vision2020@moscow.com: Re: wwp "offer" to put fiber into the community
Re: wwp "offer" to put fiber into the community
Steve Cooke (scooke@novell.uidaho.edu)
Mon, 14 Apr 1997 12:39:08 PST8PDT
Dear Visionaries,
There is an unwritten rule in politics that the importance of an issue is
inversely related to the time spent discussing it. I think we have
witness another validation of that rule in the discussion of
Hoover's inaugeration vs. the political ec. of fiber optics cable
for Moscow-Pullman raised by John Teeter.
Steve Cooke.
>
> WWP Fiber (WWPF), a wholly owned sub of WWP, showed up here last Thursday afternoon
> with an offer to put "unlit" fiber optic cable into the Moscow community.....for a price. This offer
> is one of many being made throughout the WWPF coverage area (@500,000 people in 4 states.
>
> I quickly called folks at the city, county, school district, and hospital, who I've spoken with
> before, and had a brief meeting Friday afternoon to lay out the facts of the offer as I know them.
> A second meeting will happen at 10am Tuesday (tomorrow) at our offices with WWPF people
> to handle primarily technical questions.
>
> Here's a brief outline of the offer:
>
> 1 - the community identifies points on the city map where people can "commit" to wanting
> "points of demarcation", or connections, to the fiber.
> 2 - WWPF takes the map away and engineers the layout of the fiber coverage.
> 3 - WWPF comes back with the layout and the monthly connection rate which they
> will require of those who wish to connect to the fiber.
> 4 - those connecting will be asked to sign a 5 year "lease to use" the fiber.
> 5 - WWPF will install (over a period of 3-6 weeks) the fiber.
>
> Sounds simple. Estimated cost/month of the un-lit fiber access ---- @$300-$600/connection/month
> depending on the amount of fiber run to connect the people who commit.
>
> Sounds expensive to me. I'd prefer somewhere in the <$50/mo range. The cost is a factor of the
> amount of fiber and the number of connections. The denser the map, the lower the cost.
> Using the WSU Greek row connections done last year as a model, the 40 connections there
> are costing $300/mo. Of the folks that met last Friday (city/county/hospital/schools), there were
> 17 connections - and all thought that $300/mo was way too expensive - for example the city had
> @5 connections, which would be a total of $1500/mo. The school district can't commit to 5 years at
> that price b/c of the pending federal support to wire them. (I would suggest no one should commit to
> such a long time in this rapidly changing world).
>
> So I suggest that we attempt to bring the density up by a factor of at least 10 (i.e.: @200-400 connections)
> and try to bring the price down to a target of <$50/mo. Not sure how best to do this, but it will take a
> community effort to pull it off. Any one out there that wants to have their "dots" put on the map, Tuesday
> at 10am is the first deadline. The map is in my office.
>
> johnt
>
> (p.s.. "un-lit" fiber gives a 10mb connection to the point of demarcation. What WWPF is suggesting
> is to build a Moscow "local area network", or in the market parlance, a Moscow "intra-net". WWPF is
> providing only the un-lit fiber. What it takes to connect services to it is $3000-$10,000 of additional HW/SW. Services can be data, voice, and/or video, depending on what you want. Services cost
> money in some cases. I missed the discussion on the fiber topology, so that will be covered on Tuesday.
> In some cases, services provided over this communication medium might offset costs currently going to
> other places. The voice capability of the fiber is the best example of this. Basically, a local alternative
> to GTE phone service could be put in place. Other examples of services which might be interesting are:
>
> 1 - voice/video/data communications b/t the sheriff and city police dispatchers.
> 2 - school-district voice integrated into the local phone grid
> 3 - hospital<-->local physician voice/data/video connections
> 4 - internet connections for those that want them (through who-ever wants to provide them)
> 5 - community wide e-mail services
>
> WWPF is not doing ANY of the service provisioning for the project (thus the $3000-$10000 additional
> HW/SW cost). FSR can help with some of this, firewalls, hubs, switches etc.
>
> Additionally, we are working with wireless technologies which (although lower bandwidth) provide
> a lower monthly recurring fee structure. An integration of the two worlds might provide interesting
> capabilities as well.
>
> Anyway, that's an overview of what's happening. If you want more info, come to the meeting tomorrow.
> I think WWPF's first offer (high monthly cost) is way out of line, but maybe we can work with them
> to bring it down. It would be very nice to have full density coverage (i.e. fiber to everyone who
> wants it) at a below $50/mo price point if that can be achieved.
>
> till later,
>
> johnt
>
>
Associate Professor
Dept. of Ag. Economics & Rural Soc.
University of Idaho
Moscow, ID 83843
http://www.uidaho.edu/~scooke/onepercent
208-885-7170 (phone)
208-885-5759 (fax)
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