Municipality

What kinds of network owner would be driven by a different kind of goal: to maximize overall utility to users of its network?

It's no accident that fiber to the home (FTTH) is so slow to catch on. Fiber is the most infinitely and cheaply expandable of all connectivity media. It is not surprising that municipalities operate 32% of the FTTH in the United States. Munis are interested in overall utility, not in profit. Munis want their city to be a better place to live.

In summary, the telco ☎(and the cableco) are victims, not beneficiaries, of the Communications Revolution. Nor are they giving end-user customers what we want. This, then is the market failure!

Fortunately there are alternatives. There are munis. There are (still) CLECs. (Maybe some day some CLEC will get that, "It's operational efficiency, stupid.") There are other utilities. There's condominium network ownership. There are networks owned by single customers. And there are "volunteerist" networks without tragic instabilities.
David Isen ❢

ObURL: http://www.isen.com/blog/archives/2004_02_01_archive.html#107782075016571828
“I think it's the low marginal costs. They're not just low; they're extremely low, and infinitely lowerable for all practical purposes. Carriers can modulate faster, modulate better, add another channel, or add another wavelength. Because of this, if a carrier sells one fiber, or even one "dry" (or sharable) copper pair, they might never sell another.” Of course, even the muni's never sell, they lease.

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Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example. -- Mark Twain