Re: [gaia] Gigabit/fibre networks, worth documenting/comparing experiences and lessons beyond the usual (market)

[Jane Coffin <[e-mail]>]

Let’s get the classification down for sure.

I am seeing the same thing and just came from about 3.5 hours outside of Bishkek where the CN we were working with is partnering with a fibre provider to sort backhaul+ and possibly just fibre connectivity.

Pushing the margin and showing people options is important…particularly as we keep hearing that current operational models for some mobile operators do not hit ROI in villages of 5-3,000 and under.  

So, what does a regulator do when the licensing conditions suggest that the operator (who can not meet ROI) is obliged to provide service.  And, after they both realize that the licensing conditions can not be met, and service can not be provided – we run in circles.  It seems obvious that community/other local access networks tip the balance, spur various innovations in licensing, U/S (and changes to same), and spectrum.  And, it is clear that a partnership can be made between some mobile/other operators and CNs (if they choose to do that).

 

Note by the way that the S. African authorities came to the 3rd African CN Summit a few weeks ago, and indicated that they were going to create a new digital fund (as USF is just not working).  Perhaps our mapping includes whether there is USF and the last time it was administered?...

 

 

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From: gaia <[e-mail]> on behalf of Steve Song <[e-mail]>
Date: Monday, September 17, 2018 at 6:13 PM
To: "[e-mail]" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: [gaia] Gigabit/fibre networks, worth documenting/comparing experiences and lessons beyond the usual (market)

 

100% agree on the case studies and there are some cracking examples like Guifi.net and B4RN but I feel like I don't have a sense of the landscape yet which is why building a catalogue to begin with would really help me.  From community-driven but ultimately private sector fibre initiatives like Parkhurst in Johannesburg to electricity cooperatives embracing fibre in the U.S, there are a host of different models out there and some important lessons to be learned. 

 

Interesting insights for me is the highly variable relationship between the community, local government and the private sector.  Sometimes local government is the hero and sometimes they are the villain.

 

B4RN exists largely in spite of local government.  In other cases municipalities have led the way.  Municipal bonds seems likely a very interesting approach for local government led models.  So much so that there is a startup (https://neighborly.com/) that offers community-bonds-as-a-service to municipalities.  

 

Parkhurst mobilised the community (government was not involved in any way) to build a critical mass of commitment, with individual streets competing with each other in the suburb to see who could raise the highest level of commitment.  But then they handed it all to Vumatel who agreed to build and operate the network (at no charge to the community) based on the commitments.  Now they have fibre everywhere, which is a big improvement on Telkom, but it is still very expensive.

 

Cheers... Steve

 

 

 

 

On Mon, 17 Sep 2018 at 11:12, Jane Coffin <[e-mail]> wrote:

Case-studies are key as we will want to give colleagues as much concrete/practical examples as possible.

 

On the issue of online spreadsheet or etherpad – leaving that to the team here to pick

 

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From: gaia <[e-mail]> on behalf of "Song, Stephen" <[e-mail]>
Date: Monday, September 17, 2018 at 2:45 PM
To: "[e-mail]" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: [gaia] Gigabit/fibre networks, worth documenting/comparing experiences and lessons beyond the usual (market)

 

Hi all,

 

I would be happy to help with this.  My inclination would be to start small.  To begin with, I would be happy with a list of fibre initiatives, the country, link to website/news articles, and some basic categorisation of the network that we can evolve as we go.

 

We could start with an online spreadsheet or etherpad?

 

Cheers... Steve

 

On Mon, 17 Sep 2018 at 07:39, Leandro Navarro <[e-mail]> wrote:

Thanks a lot Mallory, Michael, Arjuna for your comments. BTW, the EY report is just amazing !

 

Following Mallory’s comment, we could outline (rather than detail) the practices, classify them, relate them to IETF/IRTF activities and other groups, collect requirements, recommendations, but something relatively brief, + compile citations or case studies from the initiatives out there, that could be a basis to understand the big picture, and identify action points.

 

Any other comment is very welcome. I will work on an initial outline and will get back to the group in a week or two with a proposal..

 

Cheers, Leandro.

 

On 17 Sep 2018, at 11:01, Arjuna Sathiaseelan <[e-mail]> wrote:

 

Leandro, all 

 

this report  by EY is brilliant and has lot of info needed - especially from Section 4:

https://www.ey.com/Publication/vwLUAssets/ey-broadband-2022-unlocking-a-trillion-dollar-digital-economy/$FILE/ey-broadband-2022-unlocking-a-trillion-dollar-digital-economy.pdf

 

 

On 8 September 2018 at 20:27, Leandro Navarro <[e-mail]> wrote:

Hi everyone,  

 

In the recent days I’ve seen several initiatives around fibre access infrastructure, 

 

* Some coming from rural communities such as:

 - this nice video documentary from a community effort in Scotland: https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2018/09/video-documentary-looks-at-balquhidder-community-ftth-build-in-scotland.html 

 - The well know B4RN community operator: https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2018/03/b4rn-helping-expand-1gbps-ftth-broadband-rural-cheshire.html 

 - Several other optical networks: https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/news/five-projects-got-first-ever-european-broadband-award

 - Including guifi.net: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gD3HYeD4Lm4

 - First nations such as http://knet.ca/ among others: https://www.internetsociety.org/events/indigenous-connectivity-summit/2017/presentations/ and related aspects of electricity, water, economic development and employment, etc.

 

* Traditional or new telcos such as https://www.gigaclear.com/ etc.

 

* Other players such as google fibre: https://fiber.googleblog.com/ In this article they discuss about lessons learned https://hbr.org/2018/09/why-google-fiber-is-high-speed-internets-most-successful-failure

 

The list is endless.

 

All seem successful in different ways, with different lessons learned about scale, local investment, infrastructure sharing like ducts and poles, cost reduction from the involvement of volunteers, involvement of content and service providers (googlefiber), etc. In the netcommons.eu project we have looked at different business and organisational models for community networks specifically, but there are other successful models that have socio-economic impact.

 

Would you find useful to compile a GAIA/IRTF document about good practices, lessons learned, to build high-speed/fibre/gigabit network infrastructures in challenging environments? which means beyond the last frontier of rural, remote, underdeveloped, underserved areas.

 

By the way, there is this upcoming related event: https://www.internetsociety.org/events/indigenous-connectivity-summit/2018/

The report from the previous edition is a recommended read: https://www.internetsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/2018-01-04_ICS-Report-final.pdf

 

Cheers, 

--
Leandro Navarro
http://people.ac.upc.edu/leandro  http://dsg.ac.upc.edu

 


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