Chapel Hill Technology Advisory Committee

[Joel Dunn <joel AT jdunns.com>]

As I have said in forwarding Bill's comments before, Bill is one of
the most knowledgeable folks in the world about networking...

Bill is also quite accessible, and we actually had him talk via video
conference link to the Orange County tech committee 3 or 4 years
ago...

As the town considers municipal wifi, as well as larger issues of
muncipal fiber builds, such insight might be valuable.  I'd be happy
to try and set up another conference sometime if the group was
interested.

There are two articles here, first on municipal wifi, and the second
on a European FTTH project in Vienna...there has been much going on in
Europe of late, with Jacques Chirac in France issuing a statement of
direction earlier this month to implement FTTH throughout France...

From Bill St. Arnaud's mailing list:
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[For the record I am remain skeptical of municipal wifi. Despite all the
hoopla there has been no large roll out of Wifi across any large city to
date.  Most actual Wifi have been deployments in small cities and usually in
the downtown core.  Managing a large WiFi Internet network is not trivial.
It might be useful for those who surf the Internet from city parks --BSA]



>From Wi-Fi Planet --
http://www.wi-fiplanet.com/news/article.php/3580231

Municipal Broadband: Resistance is Futile
By Eric Griffith

January 26, 2006

Broadband networks offered or facilitated by municipalities
are going to become the norm, not the exception, according to
analyst Pam Duffey with visiongain.

The London, England-based company's new report, "Municipal
Broadband Networks: Market impact and implications, 2006-2011"
talk about the facts  there 400 cities and regions thinking
about installing wireless broadband networks across the globe
and  100 that are actually doing it, 40 of which are in the
United States  and makes the prediction that the numbers will
double this year.

Legal opposition in some states not withstanding, Duffey says
in a statement that, "We believe resistance toward Muni
networks is futile." She says municipalities providing the
network, or at least the means for a widespread broadband, is
quickly becoming not just an option, but a duty.

"By 2010/2011," says Duffey, "we believe the majority of
cities and townships in the US will have a municipal wireless
network in place and the focus then will be in uniting them
into a seamless, if not centralized, national network." Many
will offer wireless broadband service as a utility along with
gas, electricity and water.

Of course, opposition will continue, especially when the
prediction includes lost of money for incumbent carriers who
could lose money over things like fees for gaming. Issues in
deployment could easily include the lack of experience cities
have in such technologies, though that could be mitigated by
opening up access to third parties for hardware deployment on
city owned poles and buildings, and to ISPs to provide
services. Providers that are smart can take advantage of the
opportunities of muni-wireless, rather than try to fight such
deployments up front.


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 [Once again thanks to Dirk van der Woude for this pointer -- BSA]

Hello to all who get this mail,

What Paris mayor Delanoe wanted for his city became clear
when at his New Years session he announced that in 2006
tenders for city wide FttH would be started.

A bit ahead seems to be Vienna's Mayor Dr. Michael Häupl,
a social democrat like his Paris colleague. His planning for city
wide FttH is apparantly more than that: the deployment of the
first 50,000 connections could start next february.

As understood from Austria Dr. Häupl stand a more than average
chance to be the next Austrian chancellor after the next elections.

grtz
Dirk



(rough translation of original German, with the usually highly
informed & authorative Heise.de (kind of German Wired.com).
 German original with clickable links etc. below

Vienna plans FttH to 960,000 households

Vienna (pop. 1,6 million) would like to offer a glass fiber connection to
each household and each enterprise, without falling back to subsidies from
the tax collector's office. The construction work for a pilot project with
50.000 households could already start in February, with the first households
connected in May or June. Next to that to be decided upon areas in
Transdanubien (21. and 22. district) will be connected. Negotiations with
substantial real estate property owners already are running. First with IPv4
one works, the infrastructure should be prepared for IPv6 however.

 A second stage of development, which already is in planning, plans a
further 250,000 connections. In the final development all 960,000 households
and about 70,000 smaller and middle enterprises (KMU) could be connnected
with 1 Gbit/ of symmetrical speed.
Thus Vienna would become again the broadband capital of the world - a
position the Austrian Federal Capital used to have back in the 90-ties
through the offers of the cable TV operator UPC[1 ].

The ambitious project is a co-operation of the city Wien[3 ] with its (100%)
subsidiary companies Wienstrom[4 ] and Wienkanal[5 ]. They stress no new
monopoly will be established: they want to make the net available as "open
ACCESS Platform" to all service Providern on the same conditions.

Next to classic InterNet service Providers (ISP), the net would allow also
different services for instance within the health range. It will not be a
revival of the 2002 started pilot project Blizznet[6 ] (...). The 100% city
owned Wien Energy can only supply internet access as long as there is no
contract with an ISP; after thatthey will return back to their core business
of ernergy supply.

The ISPA[7 ] (InterNet service Provider Association Austria) after initially
grave concern supports [ 8 ] the development of the infrastructure, it is
however still sceptically on costs and financing. In addition they have
doubts on the details of the open platform. Both ISPA and the city of Vienna
see the turning point in bandwidth hungry contents and services - without
these only few users would need a fiber connection.
Says ISPA Secretary-General Kurt Einzinger: "The large content owners
fearful, they are world-wide blocking developments. Lost turnover in Austria
is no big deal to them".

The city of Vienna has got itself nobody less than the last ORF (Austrian
BBC) General-Intendant (CEO) Gerhard Weis as its advisor. "We will emphasize
on content production", Weis told Heise.de. "It is not sufficient to just
double the number of TV channels."
As a fibernet offers high symmetrical bandwidth and supports point-to-point
connections, it makes other services possible than over copper networks.

Vienna Energy is already negotiating with service and content partners. The
energy utility servicer invites all owners of fiber and duct networks to
bring their infrastructure into the project. At present there's discussions
with Telekom Austria [9 ] and UPC. Other networks would add to allready
available assets like 1,600 kilometers of active optical fiber and 2,200
kilometers of empty ducts. The Cablerunner[10 ] sewer technology is saving
much money in the later stages of development, as smaller sewers are used as
well for wiring.
(Daniel AJ Sokolov)



==============================================

Source: http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/68889

 26.01.2006 16:57
<< Vorige | Nächste >>

Wien plant Glasfaser für jeden Haushalt
Wien möchte jedem Haushalt und jedem Unternehmen einen Glasfaseranschluss
anbieten, ohne auf Subventionen aus der Steuerkasse zurückzugreifen. Die
Bauarbeiten für ein Pilotprojekt mit 50.000 Haushalten könnten bereits im
Februar starten, die ersten Haushalte sollen im Mai oder Juni angeschlossen
werden. Zunächst werden noch nicht feststehende Gebiete in Transdanubien
(21. und 22. Bezirk) erschlossen. Verhandlungen mit wesentlichen
Liegenschaftseigentümern sind schon im Laufen. Zunächst wird mit IPv4
gearbeitet, die Infrastruktur soll aber schon für IPv6 vorbereitet sein.

Eine zweite Ausbaustufe, die bereits in Planung ist, sieht weitere 250.000
Anschlüsse vor. Im Endausbau sollen alle 960.000 Haushalte und zirka 70.000
kleinere und mittlere Unternehmen (KMU) mit je 1 Gbit/s symmetrischer
Bandbreite angeschlossen werden können. Damit würde Wien wieder zur
Breitband-Hauptstadt der Welt werden – eine Position, die die
österreichische Bundeshauptstadt durch die Offerten des Kabel-TV-Betreibers
UPC bereits in der zweiten der Hälfte der 90er Jahre innehatte (siehe dazu
auch c't 3/06, S. 120).

Das ehrgeizige Projekt ist eine Kooperation der Stadt Wien mit ihren
Tochterunternehmen Wienstrom und Wienkanal. Sie betonen, kein neues Monopol
errichten, sondern das Netz als "Open Access Platform" allen
Service-Providern zu gleichen Bedingungen zur Verfügung stellen zu wollen.
Dabei muss es sich nicht um klassische Internet-Service-Provider (ISP)
handeln, es sollen auch andere Dienste etwa im Gesundheitsbereich angeboten
werden. Zu einer Wiederbelebung des 2002 gestarteten Pilotprojekts Blizznet,
das bis heute etwa 5.000 Haushalte vorwiegend am Leeberberg nutzen, wird es
also nicht kommen. Nur solange keine Kooperationsverträge mit ISP bestehen,
könnte die Wienstrom auch selbst Dienste wie zum Beispiel Internetzugang
anbieten. Danach soll es nur noch Services in Zusammenhang mit dem
Kerngeschäft Stromlieferung geben.

Die ISPA (Internet Service Provider Association Austria) unterstützt nach
anfänglich großen Bedenken den Ausbau der Infrastruktur, ist aber noch
skeptisch was Kosten und Finanzierung angeht. Hinzu kommen Bedenken über die
Details der offenen Plattform. Sowohl ISPA als auch die Stadt Wien sehen in
bandbreitenhungrigen Inhalten und Diensten den Knackpunkt – ohne diese würde
nur wenige Nutzer Bedarf nach einem Glasfaseranschluss haben. "Die großen
Rechtehinhaber haben aber Angst und blockieren weltweit. Verlorene Umsätze
in Österreich sind ihnen egal", bedauert ISPA-Generalsekretär Kurt
Einzinger.

Die Stadt Wien hat niemand Geringeren als den letzten ORF-Generalintendanten
Gerhard Weis als Berater engagiert. "Wir werden mir großem Nachdruck in die
Content-Produktion gehen", sagte Weis gegenüber heise online. "Es reicht
sicher nicht, einfach die Zahl der TV-Kanäle zu verdoppeln." Da das
Glasfasernetz hohe symmetrische Bandbreiten biete und durch bessere
Adressierbarkeit Punkt-zu-Punkt-Verbindungen ermögliche, seien andere
Dienste möglich als in Kupfernetzen. Wienstrom führt bereits Verhandlungen
mit Service- und Content-Partnern. Der Elektrizitätsversorger lädt auch alle
Eigentümer von Glasfaser-Leitungen, die ihre Infrastruktur in das Projekt
einbringen möchten, ein, Kontakt aufzunehmen. Gespräche gibt es derzeit mit
der Telekom und UPC.

Derzeit kann auf 1.600 Kilometer Glasfaserkabel und 2.200 Kilometer
Leerrohre zurückgegriffen werden. Insbesondere der Cablerunner soll im
weiteren Netzausbau viel Geld sparen, indem auch kleinere Abwasserkanäle zur
Leitungsverlegung genutzt werden. ( Daniel AJ Sokolov) / (jk/c't)


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skype: pocketpro
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