[1st-mile-nm] Santa Fe Telecom Ordinance + CityLink Fiber

[Richard Lowenberg]

Telecommunications ordinance: Fiber-optic firm may bury plan for Santa Fe
network

Tom Sharpe | The New Mexican    Posted: Monday, March 08, 2010

http://www.santafenewmexican.com/Local%20News/Telecommunications-ordinance-Fiber-optic-firm-may-bury-plan-for


The president of a firm seeking to build a fiber-optic cable system says he
might have to drop his plans for Santa Fe because of the city's proposed
telecommunications ordinance.

John M. Brown, president and cofounder of CityLink Fiber Holdings in
Albuquerque, said he began seeking a franchise for a fiber-optic cable system
in Santa Fe two years ago. Mayor David Coss was "positive" about the idea, he
said. But meetings with other city officials led nowhere.

"I've seen bureaucratic red-tape before, and in the spirit of the Olympic Games,
this takes the Gold Medal," Brown wrote in an e-mail.

CityLink's fiber-optic system in downtown Albuquerque provides speeds more than
a hundred times faster than that of the copper coaxial cable connections
offered by Comcast and Qwest ? without wireless technology, radio frequencies
or electromagnetic fields, Brown said. He said the same service could be
provided to residences and businesses around Paseo de Peralta, where he plans
to lay the cable.

Brown said he buries his lines underground using microtrenching between the
asphalt road surface and the concrete gutter or stringing cable through sewer
and storm-drainage lines.

"If the citizens of Santa Fe really want to have world-class high-speed
connectivity, then there needs to be a process that encourages private
businesses such as CityLink who want to come and build this," he said. "We're
not looking for a handout. We're not looking for anything for free."

But late last week, after seeing the latest rewrite of the Santa Fe
telecommunications ordinance, Brown called it "overly burdensome." He
especially objected to its requirements for mailing notices to neighbors,
buying display ads in newspapers and paying $2,500 for each application to the
city Land Use Department. He said building a cable system might take numerous
applications.

The $2,500 will be passed on to customers, according to Brown. Although
Albuquerque customers pay about $79 a month plus $150 for installation, Brown
said, the additional expense proposed could mean Santa Fe customers would have
to pay $199 a month plus $399 for installation for the same service.

Brown said he didn't think either Qwest or Comcast would agree to pay the $2,500
fees. But "as it stands CityLink CAN NOT accept this and unless changed will NOT
be servicing Santa Fe anytime soon," he wrote in another e-mail.

Brown also maintains that he's been unfairly linked to the dispute over the
safety of wireless systems because the media doesn't understand the differences
between cell-phone transmissions, Wi-Fi, distributed antenna systems and
fiber-optic cable systems.

The press mostly writes about "the 'juicy' stuff, people in conflict, people
yelling and cussing, the 'Wi-Fi' opponents and the issues they raise," he
wrote. "As is typical, the news media has gotten it very WRONG."

But in an interview, Brown acknowledged fiber-optic cable systems have a role to
play in delivering wireless because the technology can be used to link together
antennas in a DAS. However, he said, NewPath Networks, which seeks a local
franchise for a DAS, plans to install its own fiber-optic cable rather than use
the one CityLink is proposing.

Brown said he doesn't know if wireless signals pose a biological hazard, but he
believes opponents of this technology have unfairly drawn fiber-optics into the
fray. "They are lobbing it all together as one big blob," he said. "And so, they
want to kill the blob wherever they can kill the blob."

The telecommunications ordinance is on the agenda for Wednesday's council
meeting.

You can read the proposed ordinance, with new changes in red, here
http://www.santafenm.gov/DocumentView.aspx?DID=...



-- 
Richard Lowenberg
1st-Mile Institute
P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504
505-989-9110;   505-603-5200 cell
rl at 1st-mile.com  www.1st-mile.com

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