Re: Kitsap County

Thanks Matt.

Compton mentioned SWN in some of his comments about what groups the TF and City should consider.  Much of my posting was in response to other's posts about commercial interests dominating government and independent network projects.  In retrospect I should have just let those go without a response.

My initial post was to make the SWN aware of what is happening in the meetings here in Seattle.  

The last meeting had presentations of various projects, including Tacoma's fiber optic network.  This was not much more than anyone here could find doing a little web research but was interesting to see first hand.  Not much new.  There was some discussion about the type of network Tacoma and Chelan  county chose to go with: the two basic types of networks are PONs and ESONs: the differences being the degree of switching 'intelligence' that gets distributed out to the edge network and consumer level devices.  Chelan went with PONs (passive optical networks) because their studies showed lower costs than ESONs (Ethernet Switched Optical networks).  Recently vendors of ESONs equipment claim that the price differential has been reduced and greater system capacity and ability to handle larger numbers of users sways the decision for dense urban/suburban deployments.  Part of the rational for this argument is that more highly integrated ICs are now available and volumes will help drive down the costs.  They also claim that PONs allows limited numbers of users and limits widespread use of 'Triple Play' that includes the HDTV bandwidth hog.  LightWave, Amedia networks are among the companies providing the fiber edge network and FTTP end user equipment.

http://lw.pennnet.com/Articles/Article_Display.cfm?Section=OnlineArticles&SubSection=Display&PUBLICATION_ID=13&ARTICLE_ID=208565

An important aspect of both types is that they commonly terminate into 10/100/1G Ethernet that provides an interface to various wireless systems.

Discussions also centered around how Chelan and Tacoma handle participation with ISPs and major carriers.  Both said that major carriers voiced concerns about what they consider aggressive government  participation.  But they said that they have worked with the carriers in such a way that they think the overall 'size of the pie' has increased: Chelan, for example, sells the fiber and wireless network as a competitive benefit to attract/retain more business and provide competitive access to residents. This is a common theme for such projects around the country: "Our community provides you an your business with 'state of the art' access to broadband" (so it doesn't matter so much that you are located out in the boonies).  Carriers may see competition but also a venue to sell more content and business services.  Chelan said that a motivation for the county to move forward
with the project was that Qwest and Comcast were not willing to provide service to all residents or at competitive pricing to businesses.  




  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Matt Westervelt 
  To: SeattleWireless Talk List 
  Sent: Monday, December 13, 2004 3:14 PM
  Subject: Re: Kitsap County


  No. that on it's face, is not controversial.

  What I am tired of, is the "you should do xyz" topics that come up so frequently from you and the others in these conversations. It's about as tiring as the "You should get all the high points in town" that I've so often heard. Gee thanks. How about bringing something we haven't heard to the table..

  Do I think the city should allow us to take advantage of networks that they provide? Sure, but those networks have yet to be realized, and they are currently doing 'feasibility studies', not implementation. We have been talking to the City folks for a couple of years now, explaining what our vision of Seattle Wireless is, and what FreeNetworks are doing around the world. I believe that Jim Compton's vision is influenced in part, by what we are doing here. See the documents that they reference on the BTT site. We are mentioned a few times, and it is a positive mention vs an adversarial one. Please take your tin hats off.

  The city is not working in a telco vacuum here, and though it may seem that way to some, I don't think it's the case. Maybe I have more faith in the process than I should, but that remains to be seen. 

  Will the network that the city builds even be something that we *want* to be a part of? I believe that we have to get further along in the process before we find that out. 

  If you want to go to the 7:30 meetings, and report back what they're talking about and the actual goals that they're discussing, I think that would be a service to the list. I think we could all do with out the anti-corporate, anti-telco, community-or-not sentiment. It's troll-food.


  -matt

  On Dec 13, 2004, at 2:14 PM, Rob S wrote:


    Let me make myself clear:
     
    I have suggested is that SWN might take advantage of networks that the City/regional government make available.  You don't have to do anything.  I haven't suggested that you change what you are doing, abort anything, or build anything specific. 
     
    The fact of the matter is that many cities and regional governments are increasingly putting in fiber optic and wireless networks.  And some community wireless network groups are parrticipating in these efforts.  I think that makes it a topic for dicsussion but if you don't think so that is entirely up to you and others.  It would be a good thing to have SWN express an interest to the local governments to have fair and open access.  Is that so controversial?

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