[Advisors] Re: [CommunityInformaticsCanada] Cecilia Kang Is Right: There Really Could Be A Free National WiFi Network (of Networks)

[Michael Lenczner]

Thanks for responding, James.

> Cost per meter is higher in built-up areas, where streets and roads usually
> have to be dug up.

and

> As for a WiFi mesh overlay, the deployment cost is almost marginal for a new
> fibre deployment (less than 5%).
>
> It costs significantly less to build and operate the mesh as an application
> layer on a new fibre network vs. cobbling it on to a legacy copper network
> belonging to an incumbent.

So these three statements together mean that deploying in a *non*
rural or semi-rural area is not as much of a no-brainer as is laying
new fiber and sticking wireless transmitters on them without having to
dig up concrete and deal with other city infrastructure. I assumed
that when you refering to muniwireless as being an obvious investment
that it included cities.

Back in 2006-2007, muniwireless was something that only made economic
sense when there were assured revenue generating services sold on top
of the network (smart meters, public security (more in the US than
here), telephony, video, etc.). I attended (and spoke at) several Muni
wireless conferences around the US and that's what all of the vendors
were saying - which was an evolution of what they were sayinlieg earr,
which was that charging for Internet access could generate enough
revenue. I was curious about what has changed since then, but I'm
still not sure anything has - besides the continuing possibility of
new spectrum and smart radios.

You are obviously reading a lot about this area. Inserting some
references in your statements make discussions like these a lot more
productive.

Mike

On Wed, Feb 13, 2013 at 1:02 PM, James Van Leeuwen <jvl@ventus.ca> wrote:
> Michael,
>
> I've provided a cursory overview of wireline and wireless deployment costs
> further on.
>
> First, a reflection on the evolving economics of broadband deployment, which
> is far more revolutionary than evolutionary.
>
>
> The (r)evolution is happening mostly on the benefit side of the cost-benefit
> equation, in lock step with the evolution of digital circuitry and the
> capabilities of fibre optoelectronics, digital wireless transceivers, and
> edge devices.
>
> Think for a moment how many apps have already been developed in the space of
> a few years for smart phones and tablets, and the orders-of-magnitude
> increase in utility and capability these devices offer compared to cell
> phones enabling only voice, text and crappy access to the web.
>
> While away from the office yesterday, I used my iPhone to book a flight,
> conduct business and personal banking, access and respond to at least a
> dozen emails, listen to my home voicemail (email attachment), listen in on a
> technical webinar, participate in a four-way business teleconference via
> Skype, research and connect with a new business contact on LinkedIn, review
> a short PDF, track and contribute to my FaceBook account, and watch a
> brilliant video featuring a cat and photocopier.
>
> Oh yes... I also had an over an hour of cellular voice communication with
> clients and business associates, and I sent or received a total of nine text
> messages.
>
>
> The rapidly expanding accessibility and utility of wired and wireless
> broadband networks enables more devices to do more things in more places,
> whether they are mobile personal devices or (increasingly) static devices in
> machine-to-machine configurations (the Internet of Things).
>
> This is driving a literal explosion of benefit ('productivity'), which is
> the side of the equation we have yet to properly assess (costs always come
> to mind first).
>
> The challenge is to properly assess both the internal and the external
> benefits of a broadband deployment, and to meaningfully monetize those
> benefits wherever possible.
>
> I am presently working on such an assessment in a rural/remote context,
> which will enable us to properly rationalize investment in a broadband
> deployment for all who stand to benefit from it.
>
>
> The other side of the revolution is less dramatic but far more easily
> monetized, and this is the falling cost of network deployment.
>
> This applies to both fibre and wireless networking technologies, and there
> is still a long way for deployment costs to fall.
>
> Microtrenching is a good example of the cost-saving innovations that are now
> being implemented in buried fibre deployment, with cost savings up to 30% in
> some environments.
>
> There might be a trade-off in the form of higher maintenance costs, and we
> are monitoring this closely.
>
>
> The principal cost for fibre deployment will always be burying the fibre or
> hanging it on poles.
>
> This is typically 70% or more of a buried fibre deployment, less for an
> aerial deployment.
>
> Here in Alberta, costs for a buried fibre deployment typically range from
> $15 - $50 per meter, with an average of around $35 per meter using an
> experienced contractor (more $ per hour, but fewer hours).
>
> Cost per meter is higher in built-up areas, where streets and roads usually
> have to be dug up.
>
> Road and stream crossings are typically $75 per meter, because directional
> drilling is required (can't tear up the roadbed or streambed).
>
> I am less familiar with aerial fibre deployment, but I understand the
> deployment costs are roughly half the cost of burying fibre.
>
> Gaining affordable access to poles can be a real pain in the ass, depending
> who owns them and what they are being used for.
>
>
> As for a WiFi mesh overlay, the deployment cost is almost marginal for a new
> fibre deployment (less than 5%).
>
> It costs significantly less to build and operate the mesh as an application
> layer on a new fibre network vs. cobbling it on to a legacy copper network
> belonging to an incumbent.
>
> How about <$200K to cover an entire community of 7,500?
>
>
>
> Lots of municipally-owned electric utilities are now deploying fibre because
> they already have rights-of-way and boots on the ground.
>
> The utility serving Chattanooga TN has been a vanguard, and they are making
> waves in the U.S. with their end-to-end fibre deployment.
>
> Besides enabling Gigabit connectivity for any customer who wants it, the
> network is already saving the utility millions of dollars annually in
> operating costs.
>
> Through deployment of smart metering and smart grid technologies, they are
> able to manage loading and routing far more cost-effectively than
> previously.
>
> These savings alone would pay for the network in about ten years, but there
> is revenue generation on top of this.
>
> These are revenues from delivery of wholesale and retail (triple play)
> services, which could reduce the time for capital recovery by several years.
>
> Perhaps most importantly, Chattanooga is now capturing service revenues that
> previously flowed out of the community.
>
> They are investing a lot of these revenues in further infrastructure
> development and economic development.
>
>
> My consulting peers in the U.S. are all telling me this year will be the
> tipping point for community broadband in the U.S.
>
> As per usual, give it another two years to take off here in Canada.
>
> Anyone interested to see the U.S. trend up close should consider attending
> the annual Broadband Communities Summit in Dallas, April 16 - 18:
>
> http://www.bbcmag.com/2013s/
>
> The event will feature an economic development content stream on all three
> days, and a rural development content stream on the last day.
>
>
> JvL
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On 2013-02-10, at 4:43 PM, Michael Lenczner <mlenczner@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hey James,
>
> I used be more knowledgeable re: muni wifi, but I've let things slip
> in the past five years. I would appreciate it if you can provide some
> references about the cost of deploying a muni network to support your
> statements below? I don't know enough about telecom operations cost to
> disagree, but I neither does what you say seem evident. I would love
> to know more.
>
> This is now just an application layer on a fibre access network, and a
> fairly cheap one to build, operate and maintain.
>
>
> Overall, the cost of operating and maintaining a well-engineered fibre/WiFi
> access network is a fraction of what it costs to operate and maintain a
> legacy copper network.
>
>
> Thanks
>
>
> Michael Lenczner
>
>
> On Sun, Feb 10, 2013 at 3:40 AM, James Van Leeuwen <jvl@ventus.ca> wrote:
>
>
> I think she's right, because the genie is out of the bottle.
>
> We've become accustomed to free WiFi, but we may not have realized what this
> implies.
>
> Broadband telecommunication is cheap.
>
> In fact it's really cheap, and getting cheaper by the day.
>
>
> Today's state-of-the-art commercial optoelectronics enable 400 Gb/s
> transmission on a single optical fibre wavelength.
>
> By the end of this decade, it will be Tb/s transmission (Terabits per
> second).
>
> From 2015 onward, new residential fibre networks will employ 10 Gb/s
> optoelectronics (--> futureproof).
>
> The cost of wireless access is still a bit of a bottleneck, but not for
> long.
>
> The cost of deploying a high-density WiFi mesh network to sit on top of a
> robust fibre access network is dropping like a stone as technologies
> advance.
>
> This is now just an application layer on a fibre access network, and a
> fairly cheap one to build, operate and maintain.
>
>
> Overall, the cost of operating and maintaining a well-engineered fibre/WiFi
> access network is a fraction of what it costs to operate and maintain a
> legacy copper network.
>
> The best thing about these new networks is that they can easily accommodate
> growing traffic demand for decades into the future.
>
> Legacy copper networks are already struggling to accommodate today's traffic
> volumes, never mind tomorrow's.
>
> From day one, our telecom industry's business paradigm has been rooted in
> scarcity, not abundance.
>
> Markets are coming to understand that scarcities in telecom are bogus, and
> this poses a strategic risk to the industry.
>
> Scarcities manufactured to drive profit  can be likened to contriving closed
> canals in an open ocean.
>
> If operators don't change their business paradigm, they risk losing their
> social license to operate.
>
>
> With today's technologies, the cost of transporting a bit has become so
> small as to be practically meaningless.
>
> This is already disrupting the longstanding industry paradigm, and there is
> far more disruption to come.
>
> There are powerful incentives for municipal/community interests to deploy
> their own fibre/WiFi networks and manage them on a public utility model.
>
> Cheap, capable and reliable access is becoming a must-have for economic
> development, like having a paved public street network vs. a private dirt
> road network.
>
> A community that has the former can foster, retain and attract business and
> enterprise a lot easier than one that is stuck with the latter.
>
>
> As municipal/community interests come to recognize the vast economic utility
> of broadband, pressure will grow for senior governments to repatriate and
> repurpose wireless spectrum for municipal/community access.
>
> After all, it's our spectrum.
>
> As ever more communities get up to speed, we will see integration of local
> networks into seamless regional or even national networks.
>
> We already have this with our public road and street networks, and it has
> become a cornerstone of our nation's prosperity.
>
> We can expect the same of public broadband networks.
>
>
> The notion of a nationwide 'SuperWiFi' network is far more feasibility than
> fantasy.
>
> We control the telecom devices now, and we decide what networks we are going
> to use.
>
> Will we settle for the expensive scarcity of private cellular networks?
>
> Or will we aspire to the cheap abundance of community fibre/WiFi networks?
>
> The latter is what it means to be a 'frontier' community in the 21st
> century:
>
> http://www.reddeeradvocate.com/news/O-Net_is_open_for_business_189050541.html
> http://www.muninetworks.org
> http://www.bbpmag.com
>
>
> Here's to abundance.
>
>
> JvL
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On 2013-02-09, at 11:04 PM, "michael gurstein" <gurstein@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> And push-back against the push-back re the Free National WiFi Network in the
> US
>
> M
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: dewayne-net@warpspeed.com [mailto:dewayne-net@warpspeed.com] On Behalf
> Of Dewayne Hendricks
> Sent: Friday, February 08, 2013 11:21 AM
> To: Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net
> Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Cecilia Kang Is Right: There Really Could Be A Free
> National WiFi Network (of Networks)
>
> Cecilia Kang Is Right: There Really Could Be A Free National WiFi Network
> (of Networks) By Harold Feld FEBRUARY 8, 2013
> <http://tales-of-the-sausage-factory.wetmachine.com/cecilia-kang-is-right-th
> ere-really-could-be-a-free-national-wifi-network-of-networks/>
>
> This past week, we've had quite the discussion around Cecilia Kan's WashPo
> piece describing a plan by the FCC to create a national WiFi network by
> making the right decisions about how to allocate spectrum between licenses
> for auction and what to leave available for the unlicensed TV white spaces
> ("TVWS" aka "Super WiFi" aka "Wifi on steroids"). As Kang describes, the
> FCC's opening of sufficient spectrum for for TVWS could lead to "super WiFi
> networks (emphasis added) around the nation so powerful and broad in reach
> that consumers could use them to make calls  or surf the Internet wihout
> paying a cellphone bill every month." Needless to say, the articlefaced much
> pushback, despite a subsequent Washpo clarification to indicate the FCC was
> not, actually, planing to build a network. Amidst the various critics, there
> were some general defenders of the concept. My colleagues at EFF noted that
> increasing the availability of open spectrum for WiFi-type uses , and my
> friends at Free Press argued that such a free public wifi network (or, more
> accurately, series of networks) is in fact possible if the FCC makes enough
> good quality spectrum, suitable for broadband and usable out doors,
> available on an unlicensed basis. I will now go a step further than any of
> my colleagues. I will boldly state that, if the FCC produces a solid 20 MHz
> of contiguous empty space for TV White spaces in the Incentive Auction
> proceeding, or even two 10 MHz guard channels that could nationally produce
> two decent sized LTE-for unlicensed channels, then we will have exactly the
> kind of free publicly available wifi Kang describes in her article. Or, "Yes
> Cecilia, there really is free national public wifi. Don't let the haters and
> know-it-alls tell you otherwise." "What's that?" I hear you cry. "Has Harold
> gone mad, fallen at last into some whacky socialist dream? Has he forgotten
> everything he ever learned about how hideously complicated and expensive it
> is to run a network? Who will provide the backhaul? The customer service?
> Why would anyone do it? Or is Harold talking about one of his evil socialist
> tax schemes where we either use tax-payer money to build some muni-wifi
> boondoggle or force poor little innocent carriers (who are making 97% profit
> margins on their broadband systems) to carry public trafic under some
> "public interest" theory? No (although I'm not averse to either, as it
> happens). I mean what I say. If the FCC makes the right spectrum choices, it
> is inevitable that we will eventually get to the kind of ubiquitous and easy
> to use publicly accessible WiFi access Kang describes in her article. Heck,
> we are half-way there now even with the small crappy scraps of spectrum
> available for existing WiFi. The history of the best efforts Internet - that
> thing you're using now - points to the kind of "WiFi network of networks"
> that Kang is talking about. How do I get from here to "networks so powerful
> and broad in reach" that the poor could still feel connected without paying
> a monthly carrier bill? Without any change other than getting 20 MHz
> contiguous TVWS out of the Incentive Auction band plan?
>
> [snip]
>
> Dewayne-Net RSS Feed: <http://www.warpspeed.com/wordpress>
>
>
>
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