A few posts back I made a brief comment on the Free Fiber to the Home project of a small 400 households community in Ottawa, CA. Judging from the very limited addressable market (400 households), the project seems to me more like a pilot project; a case to be referenced as a good/best practice. If you want to dig more information on the project you can visit its web site (blog) at http://free-fiber-to-the-home.blogspot.com/. For those who prefer a short brief on it here it is. First off, what makes this project unique is its combined objectives:
(a) To validate a market based solution to network neutrality, rather than using regulation
(b) To validate a private sector funded business model for deployment of fiber to the home designed for low take up rates and in a marketalready served by incumbent cable and telephone companies
(c)To validate true facilities based competition by the customer owning the last mile and being able to connect to a service provider of theirchoice at a central POP and
(d) To validate a new way to reduce green house gas emissions through “carbon rewards rather than carbon taxes”
The novelty of this approach is that while existing network infrastructures are explored to speed-up deployment and reduce costs, business models from the energy industry (gas & electricity) are re-defined to include free next generation broadband access offerings. Essentially the vertically disintegrated energy market of Canada (Tier1: Wholesale power generators, Tier2: gas & electricity resellers, Tier3: electrical grid or gas pipeline networks) allows resellers to arbitrage on power supply prices to effectively provide free (note: actually it is not free, it’s just very cheap) broadband services to their consumers in exchange to a commitment of using the service for a minimum period of time. This guarantees revenue stream that enables energy providers to underwrite broadband investment costs. On the other hand, to receive this benefit, customers have to pay a small premium on their energy bill for promised fixed rate for the next 5 years. Other benefits may include lowering future energy charging rates or eligibility to continue receiving broadband with no extra cost if consumer ha reduced its energy consumption:
homeowners would be encouraged to reduce their overall consumption as part of their contribution to reducing global warming. As their reward they will continue to receive their next generation broadband delivery service without penalty. Hence the term “Green Broadband”
What’s also important is that customers own their fiber and can freely choose among broadband providers (somewhat similar to viaEuropa model).
I find this project remarkably fascinating and I will update you as new developments emerge.
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