Network management

Installing high-speed fiber-optic infrastructure is incredibly expensive. By some accounts, it can cost up to $8,000 per home to have the cabling put in place. Yet, perhaps unsurprisingly, a Federal Highway Administration report detailed that up to 90 percent of this cost was tied up in the process of actually digging up roadways, not the fiber lines themselves. As a result, some cities and states champion the idea of future-proofing PROW’s (public rights-of-ways) during road construction projects.

The Federal Communications Commission voted to preempt part of a San Francisco ordinance that promotes broadband competition in apartment buildings and other multi-tenant structures. The FCC's decision "stop[s] efforts in California designed to encourage competition in multi-tenant environments," said FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel. "Specifically, we say to the city of San Francisco—where more than half of the population rents their housing, often in multi-tenant units—that they cannot encourage broadband competition.

Earlier in 2019, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) sought public comment on a new contract for the Public Interest Registry, the non-profit organization that administers the .org top-level domain. The results were stark; more than 3,200 individuals and organizations submitted comments to ICANN, and most of them focused on a proposal to remove a cap on the price customers could be charged for .org domains. The existing contract, signed in 2013, banned the Public Interest Registry from charging more than $8.25 per domain.

This is the paradox of 5G, the collection of technologies behind next-generation wireless networks: They require a gargantuan quantity of wires. This is because 5G requires many more small towers, all of which must be wired to the internet. The consequences of this unavoidable reality are myriad.

Joe Franell is a fan of Huawei’s equipment. As the CEO of Eastern Oregon Telecom, he’s responsible for providing internet to about 4,000 customers, many in small communities or remote farmland. He’s been lucky: the Huawei equipment he uses has never failed, which he hasn’t been able to say about everything else in the company’s network.

One of the first decisions a community needs to make in bringing broadband to residents is what sort of network to operate. Should the network be closed, with one Internet service provider providing service to residents; open and lit, providing the basic infrastructure for potentially competing ISPs; or open with dark fiber leased to competing ISPs? All three models have their proponents and detractors. In my experience and opinion, no one model is ideal for every community. Each option impacts how a community will build and operate a network, and each has advantages and disadvantages.

What should be the broadband agenda for infrastructure legislation? Here are some key principles.

The internet consists of tiny bits of code that move around the world, traveling along wires as thin as a strand of hair strung across the ocean floor. The data zips from New York to Sydney, from Hong Kong to London, in the time it takes you to read this word. Nearly 750,000 miles of cable already connect the continents to support our insatiable demand for communication and entertainment. Companies have typically pooled their resources to collaborate on undersea cable projects, like a freeway for them all to share.

Despite the tremendous innovation in fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) networks over the last decade, growing bandwidth demands from households and enterprise business applications are likely to exceed today’s Gigabit Passive Optical Networks (GPON) network capacity levels in the near future.

Like most cities, Boston (MA) needs an expanded fiber optic network to serve the fast-growing needs of City schools, police, and other departments—plus a range of applications like public safety cameras. Boston understood its needs—but needed more clarity on its choices. Would it be possible to affordably lease all the fiber it might need for decades to come? Or should it build its own fiber—expanding the existing City network known as BoNET?