The Mainframe asks:
"My town (Hanover, NH, home of Dartmouth College, the Dartmouth Medical School, and Dartmouth-Hitchcock Hospital, non-college population approx. 9K people, double that with the college) is conducting a feasibility study on building a town network. They'd like to deliver fiber to every home within town limits. This fiber will carry (certainly) the internet and (probably) cable-like television programming access. They're estimating that it will cost $40 per month per household. I just filled out and returned my survey (one sent to every Hanover household) in which they asked a number of questions like: 'What would your primary use of this service be?' and 'Would you be willing to pay $40 a month for this service?'. What reasons, other than the obvious benefit of having fiber to one's house, can you think of for making this kind of commitment to the infrastructure?
"I would imagine that there will be an enormous secondary benefit because we will become an attractive town to technically inclined people and businesses.
At the same time, Is this a good idea? I, personally, think it would be wonderful, but (as an IT major) the technical challenges of laying fiber and maintaining a network to serve 9000+ citizens are mind boggling. Policy decisions, network abuse, outages, spam, filtering (god forbid), all nightmares that will require a dedicated, 24/7 network maintenance team. Any network engineers out there have any juicy morsels from their work on large networks?
I know the town manager, so I'd like to feed this discussion to her, after moderation has taken its toll (probably at a level of +3), so she can see what the technical community thinks."
Over-estimating the combined intelligence of /. (Score:5, Insightful)
Why not use wireless? (Score:5, Insightful)
--Pat / zippy@cs.brandeis.edu
Fiber to Everyone (Score:2, Insightful)
Interesting uses: (Score:5, Insightful)
- Telecommuting. I'm assuming there'd be a huge bandwidth benefit here. As long as you're within city limits, you could hit the company server.
- Personal servers. I'm not talking about web servers, though those would be nice, rather I'm talking about leaving a box on all the time with a huge hard drive in it. I'd liike to keep my music and videos etc on it so that I can access it anywhere in town.
- DoS attacks against things like root servers would not bring down the ability for these people to communicate. The attacks would have to be community specific.
- Disaster relief. It's been proven before that the internet can be resilient to disasters such as earthquake. Useful maybe?
I should probably note that I'm not taking into account the town this is in. I'm imagining it existing here in Portland. Personally, I'd like to have my apartment complex all on a shared lan. I'd like to get to know my neighbors better. It'd be fun to have lan games etc.
This poses some problems (Score:3, Insightful)
For one, how big is the actual pipe to the Internet going to be?
Two, servers of any kind are going to have to be serverly limited or not allow at all.
Three, Terms of Service. The number one most important thing of this project. The people of this college town, including the college students are going to have to read and sign that TOS. If they read and sign it, there will be less confusion as to the punishment for people that abuse having fast connections. Plus, it covers the City's butt.
Four, cost of fiber optic cable and equipment for the city and the customers. We all know how expensive fiber is. The last mile and Customer Premise Equipment can be prohibitively expensive. Also, I don't know know how many people are going to want to work for a city to support a network of that size. I mean, I don't care where you are, government work is goverment work.
But hey, this is just my opinion, I could be way off..
Lowell MI (Score:5, Insightful)
I live up in west Michigan nearby a town called Lowell. Now, around where I live, we have Comcast Cable for Internet and TV, and Charter for cable 'net, AT&T, MCI, Ameritech, what have you for phone companies. My household pays roughly $160 each month to these companies for cable internet, local and long distance phone, and digital cable service. Obvisouly, these are privately owned corps.
Now, drive 10 miles SE, to Lowell, MI, where the major utilities are owned by the city. They offer local phone, broadband internet, digital cable, the utilities, etc, and it's cheap. Running about $60 average for all the services. There isn't no private corporation involved. All of the infastructure was built, and is owned by the city.
So, would I rather pay $60 than $160. Yes, especially if it ain't to a large corporation out for better interests than the consumer. Plus, as a citizen of that city, in a way, you control and have a voice in what goes on. Thats why supporting your local infastructure could be important and better off in the long run for your community.
IPv6 (Score:3, Insightful)
Projects like these are a GREAT way to introduce IPv6 to the masses, because every home can be given a range of IP adresses (hey, it's Ipv6, 2^128 adresses to waste! If that's not enough, someone make IPv8 a reality, 2^512 adresses.) for different computers, possibly a small subnet per house. While the internet itself (as we currently know it) can still be adressed by a centralized (or not, perhaps a backbone connection per district?) routing point which can receive requests for IPv4 sites and cause them to get delivered to IPv6 networks. This would instantly promote the use of IPv6 networks if this "city/town network" idea were to catch on.
As for actual uses, how about making it possible to do stuff online in a FAR more safe way? Because IP adresses are clearly assigned per household, any attempt at being naughty can be traced down to a physical adress with ease. This would make the privacy people jump up in sheer disgust, but that can be worked out in detail some time. It would also be extremely good for communities. Real life ones that is, where the inhabitants of a town can discuss stuff on several online forums, maybe video conferencing as well? This would also open up possibilities for actually everyone to get involved in local politics. Even with a bit of new protocal magic (bye bye SMTP) it could even be possible to institute a city-wide email system, where just everyone would get his own email adress, per person, not per ISP account, like j.doe@district.city.nl.
Of course, there are several things hampering this, mainly telcos who will do ANYTHING they can to stop this, to DMCA/$local_equivalent fanatics who will holler in rage because of the potential file-swapping possibilities, which with no doubt WILL happen. Then there is of course the standard problem with today's internet, like the last mile, annoying people who break stuff, innocent people who get framed by the aforementioned people, privacy people who will find any little detail to pounce upon and howl in rage... (Can be good or bad.)
Ah well, to be blunt; I'll expect this will never happen in every town/city. It's not like today's local goverments aren't tight-budgeted already, they don't have the money to initialize a project like this, let alone buy of the armies of lawyers to fend of the telcos and DMCA zealots/corporate goons. Still, depsite the odds, one can hope ad one can try to contribute to the impossible. We're still in the early days of modern day networking, TCP/IP being used around 1969 for the first time on ARPANET. It's been 34 years since then. The first powered aircraft flight was in 1903, while they still flew around in propellor planes in 1937.
Questions is, when will networking in general reach it's stage in life comparable to the jet angine in flight? A new set of protocols, like IPv6 and a new SMTP would be a very good step in the VERY right direction. Oh and it's 02:09 and I've only just realized the length of my story. Please excuse any typos you encounter.
Re:team up with some local isp? (Score:5, Insightful)
How about teaming up with a BUNCH of local ISPs?
I think that the obvious answer here is to separate the ``own and operate transmission lines'' function from the ``provide services over the transmission lines'' function.
The transmission lines are a natural monopoly. There isn't going to be any competition there, no matter what (That's the standard answer, anyway), so might as well let the gov't maintain ownership and control. You could still contract out maintenance work, if you're worried about inefficiency. You could keep it in-house if you're worried about getting public employee union support. If you let ownership go to a private company, you run the considerable risk of setting the wrong incentives and getting a nasty mess.
Providing billing, internet access and/or cable programming over the fiber is clearly NOT a natural monopoly. The city could make the fiber open to any provider of any service. It would be a bit like the Telcos opening their lines to competition, except that there would be no incentive for the city to backstab the providers. It would be a lot like what you're suggesting, except that you wouldn't be giving a monopoly to any one business. Why not give out the monopoly? Think of the telephone company: ``We don't care ... we don't have to. We're the phone company.''
To summarize, what I'm suggesting is that the city could operate fiber lines, and lease them to private businesses. There would be no billing from city to individuals. Private enterprise could use those lines to offer any service that folks would pay for, just as privately owned trucks, busses and cars run on publicly owned and operated roads. Private business would bill individuals for services rendered. Since no business would have a monopoly, all businesses would have to give individuals their money's worth, or see their customers take a hike.
You could have the reliable infrastructure that comes from a monopoly provider, and the attentive service and product innovations which come from fierce competition.
Re:Clear TOS (Score:3, Insightful)
Exactly true. One of the things that ought to be specified in the TOS is how much traffic for how much money. Don't say unlimited unless you really mean unlimited.
My suggestion would be a base cost which includes a certain amount of traffic allowance (which a typical home user would not exceed) plus a cost per additional megabyte. Having email reminders at certain traffic amounts and a hard cap (specified by the user) would help out those who typically use more than the base amount, but still want to control their bill.
TTFN
Re:Over-estimating the combined intelligence of /. (Score:1, Insightful)
There's actually good information embedded in Slashdot.
The only problem is that you have to wallow through a lot of dross to get at it.
In particular, there are occasionally some really good answers lurking at Score:[0,1], but the signal to noise ratio makes getting those answers a real chore.
Encourage competition (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:team up with some local isp? (Score:2, Insightful)
http://transact.com.au/
They are building a huge Optical fiber network across the whole city. Through it you can get your phone, internet, and TV.
For the internet they use ISPs to resell the network. You actually sign up with another ISP, and use that ISP's connection, but your connection to the ISP is through Transact.
watch out on the legal front (Score:3, Insightful)
According to an op-ed piece in a recent edition of the Wisconsin State Journal by the mayor of that town, the cable TV companies are lobbying to pass a statewide resolution making such a thing illegal. The mayor, who didn't seem much of radical lefty, thought this was a bit over the top.
I have very little additional information. There's nothing online as far as I can tell about this controversy, which is why I didn't submit it as a Slashdot story.
Apparently, competition from the public sector is going to be illegal though. I wonder how come we still have a postal service. Anyway, your town needs to watch out for being blindsided by this.
Re:Over-estimating the combined intelligence of /. (Score:4, Insightful)
I mean, sure - if you want to decide whether or not a town-wide broadband rollout is feasible, the first thing to do is poll the potential users in that community.
Assuming this task is on the "to do" list (or was already completed), getting additional feedback from slashdot seems like a worthwhile endeavour.
The value in Slashdot largely comes from not necessarily having to read the "average thread" anyway. Thanks to the ability to moderate posts, it's easy to filter anything except for the exceptionally high-rated comments (or at least pay more attention to +4 and +5 rated comments).
Wow, the possibilities (Score:3, Insightful)
Real time audio streaming of town meetings, city council, public court hearings. You've got the bandwidth to setup and sustain a few hundred streaming realplayer connections.
Keep a consistent interface. I would suggest a web-based initiative, because you can find content management systems (I use this one [xoops.org], but there's [movabletype.org] more of them [slashcode.com], where you could setup a simple username and password interface to let everyone logon, use web-based email, get local alerts etc.
Think of seeing the pictures of a wanted suspect everywhere in the neighborhood in seconds. Grab a mugshot, scan it in, and boom, thanks to integrating your phone service through this (which, if you don't, you'll look at yourself in 10 years and really kick yourself) the guy won't be able to go anywhere near a residential neighborhood without getting tagged. A phone call (or special ring?) will alert you to an "emergency message" provided via email, instead of having to hear about it through the TV (and all the rigamarole that entails, compared to just sending out an email). Think of weather alerts in this same vein. A blizzard coming and you need to warn the masses?
Keep wireless access points around town. I mean, if its in the city limits and you're going to go, go all the way. That way if their notebook has a wireless card, they can still sit in the restaraunt and eat quietly while surfing the net.
Everyone gets an email address that is not spammed and can only be used for city business and contacts. This is a peculiar idea consider, but it would assure that you would never, ever, get spam from this address. This one you can throw away, but I thought I would throw it in the mix.
Teleconferencing intra-city. With video. Nuff said. (Think X-11 or something. You can push the bandwidth.)
If you integrate your phone service through this line, the shared cost would be more than enough to keep a techie or two onhand for support, a few DNS/Web/FTP servers running, etc etc.
Just a few ideas. There is no way this cannot help your town, and I congratulate you in your efforts. Good luck.
Re:Clear TOS (Score:5, Insightful)
Uhm, this requires a *ton* of thought. The scenario of "a township setting up communication infrastructure" is 180 degrees from "an isp offers cool new service". The asker's town should absolutely seek legal advice on this. Since they are an elected government, they have an obligation to every citizen that a corporation does not have.
When they shut down quake servers because of bandwidth issues, all of a sudden all those "it's their network, they can do what they want!" arguments are completely moot. The network will be (I think) de facto owned equally by all. In any case, a government should not simply "lay down a TOS" without completely understanding what that means.
Read about the legality of putting in public toilets in NYC for a quasi-similar issue. I'm sure an amatuer can find other good case law, too.
Re:Clear TOS (Score:2, Insightful)
There are some things that will definitely stand the test of time, such as spam and the lack of desire to receive it. Community standards should govern the rules here, as well as the type of content that can be published on the network (more restrictive standards should be applied for things published on servers attached to the network than for content that can traverse the network). As many here will tell you, one person's ideas regarding desirable content may be another's idea of trash.
In all, write the TOS with the idea that freedom is encouraged and openness embraced.
Re:Gimme! (Score:3, Insightful)
The main difference between this LAN and a P2P network is that you're more likely to know the person, and they're less likely to throttle you back or limit your leeching because it might 'damage their performance' (you could take several gigs of anything in a matter of moments at 100Mbit).
The main problem I think you'd run into is legal - for instance, you'd have to worry about the RIAA getting connected somewhere and suing your ass. I'd think there'd be some sort of clause in the contract that says you can't use something you find on the LANeighborhood to get someone in legal trouble, nor can you allow someone else to use the network for that purpose. Granted, it's not like the MP/RIAA wouldn't -know- explicitly that almost everyone on the network is pirating anyway.
Re:Lowell MI (Score:3, Insightful)
More importantly ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Believe it or not, that was the selling factor for moving me into the apartment in the first place, and I couldn't believe that my entire neighborhood wasn't plugged in 24x7. Most of them couldn't care less, a few didn't want to pay $45 a month for that new-fangled interweb to view web sights, and a few were on dial-up (no joke.)
In a college community I would suspect a higher number of people that want in on it, but rather than not enough people wanting it I would pretty much bet the other extreme, 9,000 different connections all running P2P nodes and all wanting to run 1Mb/s sustained connections 24x7. At that point the bottleneck isn't the last mile - it is the central office's connection the the rest of the world. If you ran regular cablemodems to every house in your town they could STILL throttle the connection so running fiber is just begging them to
Cable is cheaper, I would imagine. Terminating the cable is also something your average cable monkey can do, terminating 9,000 fiber connections isn't going to be cheap. Wouldn't surprise me if you already had appropriate cable run the last mile already. Priced 9,000 ports of fiber optic switches lately?
Fiber is cool, but what do you honestly gain? Well you don't need to do it again in 3 years when the central office actually can handle 9,000 users wanting to run a full megabit per second sustained 24x7
If you honestly think the suscriber base will go for it, and then if you think they will do it without overdoing it, does it make sense to run fiber instead of cable? Short term, probably not. Long term
Re:not a LAN, rather a MAN (Score:2, Insightful)
Uhh... kinda, well no.
A T1 uses 4 wires, a plain old phone service line (POTS) uses 2 wires.
On a POTS line you can get ISDN speeds of aprox 128 kbs. On a T1 aprox 1.5 Mb/s