FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
- What exactly is a Community Fiber Network?
- Who will be connected?
- How much will this cost?
- Who will offer services?
- What does public ownership mean?
- Why publicly owned? Aren't private companies more efficient?
- I heard there is tons of dark fiber available - why isn't the City using that?
- What if a better technology comes along in a few years?
- Doesn't fiber break easily?
- Don't Comcast and Qwest already have fiber networks?
- Comcast has DOCSIS 3, isn't that as good as fiber?
- Should government compete with the private sector?
- Do we really need faster connections?
- Symmetric? Asymmetric? Huh?
- Why not wireless?
- What happened to the whole muni-wireless thing?
- What about WiMAX?
Answers
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What exactly is a Community Fiber Network?
A Community Fiber Network is a community-owned broadband network that uses fiber-optic cables to connect all subscribers. It can offer phone, television, and Internet access. The capacity on the network is so great that it could offer tens of thousands of television channels while allowing thousands of people to talk on the phone while still offering Internet access at faster speeds than a cable modem system or DSL currently offer.
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Our goal is to build a universal Community Fiber Network. This means that connections would be available to anyone living in St. Paul. In order to gain access, you would have to subscribe to the network, just as if you were taking services from Comcast or Qwest.
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As of now, the price tag is uncertain. We will have solid estimates long before anyone has to make a final decision. However, the cost will likely fall in the $200-$400 million range for a universal Community Fiber Network.
This is a large sum of money to most, but cities regularly finance expensive projects that are necessary to maintain an economically competitive atmosphere. Cities have committed more to sports stadiums that have considerably smaller impacts on the community than a fiber network.
There are a variety of financial models that may be used and will be discussed as the project is evaluated.
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In these preliminary times, we do not know who will offer services. In some communities, the city government or local utility provides services. In others, the network is only open to private service providers who compete for customers on equal terms (this would be an open network). Some cities have used a hybrid approach where the city offers services and offers non-discriminatory wholesale access to other providers and competes against them.
This is a subject that will be much discussed before any final decisions are made.
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What does public ownership mean?
Public, or community ownership is discussed in greater depth on our public ownership page. Briefly, it means that the public has some measure of self-determination over the network. Much like the water department is accountable to the public and therefore does not raise water rates unreasonably, those running the network would be accountable to the public. If the community decided to offer subsidized connections to those living below the poverty line, they could do that.
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Why community owned? Aren't private companies more efficient?
We have an entire page discussing the importance of ownership. The thumbnail sketch is that the community now depends upon broadband and cannot rely upon private companies to act in the community's best interest. Refusing to upgrade infrastructure may be more profitable for a private company, but damages the community.
We have republished some comments from Andrea Casselton, St. Paul's Director of Technology and Communications, that address this question as well.
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I heard there is tons of dark fiber available - why isn't the City using that?
Dark fiber, or fiber cables that are currently unused (or "unlit") is not always in convenient places. In order to build the Community Fiber Network, we will need to have fiber passing nearly every home. While dark fiber may help in some areas, it is unavailable in most.
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What if a better technology comes along in a few years?
As we discuss on the page dealing specifically with fiber networks, fiber networks are future-proof. The speeds capable on fiber networks are increasing with new electronics. These networks will have paid for themselves many times over before becoming obsolete.
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As we discuss on the page dealing specifically with fiber networks, fiber deployments are surprisingly strong. There are problems when fiber is cut, but there are similar problems when phone lines or power lines are severed. That said, they have proven more resilient than power lines in ice storms and tornadoes.
Fiber networks have been around for decades (though rarely extending all the way to residential homes until now) and the tools for keeping them running 24/7 are mature.
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Don't Comcast and Qwest already have fiber networks?
Comcast and Qwest have fiber as parts of their network, but they do not connect everyone to the network with fiber. They may run fiber to your neighborhood but connect the last mile with slower copper wires that create a bottleneck, resulting in slower speeds that leave us less competitive in a world increasingly requiring faster speeds. In markets where they compete with Verizon, which is investing in a fiber-to-the-home network, they advertise heavily about their fiber networks to muddle the issue. But they cannot offer the same experience or guarantee the same high level of service that a true Community Fiber Network offers. You can learn more about fiber on our fiber page.
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Comcast has DOCSIS 3, isn't that as good as fiber?
DOCSIS 3 is a new standard for cable modem systems that will greatly increase the available speeds. However, the cable network remains a massively shared loop, leaving it vulnerable to a few subscribers hogging bandwidth and degrading service for everyone else. Additionally, DOCSIS 3 is prohibitively expensive locally. We briefly discuss DOCSIS 3 on the fiber page
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Should government compete with the private sector?
Statements like "the government should not compete with the private sector" ignore the many ways in which we accept important government services that "compete" with the private sector. Libraries might take customers from bookstores. Police forces compete with private sector security guards.
But in other ways, government is clearly crucial to the private sector. Whether by building and maintaining roads, educating the future workforce, or offering clean water at very affordable prices, our private sector economic growth over the past century depended on public infrastructure.
When phone and cable companies try to make this into a public v. private argument, they miss the fact that the question of ownership is actually one of phone/cable companies against everyone else. When the private phone/cable companies refuse to invest in competitive connections, everyone suffers. Private businesses have to pay more for slower services than their competitors in other communities. The quality of life in St. Paul declines as faster connections become available at cheaper prices in comparable cities.
The idea of a level playing field between government and the private sector misses fundamental differences between the two. The private sector has a mission to maximize profit and shareholder value, primarily in the short term. The public sector maximizes social benefit and focuses on the long term. Understanding these differences in important to understanding why infrastructure has historically been owned or closely regulated by the public sector. We would not want GM owning the roads; they would find it quite profitable to ban competing car companies or force them to pay more to access the same roads.
Broadband networks have become infrastructure, and private companies should not be the sole arbiters of who gets 21st century infrastructure and when they get it.
We have republished some comments from Andrea Casselton, St. Paul's Director of Technology and Communications, that address this question as well.
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Do we really need faster connections?
Some of us do. The Community Fiber Network is not some plan to force everyone to use faster Internet connections. When Eisenhower decided to push the Interstate system, it was not with the idea that everyone would have to use it. However, business and government functions were greatly improved by this massive infrastructure project.
The short term effects of the Community Fiber Network will be to bring fast, symmetric connections to everyone. Though the network is capable of speeds far in excess of what is available on cable and DSL, the CFN will likely offer symmetrical speeds comparable to currently available downstream speeds. This means uploads will be much faster.
The CFN may have its greatest impact on small-to-medium businesses. These businesses must currently choose between lower priced, slower, comparatively unreliable speeds and prohibitively priced faster speeds that offer more reliability. Many of them simply cannot afford the higher tiers of service they need. However, CFNs around the country are offering fast speeds at competitive prices. For instance, Burlington Telecom offers a 8Mbps symmetrical service for $72/month (unbundled). This is not the "up to" cable network speeds where you never see the advertised speed. Its upload speeds are considerably faster than Comcast's highest tier here, which maxes out at 5Mbps for $200/month for a business connection.
Elsewhere, the publicly owned network in Utah, UTOPIA, has service providers that offer 50Mbps for $60/month! Those are speeds and prices rarely seen in North America but regularly experienced in other areas of the world that have invested in next generation infrastructure.
But the answer to the question is that we need to have choices. Those that need fast and affordable connections should have that option.
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Symmetric connections have the same downstream speeds as upstream. This means that you can send a file to someone else just as fast as you can download it. Asymmetric connections tend to offer much slower upload speeds, which can slow usage of the modern Internet to a crawl. Both cable and DSL networks are asymmetrical.
10 years ago, when DSL and cable offered cutting edge, fast speeds, most Internet users simply consumed content and they did not need faster upload speeds. However, the Internet has changed and people increasingly want to send large files that require faster upload speeds (parents want to send photos and videos of their children to family members living across the country).
Ultimately, a purely symmetrical experience is less important than the objective to have fast speeds at affordable prices. But having upload speeds at 1/10 the download speed is clearly too asymmetric for modern networks.
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We discuss the merits of wireless here. In short, wireless is great for mobility, but does not offer competitively fast speeds or the reliability of wired connections. Fiber is a long term investment that could facilitate wireless additionally, but wireless is not a replacement for a Community Fiber Network.
A fiber network could actually lay the groundwork (literally) for a wireless network. The fiber network would actually offer more potential locations to add wireless access points.
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What happened to the whole muni-wireless thing?
Communities around the country have investigated wireless networks. Some entered into contracts with private companies, such as Earthlink, who promised to build the networks at no cost to the city. When Earthlink failed to make a profit, for a variety of factors, it turned the networks off and abandoned the cities. These are the failures that have led the press to pronounce all municipal wireless efforts as dead.
Municipal wireless is far from dead. There are a variety of business models that are achieving variable levels of success. Nonetheless, wireless is a complement to a Community Fiber Network, not a competitor to it. More information on wireless here.
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We touch on WiMAX in our wireless page. Briefly, WiMAX is unproven and cannot compare with fiber in its ability to deliver the fastest speeds in the long term. Additionally, the nature of WiMAX locks subscribers into a single vendor in ways that do not encourage competition.
Additional questions may be posed to the discussion list or emailed to info@stpaulnetwork.com.
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