Month: September 2004

Mike posted reactions to our visit to the Broadband Trailer yesterday earlier and it is well worth scrolling down to or taking the jump to its stand-alone page. For those of us who simply hunger to see a few concrete images of our much-anticipated future I’ve snapped a few pics to pass on.

The broadband trailer against the magnificent background of the Cajundome:

The next image is of the “LUS” labled Network Interface Device sitting beside your power meter with the emergency power module that would hold a small battery to power the system during short power outages is below the power meter.

With the interface box open you can see the yellow fiber going into the box’s electronics with video coax, 2 ethernet ports, and 4 plain old telephone plugs coming out. We’ll likely be seeing something very like this in Lafayette if Mike and I are reading the tea leaves correctly. It would be possible to unplug your existing phone and coax drops, run a patch cord from them to your new LUS box and continue on as if nothing had really happened—if you’ve stuck to basic, analog cable TV and haven’t switched over to VOIP (or dropped your landline) by the time LUS gets to your house.

How long it will all be useful is the issue Mike raises in his post. My concerns parallel but don’t entirely spring from the same place as Mike’s. My tech background is via education and design and so I have less of a technical emphasis. Education and design are applications, things that are done with technology. So I worry about what one can do with technology and through both experience in those fields and native inclination I am inclined to push for anything that enhances the ability of the user and disinclined to think that limits of any sort are smart. Students and creatives, in my experience, always have a way of finding and smacking into any barrier that’s available. The better way is always to get out of the way. IMHO. On the other hand I’ve made many a compromise with that principle. You can’t teach unless you set limits. (The trick is to make sure none of the limits are ones that keep a student from going where they end up needing to go.) I’m sympathetic to neccessary limits but easily irritated by unnessary ones.

They way that sort of thinking applies here is that I want to be reassured that any limits put in place are really necessary, for solid, practical reasons and that it can be easily, and inexpensively removed when it becomes unnecessary or counterproductive.

I’m begining to suspect that the PR battle for Lafayette is over and that LUS has won. Cox and BellSouth. Cox and BellSouth did their worst and it didn’t seem to disturb the people of Lafayette very much. They haven’t tried to misrepresent the recent feasibility study; something I find shocking. Apparently Lafayette has decided to trust local folks and to opt for hope instead of fear. I get the sense that LUS thinks so to. If that is true it might just be possible to reciprocate that trust and start talking with the people of Lafayette about the real choices that have to be made. Trying to make sense of common problems is what a strong community does. And participating in the process is what makes a community strong.

None of these issues raised here lessen our support for LUS and a publicly-owned fiber optic network for Lafayette. It’s more that we’ve grown fond of LUS’ baby even though we’ve never really met the fella. But we’d sure like to. We’ve been willing to fight to see him given a chance to be born. And we’d like to see him grow up strong and tall.

The Daily Advertiser has posted a story on the ADC fiber trailer which stopped in Lafayette on Tuesday. John and I made it there for what we thought would be a brief visit. Almost two hours later, we went our separate ways, carrying with us more questions than we had when we arrived.

We spoke with Pat Sims of ADC who also happens to be a member of the Fiber To The Home Council, a trade group of companies involved in various aspects of this national technology infrastructure movement.

Mr. Sims was a wealth of information and tolerated our many questions focused on various approaches to fiber network architecture and configuration.

One of the major things that I took away from this session is the confirmation of points we’ve made with varying degrees of effectiveness here: specifically, that EVERYTHING is migrating to Internet Protocol-based services — voice and cable video included (data is already there).

The source for most of the new questions we have is the information contained in the draft feasibility study released by LUS last week when viewed from the perspective of where the technology is heading versus the direction LUS hints that it is heading in the pages of its feasibility study.

The session with Pat Sims confirmed my fears that the LUS team is not looking far enough “down the field” to see where the technology is heading. Or, perhaps worse, sees where the technology is heading but does not recognize the implications of that on network architecture and bandwidth usage.

The danger from this, as I see it, is that LUS might deploy a compromised system that will have more limited value to the community than might be feasible if a clearer-eyed view of trends were applied. It seems to me that LUS has been paying too much attention to BellSouth and others at the expense of heeding Carter Mead’s advice of “listening to the technology.” Mead has played a critical role in the development of digital technology. You can learn more about him in George Gilder’s 1989 book Microcosm: The Quantum Revolution in Economics and Technology, which details the history of the science which led to the development of the microchip and assesses the impact of things like Moore’s Law.

Again, speaking only for myself, this concern is compounded by the fact that it appears that the LUS plan is not going to meet the rough deployment timeline which LUS Director Terry Huval laid out for the Consolidated Government Council and the public in a hearing before the council in June. At that meeting, Huval said that it was possible that LUS could beginning to deploy its system as early as the end of 2005. That no longer appears to be likely, as now appears that LUS will not even present its plan to the Council for action until October — at the earliest.

Based on the construction schedule of iProvo in Utah, rollout of the entire system could take at least 18 months. So, it is reasonable to assume that LUS is three — maybe four — years away from full deployment of its fiber to the premises system. The applications that will drive bandwidth demand at that point in the future probably don’t exist now; they’re being developed or are being tested in other fiber-rich environments like South Korea or Japan.

What is worrisome about the information contained in the draft feasibility study is that LUS appears to be inclined to deploy a system that is better suited for a provider seeking to preserve investments in legacy technologies, such as that of telephone or even less advanced cable companies. I heavily qualify this statement because the draft feasibility is a work in progress, so we don’t really know what the details of the LUS proposal will ultimately look like.

For instance, in its feasibility study, LUS says it will buy a telephone switch. With Cox, BellSouth and other providers having announced their intentions to (eventually) migrate all of their voice services to Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), why is LUS — which has no investments in copper infrastructure or switching capacity to protect — considering investing millions of dollars in switching technology? That technology only has relevance in systems burdened by legacy infrastructure. LUS has no such legacy technologies in place, yet the draft feasibility study has them considering equipment purchases that would make sense only if they did.

At one point during the visit in the trailer, I told Pat Sims that it looked to me that LUS was contemplating retrofitting essentially obsolete technologies onto a fiber system in order to make the transition more palatable for customers. He said that’s exactly what they appear to be doing. He based this on the fact that the technology deployed in the demonstration box that LUS is including in its public show and tells was actually specified by BellSouth, SBC and the other Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs). This equipment was specifically designed to help maximize existing RBOC investments in plain old telephone service (POTS) and legacy (i.e., obsolete technologies) such as asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) switching technologies.

None of this is necessary (nor, some would argue, even desirable) in a modern, fiber-based system being built from the ground up. None of it is present in the iProvo model touted by Mayor Lewis Billings in his speech at The IndExpo last week. iProvo’s system is going to deliver 100 megabits of data capacity to every customer location in that city. The approach backed by the RBOCs (and, it appears, by LUS) will deliver much less bandwidth to customers.

Pat Sims said yesterday that the thinking behind this RBOC-oriented approach is that “customers will not need more” than the 24 megabits or so of data that this approach affords customers.

This strikes me a just flat wrong.

This is a clear example of the RBOC mindset of managing bandwidth scarcity. The purpose of moving to fiber optic systems is to enable customers to operate within the context of bandwidth abundance.

The notion that an RBOC or LUS “knows” with any degree of certainty how much bandwidth customers will “need” flies in the face of the fact that bandwidth usage continues to grow exponentially. Driving that growth is a steady stream of new applications, none of which existed a few years ago. This stream shows no sign of abating. If the experience of places like South Korea, where fiber is being deployed to every home and business, is any indication, ubiquitous access to fiber speeds the growth of bandwidth demand even faster. Erring on the low side of bandwidth provision is what RBOCs have consistently done — much to the chagrin of customers. For LUS to adopt this same approach when building a spanking new network would be unforgivable.

Recognizing that the feasibility study was a draft — a work in progress — John and I had agreed that it would be best to refrain from expressing our concerns pending either clarification from LUS or our gaining access to better information.

Thanks to the fact that ADC brought their trailer to town and we had the opportunity to benefit from our discussions with Pat Sims, I now believe that reservations about what appears to be the overly conservative LUS approach to be this network investment (from a technological, if not a financial standpoint) are more pronounced — and possibly more substantive — than the were before we spent time in the ADC trailer.

My questions have nothing to do with the advisability of the fiber project itself, but rather what the architecture of the network will be. The decisions made now are going to impact the development and evolution of that network — and this city — for decades to come. We should not undershoot what is possible and certainly should not rush to embrace an approach that is based on the concept of limiting the utilization of the network assets. Having taken the audacious step of announcing its intent to pursue a fiber to the premises strategy, for LUS to lose its nerve now and deploy a system that is only incrementally better than systems currently in place would be a tragedy.

I make no bones about it. I view our role here to play the role of maximalists — to point to what is possible and to make the case for pursuing that goal in a vigorous, but realistic manner. Looks like we are going to have to assume that role in earnest now.

LPF posted a note yesterday pointing to Palo Alto’s community meeting and expressing support for their project. Today they have an update which announces that their guest speaker developed the feasibility study for Lompoc City in California.

Now that would be enough alone to pique our interest, considering the recent landing (with a considerable though muffled thud) of our utility’s feasibility study. Its worthwhile to look at another feasibility study and see what others do with the idea. The comparison is instructive. Lompoc’s, for instance, is clearly intended to be widely read and is designed for public consumption.

What might interest close readers of this blog (and certainly intersts this writer) is that the feasibility study suggests that Lompoc go for a “quadruple” play: Voice, Video, Telephony…and Wireless. You will recall that I posted on that earlier in a piece called “Philly’s WiFi Cloud and the Quituple Play.” Philly is considering a double play: wireless internet and WiFi phones. At that point I fanatasized that Lafayette could turn its triple play into a quintuple by adding in a simple, cheap wifi network to provide Lafayette with a pervasive “cloud” of connectivity.

Snippets from that post:

But what makes it interesting is that it leads you to realize how easy it would be to turn a triple play in Lafayette in a quintuple play by adopting Philly’s plan. Imagine: superfast internet in the home, a WiFi blanket that covers the city with more speed than you can currently buy from the incumbents for home use, a phone in the home that has the same number as the one that you carry out to the mall, and gobs of digital HD TV. All for one low, low utility price.

It could happen; neither startup cost nor technology would be much, if any, barrier.

The incremental costs of adding a WiFi net to the fiber net would be small. (Or maybe WiMax if it actually matures.) Five percent of the fiber? I haven’t done the numbers but I’d bet no more and probably less. The costs of adding voice (VOIP) to that would be nil. All that needs is software which is already available—some of it is already there in free form …. The monster bandwidth of fiber makes the additional cost of bandwith barely visible.

From Lompoc’s feasibility study:

An economically viable data-only service based on unlicensed spectrum using the 802.11 (Wi-Fi) standard could be deployed throughout the City of Lompoc within weeks or months for….aproximately 5% of the cost of a fiber optic network.

Isn’t it nice to be right once in awhile?

Let’s continue to dream here folks. Boldness has been a recent theme here. For my money (and it will be my money) pushing hard and presenting a very attractive, unique, nay visionary plan to the people is the way to excite the public and their representatives and ensure construction of a viable network. I worry about the current quietist approach…Acadians go for a little flavor, a little zest. Slow, gray, and safe is less popular here than in the rest of the world. (Ok, there is no fair way to present our current plan as slow, grey, or safe…but hey why not kick it up an notch?)

Doug over at LUS Fiber To The Home (FTTH) has several worthwhile reads posted.

Most interesting to readers who have been following our “chat” is Doug’s response to a question posted here regarding the value of fiber optics. Take a look.

Also worth taking a gander at: an article from PC world detailing the services some telecos are rolling out and a nifty article illustrating the disinformation principle of lying by telling the truth. In the latter article you will discover that criticism of new IP-based phone systems (like Vonage or LUS projected phone service) for failing when the electricity fails are perfectly accurate. Only the focus really shouldn’t be IP-based systems but rather on fiber-based systems. Why misdirect our attention? Because as BellSouth improves its own system to be more thoroughly fiber-based it encounters the same problem—as is being uncomfortably and dramatically demonstrated by their current problems in bringing Florida’s phone system all the way back up.

Just wanted to post a brief note of support for the folks in Palo Alto who are trying to get their FTTH project back on line. Good luck at your community meeting

Lafayette Pro Fiber launched the Lafayette Pro Fiber Disinformation Advisory System today. It’s a tounge-in-cheek, sly little bit of fun and naughtiness that may prove useful as well. Canille, ya might say.

The threat advisory system launches with a Code Yellow: Elevated alert due to the likelihood of a major disinformation attack on LUS’ recent feasibility study.

Modeled on the national threat advisory system, the Lafayette Pro Fiber Disinformation Advisory System pokes fun at the disingeneous disinformation served up to our community by the incumbent providers.

More info on our front page; the system is described on the Threat System page, and information on what our citizens can do to defend themselves is provided on the Citizen Guidance page.

We’ve heard that LUS’s recently released feasibility study showed that their entering the telecommunications market as utility can succeed. But what does that mean? I’ve been trying to figure that out myself while I read over the admittedly thin study.

Stripped down to the bare essentials feasibility is all about competitive advantage. A idea is feasible if it exploits your opponents weakness and builds on your strengths in ways that make it possible for you to get into the game and succeed.

So what are LUS’ competitive advantages? What makes them think they can get into the game and succeed?

The somewhat paradoxical answer is that we can be confident LUS is in a position to succeed against Cox and BellSouth because our local utility is not playing their game. The incumbents want us to believe they are so panicky because somehow the playing field is not “level.” Not so, that idea is just intended to distract us and motivate their troops. The truth is the incumbents are playing a game—largely against each other—that LUS does not want to succeed in, does not need to succeed in, and just won’t bother to play. And that is what really so frightens BellSouth and Cox. The incumbent’s fear is reasonable for they cannot hope to win in the game LUS actually will pursue.

The game Cox and BellSouth are playing is about maximizing profit, short term profit, quarterly reports, meeting earnings expectations and, ultimately, showing a steady growth in share price. That is the game in which they must succeed. It rough going out there. Both telcos and cablecos are actually loosing subscribers to their bread & butter services to similar services offered by cell phone companies and satellite TV. Their advantage is the greater capacity and reliability of their hardwired connection to the home. But to maximize that advantage and continue to grow they must take on each other. In the larger scheme of things we are witnessing a battle field truce between mortal enemies in which they join to try an swat a third party that threatens to reshape the game each expects to win.

LUS is by contrast wants to succeed at a different game. Their game is about maximizing service, creating long term value, gaining and maintaining the confidence of their owner/customers, saving the public and the city money, and ultimately, returning increasing value to their owners–the citizens of Lafayette.

LUS’ central and crucial competitive advantage is that it is owned by its customers. BellSouth and Cox, rightly, seek to transfer customer money to owners in exchange for services. They do seek to maximize the profit they make here in order to send it off. That is right and proper—for them and is part of the game they play. But LUS does not need and is not particularly motivated to gather as much profit in as it can. It just needs to get enough to maintain itself and continue to improve service. It does need to benefit its owners. But they don’t have to charge more for their services to do so. They can (and this must seem bizarre to BellSouth and Cox) decide to give more to their “owners” by charging their “customers” less. They can choose a plan that is most cost-efficient over the next 2o or 25 years instead of needing to show a profit in the next couple of quarters because their owners are less interested in current profit-taking than building long-term value in the community. LUS is motivated by its owners to serve them all…even in those areas of town that aren’t “low-hanging fruit.” It can sacrifice immediate profit-taking in order to provide universal service–and will. Any good economist will tell you that this long-term value-oriented approach leads to high “take” levels and ultimately makes for long-term profitability and market dominance. But the incumbents simply cannot do the smart thing here. …..They are playing a different, weaker, game.

LUS can play a longer, smarter game. Not because they are richer or smarter. But because it is in the interests of their owners that they do so.

And that, my friends, is the basic reason why LUS can succeed and why the idea of a publicly-owned fiber optic network is feasible.

Just how that principle plays out in practice, and in the feasibility study is interesting. And future installments of “What makes it feasible?” will explore just that.Check back.

Before I even get started on this post let me directly declare, for reasons that will become clear shortly, my own position on LUS providing a fiber optic network clearly: I am a full-throated supporter of LUS building Lafayette’s fiber optic network. I support the idea before I see a detailed plan because I think it obvious that a true, high-capacity broadband network would hugely benefit Lafayette and that this essential and unique piece of infrastructure should be owned by the people of Lafayette—chiefly because that is the only way to assure that it will be operated in their interests. I reserve the right to dissent from various details (and fully expect to so dissent) while continuing to be a full-throated supporter of the basic idea and LUS.

On to the substance……….

Doug, speaking only for himself, at LUSFTTH has written a response to my “A Very Bold and Needed Step” posting where I called for more boldness among the business and tech community in visibly supporting LUS. I am happy to “chat” about this; In fact I have been hoping for a wider discussion of fiber issues, and a especially a wider discussion among supporters of the “idea” of an LUS fiber initiative. (If not of every detail suggested by LUS.) We’ve reached a point where open conversation about real issues would benefit all—LUS and the public at large; we are in the final two month run and really can’t wait any longer to start talking if we are to have a conversation at all.

I’d love to see others join in and urge readers to “catch up” on the conversation by taking a look at my post and Doug’s response.

A brief recap for those who prefer the Cliff Notes: I talked about an incident after the recent INDExpo breakfast during which I was uncomfortable discussing the tepid support of the Chamber, LEDA, and Zydetech for LUS’ idea. I closed by asking for a little more boldness from our business leadership. Doug responds (or so I say, check this for yourself) by defending LEDA and the Chamber’s actions as ones which legitimated the concept of broadband, got the facts out, and established that their “membership was not adamantly opposed to the exploration of LUS doing a feasibility study” among other points.

My post only vaguely alluded to old positions; I was looking to the future and was worried about the visibility of business and technology leaders during the two month window we are now in leading up to the formal presentation to the City-Parish Council of a plan for their vote. It was a plea for business and tech leaders who have not already done so to put aside caution and short-term self-protection in support of the larger interests of the community—and their own longer-term interests as well.

I want to return to a focus on what to do in the future. Here is what seems to me both possible and valuable:

More business leaders (and not only business leaders) need to step forward together and visibly and forcefully endorse the idea—and only the idea—of LUS building a fiber to the home and business network. That is all; no approval is required of a particular plan that isn’t yet created. The endorsement would be simple: Lafayette needs and LUS should build a fiber optic network to its homes and businesses. The chorus the community need to hear is simple: Go LUS!

We are at a crossroads right now. The next two months will be crucial in shaping the future of Lafayette. The incumbent’s tactics haven’t left us with the luxury of dotting every i and crossing every t before we take a firm position. We won’t have time to nail down details before the plan hits the council. We must act now or forfeit our ability to act at all.

Honestly, waiting for some detailed “plan” of pointedly unspecified quality is both unnessary and unusual. We regularly endorse ideas–for a new park to serve an expanding area, building a new high school, or extending Ambassador Caffery long before the details are or even can be known. Widespread support is considered necessary before we go to the work and expense of detailed plans. Business support is necessary in this instance because a united front on this issue would go far to put to rest the incumbent’s drumbeat that there is something wrong with a public utility even thinking about providing communications services. Waiting for a plan is a red herring. It distracts attention from the fact that the actual decision that has been made is to do nothing visible until it is safer and more comfortable. But what the community needs now is for its leadership to be bold.

I suggest that only two things need to be widely agreed upon to allow folks to be bold in support of the idea:

1) That the benefits of a fiber optic network far outweigh the benefits of any alternative. (Not building it or the practical technological alternatives.)

2) That it would be best if LUS built and controlled Lafayette’s fiber network on behalf of the community’

If we can agree on these simple points then boldness in support of the idea of LUS providing a fiber optic network would not be imprudent. It would be only sensible. What would be imprudent would be to not watchdog the development and implementation of the eventual plan. And, frankly, it would be much easier to be a prudent watchdog if you were clearly understood to be a supporter of the basic idea. Real watchdogs, after all, are members of the households they defend.

Let’s look to the future, let’s talk about these issues.

Comments, everyone?

To be both concrete and bold myself let me ask the first question: Doug, acknowledging upfront that you’ve been a clear and effective advocate of broadband, what about the rest of point one: Do you agree that fiber optics is clearly superior to any practical alternative? Let’s get the ball rolling.

Lightwave magazine — as it name hints — covers the fiber optic networking industry. The September edition of the PenWell magazine contains a pretty detailed article on the technologies involved being used in the iProvo system that Provo, Utah, Mayor Lewis Billings talked about in his appearance at The IndExpo in Lafayette on Thursday morning.