Re: Muni Fiber

[Miles Fidelman <mfidelman () meetinghouse net>]

William Herrin wrote:
> > Even if preempted, a state or municipality can make it make it *very*
> > uncomfortable for a communications provider who doesn't want to play
> > ball. Consider, for example, DC's repaving requirements: if you dig up
> > the street, you're required to repave the whole street all the way
> > from the nearest intersections. Completely repave, not just
> > cold-patch. That's pretty expensive. Unless they waive the requirement
> > on a case by case basis. Where the basis has a habit of being whether
> > or not your digging is in line with a government policy objective.
> >
> > This is one reason FIOS deployments lag in DC. Verizon doesn't want to
> > deploy conduit down every street lest they be compelled to open it to
> > competitors and the DC government won't waive the repaving
> > requirements for direct burial fiber.

Flip side of this - a street cut, on average, take a year off the life 
of a street.  Street patches tend to lead to
potholes, ice dams, and so forth (and from there to lots of car 
repairs).  Doing things in the street disrupts
traffic - you don't want it to happen too often. (Things you learn 
consulting to local governments.)

It's not a matter of "making things uncomfortable for communications 
providers" - it's a matter of getting
them to pay the full cost of digging, rather than passing it off to 
others.  It's been my observation that
MOST municipalities let providers do whatever they want, don't do 
anything to coordinate right-of-way
work (even by their own water departments), don't have the budget to 
repair or repave roads all that often,
and hence have absolutely horrid roads - particularly in areas where 
water infiltration and freezing is an issue.

Miles Fidelman




--
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is.   .... Yogi Berra