What is the rational behind doing this ww, are there cheaper better alternatives, in the long term??
Such a short question, yet we could debate the answer for months. In fact, this entire thread, in large measure, is devoted to the topic. The rationale, of course, is profits, and wealth creation for the entrepreneur and companies trenching the fiber.
What is cheaper; what is better, what is long term? Define any one of your parameters and it generates a specific answer. Is long term 2 years, 5 years, 20? Is better defined by delivered theoretical capacity to the end user, by cost per unit of delivered capacity, by time to market, or a combination of all three? Is cheaper just end-user cost for the service, or does one take into account the "societal" disruption caused by multiple iterations of torn up streets.
If one limits the discussion to the downtown cores of major urban areas, the alternative technologies -- copper, terrestrial wireless, and satellites — are neither better nor cheaper.
As to the broader question of better, in the sense of having multiple parties laying duplicative fiber, I certainly do not mean to be flippant, but I do not know how to answer the question other than to say that this is the hand we have been dealt. The provision of local exchange services has traditionally been a monopoly. The 1996 Telecom Act changed all that and created a mad scramble to acquire customers. If history is a guide, then we will see a massive phase of competition, then consolidation. If long term is 15-20 years, then those half dozen trenches (or dozen in some markets) will be owned by 2-3 players. Is that wasteful? IMO, yes.
From 50,000 feet, my two cents on the subject is that it ultimately gets down to the question of whether the pipe, i.e., the local loop, is a natural monopoly in the classical economic sense. If one believes that is the case, then the preferable course would have been to split the ILECs into monopoly transmission companies (the loop portion) and unregulated service companies (the customer base and all the associated hardware and software systems). This would have been very similar to the model of deregulation for the electric industry. The unregulated portion of the ILECs would have been given immediate access to those areas of the telecom business traditionally prohibited to them, i.e., LD. For it to work, you need local number portability, which is only now becoming available. LCI, prior to its merger with Qwest, proposed this or something similar.
The benefit, of course, is that only one trench is dug, and sufficient capacity installed to handle the needs of the user community for the foreseeable future. The monopoly loop provider becomes a carrier's carrier, not caring who is winning the market share war, only concerned that (1) its customers, the service providers, pay their bills on time and (2) that it always has sufficient excess capacity to serve the needs of all potential carriers in order to maximize its profits.
Regardless, that is not the world in which we live, so my apologies for going off on a tangent.
ww |
