[NNagain] The non-death of DSL

[rjmcmahon]

Hi Sebastian,

Here's a good link on Glasgow, KY likely the first U.S. muni network 
started around 1994. It looks like a one and done type investment. Their 
offering was competitive for maybe a decade and now seems to have fallen 
behind for the last few decades.

https://www.glasgowepb.com/internet-packages/
https://communitynets.org/content/birth-community-broadband-video

LUS is similar if this article is to be believed. 
https://thecurrentla.com/2023/column-lus-fiber-has-lost-its-edge/

The LUS NN site says there is no congestion on their fiber (GPON) so 
they don't need AQM or other congestion mgmt mechanisms which I find 
suspect. https://www.lusfiber.com/net-neutrality

This may demonstrate that technology & new requirements are moving too 
quickly for municipal approaches.

Bob
> Hi Sebastian,
> 
> The U.S. of late isn't very good with regulatory that motivates
> investment into essential comm infrastructure. It seems to go the
> other way, regulatory triggers under investment, a tragedy of the
> commons.
> 
> The RBOCs eventually did overbuild. They used wireless and went to
> contract carriage, and special access rate regulation has been
> removed. The cable cos did HFC and have always been contract carriage.
> And they are upgrading today.
> 
> The tech companies providing content & services are doing fine too and
> have enough power to work things out with the ISPs directly.
> 
> The undeserved areas do need support. The BEAD monies may help. I
> think these areas shouldn't be relegated to DSL.
> 
> Bob
> On Oct 8, 2023, at 2:38 AM, Sebastian Moeller <moeller0 at gmx.de> wrote:
> 
>> Hi Bob,
>> 
>> On 8 October 2023 00:13:07 CEST, rjmcmahon via Nnagain
>> <nnagain at lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>>> Everybody abandoned my local loop. Twisted pair from multiple
>>> decades ago into antiquated, windowless COs with punch blocks,
>>> with no space nor latency advantage for colocated content &
>>> compute, seems to have killed it off.
>> 
>> [SM] Indeed, throughput for DSL is inversely proportional to loop
>> length, so providing 'acceptable' capacity requires sufficiently
>> short wire runs from DSLAM to CPE, and that in turn means moving
>> DSLAMs closer to the end users... which in a densely populated area
>> works well, but in a less densely populated area becomes costly
>> fast. And doing so will only make sense if you get enough customers
>> on such an 'outdoor DSLAM' so might work for the first to built out,
>> but becomes prohibitively unattractive for other ISP later. However
>> terminating the loops in the field clears up lots of spaces in the
>> COs... not that anybody over here moved much compute into these...
>> (there exist too many COs to make that an attractive proposition in
>> spite of all the hype about moving compute to the edge). As is a few
>> well connected data centers for compute seem to work well enough...
>> 
>> I suspect in some towns one can buy out the local loop copper with
>> just a promise of maintenance.
>> 
>> [SM] A clear sign of regulatory failure to me, maintenance of the
>> copper plant inherited from Bell should never have been left to the
>> ISPs to decide about...
>> 
>> The whole CLEC open the loop to competitive access seems to have
>> failed per costs, antiquated technology, limited colocation, an
>> outdated waveguide (otherwise things like CDDI would have won over
>> Cat 5), and market reasons. The early ISPs didn't collocate, they
>> bought T1s and E1s and connected the TDM to statistical multiplexing
>> - no major investment there either.
>> 
>>> The RBOCs, SBC (now AT&T) & and VZ went to contract carriage and
>>> wireless largely because of the burdens of title II per regulators
>>> not being able to create an investment into the OSPs. The 2000
>>> blow up was kinda real.
>> 
>> [SM] Again, I see no fault in title 2 here, but in letting ISPs of
>> the hook on maintaining their copper plant or replace it with
>> FTTH...
>> 
>>> She starts out by complaining about trying to place her WiFi in
>>> the right place. That's like trying to share a flashlight. She has
>>> access to the FCC technology group full of capable engineers. They
>>> should have told her to install some structured wire, place more
>>> APs, set the carrier and turn down the power.
>> 
>> [SM] I rather read this more as an attempt to built a report with
>> the audience over a shared experience and less as a problem report
>> ;)
>> 
>> My wife works in the garden now using the garden AP SSID with no
>> issues. My daughter got her own carrier too per here Dad dedicating
>> a front end module for her distance learning needs. I think her
>> story to justify title II regulation is a bit made up.
>> 
>> [SM] Hmm, while covid19 lockdown wasn't the strongest example, I
>> agree, I see no good argument for keeping essential infrastructure
>> like internet access in private hands without appropriate oversight.
>> Especially given the numbers for braodband choice for customers,
>> clearly the market is not going to solve the issues at hand.
>> 
>>> Also, communications have been essential back before the rural
>>> free delivery of mail in 1896. Nothing new here other than
>>> hyperbole to justify a 5 member commission acting as the single
>>> federal regulator over 140M households and 33M businesses, almost
>>> none of which have any idea about the complexities of the
>>> internet.
>> 
>> [SM] But the access network is quite different than the internet's
>> core, so not being experts on the core seems acceptable, no? And
>> even 5 members is clearly superior to no oversight at all?
>> 
>> I'm not buying it and don't want to hand the keys to the FCC who
>> couldn't protect journalism nor privacy. Maybe start there, looking
>> at what they didn't do versus blaming contract carriage for a
>> distraction?
>> 
>> [SM] I can speak to the FCC as regulatory agency, but over here IMHO
>> the national regulatory agency does a decent job arbitrating between
>> the interests of both sides.
>> 
>> 
> https://about.usps.com/who/profile/history/rural-free-delivery.htm#:~:text=On%20October%201%2C%201896%2C%20rural,were%20operating%20in%2029%20states.
>> 
>> Bob
>> My understanding, though I am not 100% certain, is that the baby
>> bells
>> lobbied to have the CLEC equal access provisions revoked/gutted.
>> Before this, the telephone companies were required to provide access
>> to the "last mile" of the copper lines and the switches at wholesale
>> costs. Once the equal access provisions were removed, the telephone
>> companies started charging the small phone and DSL providers close
>> to
>> the retail price for access. The CLEC DSL providers could not stay
>> in
>> business when they charged a customer $35 / month for Internet
>> service
>> while the telephone company charged the DSL ISP $35 / month for
>> access.
>> 
>> ---- On Sat, 07 Oct 2023 17:22:10 -0400 Dave Taht via Nnagain wrote
>> ---
>> I have a lot to unpack from this:
>> 
>> https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-397257A1.pdf
>> 
>> the first two on my mind from 2005 are: "FCC adopted its first open
>> internet policy" and "Competitiveness" As best as I recall, (and
>> please correct me), this led essentially to the departure of all the
>> 3rd party DSL providers from the field. I had found something
>> referencing this interpretation that I cannot find right now, but I
>> do
>> clearly remember all the DSL services you could buy from in the
>> early
>> 00s, and how few you can buy from now. Obviously there are many
>> other
>> possible root causes.
>> 
>> DSL continued to get better and evolve, but it definately suffers
>> from
>> many reports of degraded copper quality, but does an estimate exist
>> for how much working DSL is left?
>> 
>> Q0) How much DSL is in the EU?
>> Q1) How much DSL is left in the USA?
>> Q2) What form is it? (VDSL, etc?)
>> 
>> Did competition in DSL vanish because of or not of an FCC related
>> order?
>> 
>> --
>> Oct 30:
>> https://netdevconf.info/0x17/news/the-maestro-and-the-music-bof.html
>> Dave Täht CSO, LibreQos
>> 
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