unless you live in the same state Monticello does, because then you'll get your butt sued by the incumbent telco a
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What small players?
Ever sense broadband the Infrastructure company became the ISP.
Back in the 1990's you can have a small business dial-up ISP. And you can compete against the big guys like AOL. Because you didn't need the infrastructure. You may have had a T1 line and a dozen or so telephone lines, with about 3-4k worth of hardware. So you could run your own small business at an operational cost around 2-3k a month. With about 5 hundred users paying $10 a month you can run your business and make about $5
Central datacenter (Score:2)
Owned by whom? The government. Policed by whom? Same kind folks policing the roads?
How long before this government-owned network is subject to police surveillance? Before pr0n, torrents, and political dissent are outlawed?
There are many good reasons, why government should not dabble in business... Especially the business of communications.
What "upstream services"?
Cool project, but not an "open access network" (Score:4, Informative)
An open access network is a specific thing where the city rolls and owns fiber and multiple ISPs provide service over that fiber. In this case, the city is installing conduit and each ISP has to roll their own fiber. A lot of open access networks have several IPSs which provides a lot of choice to customers. This will be limited to Google and any other ISP that decides to roll fiber, which is probably not many/any.
Still a great development for the city!
Conduits = Open Access Broadband Network? (Score:1)
The West Des Moines government's announcement said that "once the City installs conduit in the public right of way, broadband providers will pay a license fee to install their fiber in the City's conduit.
ISPs are building the network, not the city.
Google Fiber will be the first tenant in the network." A conduit-license agreement "calls for Google Fiber to cover a portion of the construction cost to build conduit... through their monthly lease payments." "On a monthly basis, Google Fiber would pay the city $2.25 for each household that connects to the network," according to the Des Moines Register. Google Fiber would pay the city a minimum of $4.5 million over 20 years.
So that's $4,500,000 divided by 20 years at 12 months a year divided by $2.25 per house/month takes you to 8,333 households served (estimated).
That's not a very big roll out, can the city really lay all that conduit for $4.5M, or are they going to need other ISPs to join them in their municipal conduit?
Municipal projects, which are typically required to employ union labor, and enjoy the tightest scrutiny for environmental impacts, are never cheap - I predict a boo
Re:Conduits = Open Access Broadband Network? (Score:5, Informative)
Municipal projects, which are typically required to employ union labor, and enjoy the tightest scrutiny for environmental impacts, are never cheap - I predict a boondoggle that will leave the residents begging ISPs to come, and offering cut-rate prices to simply try and stop the financial hemorrhaging once the project is over and the bond holders want their money.
Waiting for a savior megacorp that would kindly milk the residents for their lifetime, to pad their execs salary and shareholder dividends.
Municipal networks work pretty much everywhere they're tried. Putting in conduit (or even fiber) is a basic task that any utility can do easily.
Re: Conduits = Open Access Broadband Network? (Score:2)
This isn't a network, it's a 'series of tubes' [knowyourmeme.com] - every provider needs to supply their own fiber. A municipal network would have the city lay the fiber, and ISPs would all share that municipal fiber. That isn't what is happening here.
All this does is save money on trenching for providers and reduces wear and tear on the city's right of way.
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The West Des Moines government's announcement said that "once the City installs conduit in the public right of way, broadband providers will pay a license fee to install their fiber in the City's conduit.
ISPs are building the network, not the city.
I don't know about there - but in a lot of places municipal networks are against the law.
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I think you missed the word "minimum" in the section you quoted. If they only hook up 10 customers they're still on the hook for $4.5 million. Since that's pretty much unthinkable the city will be getting its conduit paid for, just over a longer time period than a for-profit company would ever agree to without a monopoly.
Re: Conduits = Open Access Broadband Network? (Score:2)
There are about 28,000 households in West Des Moines, If EVERY household signs up for the google service, at $2.25/month per household, how long will it take to recoup that estimated $40M investment?
28,000 x 2.25 x 12 = annual revenue of $756,000 (est)
So, in the twenty years of this agreement, if everyone in town signs up, the city will collect $15M in revenue to pay off its $40m investment.
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Don't pretend that 1) businesses aren't going to sign up, and 2) that this will be the only thing that conduit is ever used for. My experience with conduit is that if you install piping that's twice as wide as you think you'll ever need that it will be jammed full of cabling in half the time you ever thought possible. Over the next decade or two the explosion of IoT devices like smart street lights, sewer flow monitors, air quality sensors, etc. will ensure that the city itself uses a lot of that empty sp
In my city, this did wonders. (Score:4, Informative)
Our city started to built such a fiber network at the end of the 90s, here in Germany, and the network is exceptionally good. You always get a bit more than the advertised bandwith, the best FritzBox, using your own router, even homebrew, is supported, you get a nice big native IPv6 prefix on top of the IPv4, it's super-reliable, with support that can even answer expert questions. The best part is, that they put fiber right in your basement for free. (Well, it is advantageous for them too, of course.)
I sincerely hope you guys will get a boradband network that YOU own too. :)
If you're the libertarian type, think of it as YOUR business, and it is good to be the boss.
(Make damn sure you really are the boss, though. Don't let some leech undermine you or ruin it.)
Evil Gubbermint (Score:2)
Our city started to built such a fiber network at the end of the 90s, here in Germany, and the network is exceptionally good.
Same here around all over Switzerland (even in villages in the Alps).
I sincerely hope you guys will get a boradband network that YOU own too. :)
If you're the libertarian type, think of it as YOUR business, and it is good to be the boss.
(Make damn sure you really are the boss, though. Don't let some leech undermine you or ruin it.)
But you see, for this to happen you need the state to give kick in the ass of the relevant companies.
And in some "libtertarian" countries they don't want such evil "big gubbermint" hurdles undermining the ISP's freedom to short-time profit by avoiding any big investment that's merely useful in thelong-term. Liberty!
Think of the Telecom Monopolies! (Score:2)
Won't someone think about the poor telecom monopolies? How are they supposed to compete when there are municipalities allowing decent service for a reasonable price? It's totally **EVIL**! We need to block those communists conduits with MAGA hats!
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In 2018, moving into a flat in London, I was offered precisely one installation option for broadband:
VDSL on an existing copper telephone line.
Estimated max speed on their online calculators: 4Mb.
No, I can't go with anyone else - no other UK ISP serves the area without just selling me the above line on a different brand name (e.g. Virgin have no cable in the area, therefore they will just resell the existing BT service, which is that copper telephone line).
No, I can't afford to pay for someone to dig up th
Re: In my city, this did wonders. (Score:2)
I literally had no other option.
So I bought a 4G stick, and an unlimited data package. I've been running off that for two years. 80Mb down at times (sometimes down to 20/30, but a damn sight better than "maybe 4 if you're lucky), 10-20Mbps up. And I can put it in my pocket and carry it with me.
Why look at that, you actually DID have an alternative all along, despite insisting you didn't.
So what was your complaint? Oh yeah, a lack of options...
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I'm the libertarian type, and what I believe is that if a project is important enough for the government to encroach on a private person's property, the project is important enough to remain in the hands of the government.
Both the broadband and electrical networks should be built and controlled by the government, in the same way that roads are, and for the same reasons.
Do we need Gigabit? (Score:2)
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Canada (Score:2)
I've had a variety of connections over the last few years but I've mostly been happy. I have GB fiber now. I haven't had an internet outage in years. Had to get a cable box replaced when I was on cable and I had problems with the phone lines for a bit (connections would drop when it rained, phone company fixed it, said something about squirrels) almost 20
Fuck Google (Score:2)
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Thin of it this way: The government builds roads, but doesn't run trucking companies (Other than the post office, and that is really just a weird wholly owned company thingy that never made sense to me.) Instead, the government creates rules for using the road and allows anyone that meets those rules to participate in the market created.
If the government owned the electrical infrastructure, then anyone could be an electricity provider. Just find some customers, set up the water wheel on the stream on you