Since my last post, I've taken a contract job in the bay area. I've had an active interest in Openstack since I've heard of it in 2011. It's because I really needed an Openstack like support system when I was running an ISP.
Despite proudly proclaiming to be in the heart of Silicon Valley, this city is no better off with regards to connectivity than any other American metropolitan area. I've never fully appreciated all the business forces that affect our lives, until I took time off and went to business school. More than anything else, it was a good time, with good people, and an opportunity to rethink technology without the constraints of being a technology person.
A tangible output from that experience was a way to organize a complex idea into a document that explains how to have cost effective communications competition to every home. Because this idea is seemingly too good to be true, there is an equal and opposite opposing force. Cost effective competition means no one company can ever benefit from a monopoly status. The logical follow-on is that no company will ever want to support this plan. In fact, the incumbent will viciously fight this plan.
I'm republishing the post I did in 2009.
The Getnet Plan
White Paper On Use of Passive Coarse Wave Division Multiplexing For Promotion of Competition at the Last Mile
*January 8, 2009 — By Jeffrey Gong*
Overview
Most consumers don't have fiber optic communications to the home. It is a very expensive and risky investment for more than one or two providers to install fiber optic communications to all addresses. Consumers (and the economy as a whole) benefit when there is broader competition to provide services.
A solution is to allocate responsibility for installation and management of communications transport to municipalities using Coarse Wave Division Multiplexing (CWDM). CWDM is a passive optical technology that allows multiple independent light wavelengths to share a single strand of fiber simultaneously — without active electronics in the path. Each wavelength is a separate, independent channel that a different provider can use. The fiber in the ground becomes shared infrastructure, like a road, with competitive service providers as the tenants.
The Monopoly Problem
The current model requires a provider to install fiber end-to-end: from their central office, through the street, to your home. This capital cost is so large that only one or two providers can justify it per area. The result is a structural monopoly — not because any provider is uniquely evil, but because the economics make competition impossible.
Local governments already own and maintain the conduit through which utilities run. Water pipes, electrical conduits, and gas lines are treated as public infrastructure managed for community benefit. Fiber optic cable should be treated the same way. The cost of fiber belongs in the same budget as roads and sewage, amortized over decades as long-lived public infrastructure.
The CWDM Solution
Passive CWDM equipment at each home splits a single fiber strand into multiple independent wavelength channels. Each channel is allocated to a different ISP. The homeowner subscribes to whichever provider they prefer. The provider's signal rides its assigned wavelength from the central office to the home without interfering with other providers' wavelengths on the same physical fiber.
Key properties:
- Passive: No powered equipment in the ground. CWDM splitters have no moving parts and last decades.
- Transparent: Each provider runs their own protocol, encryption, and equipment at each end. The fiber owner sees nothing.
- Competitive: Any licensed provider can purchase access to a wavelength and serve any home on the network.
- Municipal: The city installs, owns, and maintains the fiber. They do not operate as an ISP.
Governance Model
The municipality owns the fiber infrastructure and a neutral coordination body manages wavelength allocation — similar to how spectrum is allocated by the FCC. Providers apply for wavelengths in a service area, pay a regulated access fee (ideally cost-recovery only, not profit), and compete on service quality, price, and features.
Consumers are not locked in. Switching providers requires no truck roll, no new cable, no waiting period. The provider updates their central office equipment; the passive splitter at the home already carries all wavelengths.
Why This Hasn't Happened
Municipal fiber threatens the most profitable segment of every major cable and telecom company. Incumbents have successfully lobbied more than 20 states to pass laws prohibiting or severely restricting municipal broadband. The economic incentive to fight this plan is enormous.
The other opposing force is apathy. What we have is good enough. Most city council members will not fully understand this proposal in one reading. Consumers have to motivate their local governments to understand it and take the political risk of treating communications as public infrastructure.
Conclusion
Communications is a long-lived commodity infrastructure that is as necessary as roads, water, electricity, trash, and sewage. The costs of fiber to the home should be amortized the same way. The technology — passive CWDM — exists today, is mature, and is cheap relative to the problem it solves. The barrier is political will, not engineering.
*Jeffrey Gong — originally January 8, 2009. Re-published April 30, 2016.*