Subject: [pafiber] Fwd: Meet-the-Mayor meets FTTH

From: Jeff Hoel <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 15 Mar 2005 17:30:36 -0800 (PST)

FYI, attached.

(Note:  Re what other cities are doing about FTTH referenda, today I
learned that Lafayette will be having a FTTH referendum after all, to
avoid the delay of an extended battle in the courts.  I hope it passes.
See <http://lafayetteprofiber.com/Blog/Blog.html>,
"Text of Durel's letter on Fiber for the Future referendum")

Jeff

Subject: Meet-the-Mayor meets FTTH
From: Jeff Hoel <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked], [email-masked]
Cc: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2005 15:41:01 -0800 (PST)

Mayor Burch and City Manager Benest,

I enjoyed talking with you at the Meet-the-Mayor session on 3-4-05.
Thanks for allowing me to raise the subject of FTTH.  I'd like to
follow up some of what we talked about.

---

Mr. Mayor, you asked how we know that a FTTH system wouldn't become
obsolete too soon.  I advocate the kind of FTTH system Provo, UT, is
building, which I think we should build too.  The fiber infrastructure
will last for decades, and is capable of supporting speeds far greater
than today's optronics can cost-effectively deliver.  Today, in Provo,
a home normally gets 100 Mb/s of raw bandwidth.  (For example, that's
enough for three HDTV video streams, at 19 Mb/s each, plus phone, plus
10 Mb/s Internet.)  But if a customer thought that wasn't enough, he
could upgrade to a raw bandwidth of 1 Gb/s, using exactly the same
fiber infrastructure, without requiring neighbors to upgrade too.

Some people wonder whether wireless systems will make "wireline"
systems like FTTH obsolete.  I don't think so.  They will always be
subject to interference, so they won't be good for real-time
applications like TV, and they won't be nearly as fast.

Terry Shuchat remarked, "Everything is changing so fast...."  I think
some things are changing faster than others.  Retail applications may
well be changing fast, which is why I think it would be a good idea
for the city to offer open access to retail service providers.

---

You mentioned that Palo Alto didn't have to be first when it came to
muni FTTH.  True, and a good thing, since there's no way we can be
first anymore.  What we should do now is to learn from the pioneers.

---

When I asked you whether telecommuting via FTTH would help get cars
off the streets, you wondered whether today's cable modem and DSL
services were already good enough.  Maybe, in some cases, but FTTH
would be a lot better.  Some incumbent products don't permit business
use.  Some companies don't like the shared-medium feature of cable
modem.  Some companies would like security features like VPNs.  Over
time, bandwidth requirements are likely to rise faster than the
incumbents can offer faster products.  In Hong Kong, you can get
100-Mb/s Internet to the home for $30/month.  In the world economy,
we're competing with that.

---

You raised the question of how much a citywide FTTH system would cost.
The city's FTTH Business Plan, Phase 2, report guesses around
$40 million, but that's based on an architecture I think we don't want,
and it wasn't based on actual bids.  I think it could cost less.  I
have sent detailed messages about this to Council and UAC.

---

You asked about whether the "wiring" inside the home should be fiber
as well.  I don't think so.  Fiber is needed when you need very high
speed over extended distances.  For the short distances within a home,
copper wiring is good enough.  In fact, some kinds of wireless are
also good enough, so maybe some customers would choose that option.
I think it's reasonable for intra-home connections to be the
customer's responsibility.

---

You asked whether the home optronics box should be outside the home
or inside.  In Provo, it's inside.  Palo Alto's FTTH Business Case
document says it should be outside, but doesn't say why.  Outside
costs more, because the container has to be weatherproof.

---

Mr. City Manager, when I asked you whether you were opposed to doing
FTTH, you said (something like) you thought it would be great to do
FTTH, that it would be exciting, challenging, etc., but we can't
afford to put the General Fund at risk.  (You said it would be like
an individual family's putting its checking account at risk.)

You said that as long as we can't figure out how make the financing
work, there's no point in your worrying about the other details.

---

I asked whether staff had revealed everything they know about why
the financing doesn't work, and you said you thought so.  When I
said I thought there might have been a closed session of Council
about it, you thought not.  Later, I checked and found that there was
a closed session on 7-19-05, the same evening that Council considered
FTTH financing, but the agenda doesn't say what it was about, other
than "potential/anticipated litigation subject: significant exposure
to litigation on one matter authority: government code section
54956.9 (b)(1) & (b)(3)(A)."  I guess I made an incorrect assumption
that the closed session was about FTTH financing.

I also recall attending some UAC meetings where the commissioners
asked staff to show up with a city attorney so that a frank discussion
of legal concerns about financing methods could ensue, and that never
happened.  Once I asked Grant Kolling about it, and he said that he
worked for staff, not UAC, and it was his advice not to show up.

---

You said that if we tried to do FTTH, the incumbents would come after
us, because Palo Alto was especially visible.  I think you're right,
but that shouldn't intimidate us.  The incumbents came after Provo,
Utopia, Lafayette, Tricities, etc.  Provo and Utopia worked with the
Utah state legislature to assure that legislation proposed by the
incumbents didn't make it completely impossible for munis to have
FTTH systems.  Similarly, Lafayette worked with the Louisiana state
legislature for the same reason.  So far, the incumbents have
defeated two referenda in Tricities, but I don't think advocates
there have given up yet.  It's interesting that in Provo, Utopia, and
Lafayette (so far), Councils opted to do muni FTTH without doing
referenda -- representative democracy at work.

Palo Alto has worked with the state legislature on other things,
such as Hetch Hetchy water governance.  It's a lot a work but it's at
least thinkable.

---

Thanks again.

Jeff

Jeff Hoel
731 Colorado Avenue
Palo Alto, CA 94303

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