The push to dumb down the definition is not only to benefit the legacy
providers. It also benefits the politicians. A lower standard means
that a greater quantity of citizens can be deemed to have been given
broadband. The politicians will claim that they have served more
Americans...
The hard underlying issue is cost-justifying expensive OSP builds in
low-density areas. Yes, aerial construction is cheaper than UG. But,
it is still hard to build a business case for providing service in a
low-density area, especially as an over-builder. (And any terrestrial
provider is essentially an over-builder now that DBS tv service is so
pervasive.) One cannot count on ~100% penetration, as was possible when
there was only one game in town.
I don't know if we can ever cost-justify bringing *real* broadband
(un-capped FE, GigE, fiber) service to the hinterland. Many of the
countries with higher speed service that we compare ourselves against
(e.g. S.Korea) are able to build at a very low price point because they
have a very high percentage of MDUs. MDU builds are comparatively low
cost. Urban MDU, where you can piggy-back on an existing
building-entrance conduit are even cheaper.
This is like farm subsidy or foreign aid. The tax payer is asked to
subsidize bringing the benefits of modern urban/suburban technology to
the middle of nowhere. However, if the program succeeds in increasing
broadband penetration (whatever broadband is) perhaps it will have the
beneficial effect of making the nation more homogeneous and harmonious.
On 8/26/2009 10:38 AM, Fred Baker wrote:
If it's about stimulus money, I'm in favor of saying that broadband
implies fiber to the home. That would provide all sorts of stimuli to
the economy - infrastructure, equipment sales, jobs digging ditches,
and so on. I could pretty quickly argue myself into suggesting special
favors for deployment of DNSSEC, multicast, and IPv6. As in, use the
stimulus money to propel a leap forward, not just waste it.
On Aug 26, 2009, at 9:44 AM, Carlos Alcantar wrote:
I think the big push to get the fcc to define broadband is highly based
on the rus/ntia setting definitions of what broadband is. If any anyone
has been fallowing the rus/ntia they are the one handing out all the
stimulus infrastructure grant loan money. So there are a lot of
political reasons to make the definition of broadband a bit slower than
one would think. I guess it doesn't hurt that the larger lec's with the
older infrastructure are shelling out the money to lobby to make sure
the definition stays as low as can be. They don't want to see the gov
funding there competition. Just my 2 cents.
-carlos
-----Original Message-----
From: Ted Fischer [mailto:t...@fred.net]
Sent: Wednesday, August 26, 2009 8:50 AM
To: nanog@nanog.org
Subject: Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
Paul Timmins wrote:
Fred Baker wrote:
On Aug 24, 2009, at 9:17 AM, Luke Marrott wrote:
What are your thoughts on what the definition of Broadband should be
going
forward? I would assume this will be the standard definition for a
number of
years to come.
Historically, narrowband was circuit switched (ISDN etc) and
broadband
was packet switched. Narrowband was therefore tied to the digital
signaling hierarchy and was in some way a multiple of 64 KBPS. As the
term was used then, broadband delivery options of course included
virtual circuits bearing packets, like Frame Relay and ATM.
of or relating to or being a communications network in which the
bandwidth can be divided and shared by multiple simultaneous signals
(as
for voice or data or video)
That's my humble opinion. Let them use a new term, like "High Speed
Internet".
Seconded
