silasmoeckel t1_iu2anwm wrote on October 28, 2022 at 12:51 AM

Reply to comment by redshirttiger in Aquarion a subsidiary of eversource recently aquired my towns public water. I am the only person still furious about this corporations absurd monopoly in CT? by writingonthefall

Great sumerary except for data lines. This is the one case where muni's can do it right. One fiber per home muni networks are a good split. Muni's do what they are good at taking care of a passive fiber network and providing the interconnect point. Providers get out of the last mile business. A piece of fiber made in the 60's can carry modern signals this is not expected to change. That single fiber can carry multiple data providers simultaneously using what amounts of prisms to break out and combine different colors of light.

redshirttiger t1_iu2bta4 wrote on October 28, 2022 at 1:00 AM

Agreed, good point. One fiber run but free choice of data providers. Muni/coop or investor owned utility owning the actual fiber doesn't matter too much, as long as you have a choice in data provider. Sort of like you have a choice of power provider but Eversource owns the power lines so you pay them for transmission and distribution.

silasmoeckel t1_iu2ghb6 wrote on October 28, 2022 at 1:35 AM

Yup 2 or 20 cable TV providers phone internet etc does not matter just colors of light on glass.

Reasonable comparison but unlike power distribution there is no per unit cost a fiber doing 10mbs cost the same as one doing 100gbs each to 20 providers.

[deleted] t1_iu3xl8o wrote on October 28, 2022 at 11:28 AM

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silasmoeckel t1_iu43jx9 wrote on October 28, 2022 at 12:26 PM

When talking about just the optics part not at all. CWDM is entirely passive and does not care whats going over a given channel. Getting CWDM optics for 10mbs might be a bit hard but thats just because it's outdated.

Yes higher up it's very different but the entire point is thats not part of the muni's job. They just need to build/maintain the optical last mile, just glass and prisms no actual networking kit nothing that needs power even. That's within their capabilities anything more will probably crater badly at some point. This is also not how typical fiber to the home is deployed but thats a bit of the point of it.

[deleted] t1_iu45bpd wrote on October 28, 2022 at 12:42 PM

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silasmoeckel t1_iu49s3n wrote on October 28, 2022 at 1:18 PM

Yes but why do you think thats at all a limiting factor? At least 1 strand per building/apartment/house/etc to start thats 16 channels on typical CDWM kit so 8 providers. Even if they break up everything thats 3-4 providers (TV, Internet, Phone, and alarm). Sure a pair is nicer and putting extra glass in the ground up front is never a bad thing. End of the day glass is fairly cheap putting it into the hole and terminating it not so much.

It's by no means perfect but it's gotten well past the point it's a reasonable solution within the capabilities of muni's to do. Plenty of fiber going in for traffic management where they allready have contacts for the service end and bringing the skillset in house is not a bad thing for the muni.