[1st-mile-nm] IEEE: 5G is in Danger of Being Oversold

Fri Mar 2 09:46:23 PST 2018

Hi All –

May I play devil’s advocate.  I am not from NM (but love it there).  I come from a rural coastal town in Maine.  Local uptake can often start out with entertainment, and shift once the network is better and/or the community realizes the value-add.  Note that we see this all over the world, and that entertainment content has been driving network infrastructure development in many parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, South East Asia, LAC, etc.  I take your point on subsidization, but think there is a good reason for public network infrastructure dev.  Why not subsidize the preliminary FTTH deployments with a long-range plan for community pay-back or just see it as worthwhile socio-economic dev?  We build and maintain roads at the State and local level… 

2/ With you.  We helped a project in rural South Africa purchase a mast (cost was $2,600.00).  They were quoted a monthly rental of $2,600.00 on an existing mast.  With the mast purchase, they expanded coverage and were able to shift to a hybrid not-for-profit/profit WISP.

Best,

Jane

Internet Society | www.internetsociety.org

Skype:  janercoffin

Mobile/WhatsApp:  +1.202.247.8429

From: 1st-mile-nm <1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org> on behalf of John Badal <JBadal at sacred-wind.com>
Date: Friday, March 2, 2018 at 12:33 PM
To: Steve Ross <editorsteve at gmail.com>, Christopher Mitchell <christopher at ilsr.org>
Cc: Richard Lowenberg <rl at 1st-mile.org>, 1st-Mile-NM <1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org>, "masha at bbcmag.com" <masha at bbcmag.com>
Subject: Re: [1st-mile-nm] IEEE: 5G is in Danger of Being Oversold

Steve & Christopher,

This has been a good discussion.  I agree that anyone daring or committed enough to provide broadband in rural areas deserves praise.  My primary concern about FTTH in high cost areas is actually twofold: 1) the added investment of new FTTH networks, especially using public grant money, is a wasteful use of public funds in light of the fact that the vast majority of bandwidth is being used for entertainment, not for academic or job enhancing information.  A business case for unsubsidized FTTH systems in rural areas is hard to find.  And 2) where the owner of the only utility poles in town decides to provide broadband services in competition with those that are attached to its poles, abuse of monopoly power is not only possible, but is actually in practice. I would love to see more partnerships – private and public/private – for the purpose of expanding rural broadband.  What we’ve experienced instead is an arrogant abuse of power.

John

From: Steve Ross [mailto:editorsteve at gmail.com] 
Sent: Thursday, March 1, 2018 3:42 PM
To: Christopher Mitchell <christopher at ilsr.org>
Cc: John Badal <JBadal at sacred-wind.com>; 1st-Mile-NM <1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org>; rl at 1st-mile.org; masha at bbcmag.com
Subject: Re: [1st-mile-nm] IEEE: 5G is in Danger of Being Oversold

BTW, one person's cross-subsidy is another's avoiding stranded costs. Rural counties are losing on average more than 1/4% of their population a year. A coop or tier3 LEC sees survival as a better alternative. I have shown that a quarter to half of all rural job loss is due to lack of broadband access. It is by far the BIGGEST source of rural job loss.

I really have a lot of respect and admiration for any broadband deployers, including the national carriers. But when they can't make a business case for serving an area they should $%^&% get out of the way of others who think they might be able to. Instead they buy politicians. 

Steve Ross
Editor-at-Large, Broadband Communities Magazine (www.bbcmag.com)
201-456-5933 mobile
707-WOW-SSR3 (707-969-7773) Google Voice
editorsteve (Facebook, LinkedIn)
editorsteve1 (Twitter)
steve at bbcmag.com
editorsteve at gmail.com

On Thu, Mar 1, 2018 at 5:34 PM, Steve Ross <editorsteve at gmail.com> wrote:

Chris is absolutely right, but making it happen is not as easy. Few electric coops have been willing to take the risk -- and Chris and I and others do a lot of missionary work. More than half of all new MDUs are not FTTH even though fiber is CHEAPER in that case.

We can generally show that fiber can work at about 8 premises per mile taking the service... even less if pole attachment rights are not held hostage. But we don't know how revenue will flow from driverless vehicles to network deployers yet, and Washington is not paying any attention.

Steve Ross
Editor-at-Large, Broadband Communities Magazine (www.bbcmag.com)
201-456-5933 mobile
707-WOW-SSR3 (707-969-7773) Google Voice
editorsteve (Facebook, LinkedIn)
editorsteve1 (Twitter)
steve at bbcmag.com
editorsteve at gmail.com

On Thu, Mar 1, 2018 at 4:50 PM, Christopher Mitchell <christopher at ilsr.org> wrote:

Any place that has electricity, especially those served by co-ops could get fiber ultimately. It may take a well-designed grant program, but it can be done far more efficiently than any of the universal service programs in operation today. 

Google decided to focus on dominating AI and driverless cars and such rather than deployment. There is no evidence that they were losing money, rather anyone that understands how such businesses make decisions should be aware that while there are fiber models that are profitable, they may not offer the return that some in Google were expecting. That's fine. the small ISPs I see building fiber steadily year after year are profitable. They aren't going to buy NFL stadium sponsorships, but they are providing a service that is desperately desired and they are making a good return.  Google will focus on dominating the future of AI and driverless cars and who knows what. They have a different calculus. 

The vast majority of North Dakota has FTTH. I believe it is the 4th most sparsely populated state in the union. But it is very easy to simply ignore the evidence and pretend that it just can't be done.  We have documented where rural fiber is available, and it is far more than most realize.

https://muninetworks.org/content/rural-cooperatives-page

Christopher Mitchell
Director, Community Broadband Networks
Institute for Local Self-Reliance

MuniNetworks.org

@communitynets

612-545-5185

On Thu, Mar 1, 2018 at 7:36 AM, John Badal <JBadal at sacred-wind.com> wrote:

Business case?  Even the well heeled Google has rethought its FTTH plans in urban areas far more densely populated than NM’s rural areas.  The sizzle got ahead of the steak.

John

From: Christopher Mitchell [mailto:christopher at ilsr.org] 
Sent: Thursday, March 1, 2018 8:32 AM
To: John Badal <JBadal at sacred-wind.com>
Cc: masha at bbcmag.com; Doug Orr <doug.orr at gmail.com>; rl at 1st-mile.org; 1st-Mile-NM <1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org>

Subject: Re: [1st-mile-nm] IEEE: 5G is in Danger of Being Oversold

The point of a gig is not to use all of it anymore than the point of a highway is to experiment with the maximum number of cars you can put on it.

The point of a gig is abundance - sure 452 Mbps would probably do that too, but a gig resonates and is a standard. 

It would be difficult for me to use all of the electricity that can flow into my house - but we overprovision certain kinds of infrastructure when that can unlock additional value. 

And finally, if we assume that communities will still need high quality Internet access in 30 years, everyone I talk to that does both fiber and wireless says that while fiber is more expensive on the front end, the much lower operating and future upgrade costs ultimately make it MORE cost effective than wireless over a period of decades. 

There are many legitimate reasons for people in rural areas to "cry" for better connectivity even if they have the same number of gigabit applications as we do cars that are 5 lanes wide. 

Christopher Mitchell
Director, Community Broadband Networks
Institute for Local Self-Reliance

MuniNetworks.org

@communitynets

612-545-5185

On Wed, Feb 28, 2018 at 4:48 PM, John Badal <JBadal at sacred-wind.com> wrote:

5G has the same sexy appeal to the uniformed as fiber to the home.  Rural communities are crying for both, afraid they’d fall deeper into the digital divide, but unaware that the vast majority of consumers could never use gigabit speeds outside of recreating in the home Star Trek-like virtual reality holodecks.    What makes much more sense to me is for Albuquerque to build 20-lane highways and 10-lane boulevards throughout the city to eliminate any congestion during rush hours, along with robotic car removal systems to dispense with cars damaged in an accident.  

John 

From: 1st-mile-nm [mailto:1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org] On Behalf Of Masha Zager
Sent: Wednesday, February 28, 2018 5:30 PM
To: 'Doug Orr' <doug.orr at gmail.com>; rl at 1st-mile.org
Cc: '1st-Mile-NM' <1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org>

Subject: Re: [1st-mile-nm] IEEE: 5G is in Danger of Being Oversold

It’s not. See this: http://www.bbcmag.com/2017mags/Mar_Apr/BBC_Mar17_5GNotAnswer.pdf

Masha Zager
Editor-in-Chief, Broadband Communities
masha at bbcmag.com
518-943-0374
www.bbcmag.com
www.twitter.com/bbcmag

From: 1st-mile-nm [mailto:1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org] On Behalf Of Doug Orr
Sent: Wednesday, February 28, 2018 7:16 PM
To: rl at 1st-mile.org
Cc: 1st-Mile-NM
Subject: Re: [1st-mile-nm] IEEE: 5G is in Danger of Being Oversold

I'm unclear as to why 5g fixed is going to be cheaper to deploy than fiber. If the state charges $250/antenna... that buys a lot of hardwired installer time. And the antennas need backhaul, presumably, so lighting up a neighborhood in anticipation of new customer uptake... that seems a lot like upgrading infrastructure that would be needed if the idea is to offer faster aggregate speeds. 

What's the model here?

Does anyone know of real world benchmarks for 5G applications (e.g., netflix)?

  Doug

On Wed, Feb 28, 2018 at 1:47 PM Richard Lowenberg <rl at 1st-mile.org> wrote:

Following on recent postings.     RL

-------

Commercial service is years away, but even then, 5G won’t fulfill all of
its promises

https://spectrum.ieee.org/telecom/internet/5g-is-in-danger-of-being-oversold

By Stacey Higginbotham

Just like graphene or Elon Musk’s startups, 5G has become a technology
savior. Proponents tout the poorly defined wireless technology as the
path to virtual reality, telemedicine, and self-⁠driving cars.

But 5G is not a technology—it’s a buzzword unleashed by marketing
departments. As early as 2012, Broadcom was using it to sell Wi-Fi. In
reality, 5G is a term that telecommunications investors and executives
sling around as the solution to high infrastructure costs, the need for
more bandwidth, and a desire to boost margins.

The unifying component behind 5G is faster wireless broadband service. A
more stringent—and practical—definition is the use of high-frequency
millimeter waves (in addition to the microwaves that 4G LTE relies on
today) to deliver over-the-air broadband to phones or homes.

If you’re talking about phones, 5G is still years away. And new services
aren’t really on the menu. Just listen to the heads of several
telecommunications companies, who have begun to tamp down investors’
expectations around what 5G can deliver.

(snip)

---------------------------------------------------------------
Richard Lowenberg, Executive Director
1st-Mile Institute     505-603-5200
Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504,
rl at 1st-mile.org     www.1st-mile.org
---------------------------------------------------------------
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