Dark fiber policy — my talk at eComm

At eComm 2008 in March, I gave a short presentation (15 minutes including questions) on dark fiber as a key element of broadband policy.  Brad Templeton has a good summary in the last four paragraphs of this post.

Recently Lee Dryburgh posted all the eComm presentations on Slideshare. Since my presentation was mostly pictures, you need the script that went with the slides. The only way I can see to support this on Slideshare is to add one comment per slide, which I have now done.  If you are interested, go to the version on Slideshare.net, click on the "Comments on Slide 1" tab and then click forward from there.

I discussed the clear line between rights-of-way, conduits, poles and dark fiber - all of which are long-lived elements - and the technologies that light up fiber or run traffic over it.  The latter get obsolete very quickly, so it makes sense to foster rampant competition at these layers, or give control to users. The idea is those that want the latest electronics ought to be able to get them.

Dark Fiber

Turns out there are multiple examples of communities and even whole countries (Sweden) that have fostered the availability of dark fiber.  Not surprisingly, these locations lead in broadband performance (and in price-performance!).