France Telecom's FTTH - La fibre de France Telecom

I recently took a tour of France Telecom's FTTH rollout in Paris and wanted to write about it for a few reasons. It wasn't related to my own fiber plans but there were a couple of inter-related items.

1. France Telecom is proposing to share the internal fiber wiring it the buildings it connects with competitors as long as they are willing to reciprocate. I spoke with someone before I'd gone and I didn't understand exactly what they were doing until I saw it for myself. FT puts in a cabinet in the basement of an apartment building which holds their passive GPON equipment. All the single fiber lines to apartments come down from the ceiling right beside the FT cabinet where they can easily be patched into the FT equipment (or theoretically a competitors). ARCEP, the regulator here in France, launched a consultation recently on sharing the internal wiring of buildings and France Telecom seems agree with the regulator that this is the best way to avoid having to go down the functional separation route.

2. A neutral fiber network within the building is not much different than a neutral fiber network in a small residence. At one point I asked one of the FT people if they would consider connecting to a residence that had put it its own fiber. Their unofficial answer was that they likely would. They also explained that they would be particularly interested if there was empty conduit in place where they could blow through their own fiber.

The whole visit pretty much re-energized me for the project because I believe that by putting part of the network in place myself I'll be able to attract operators. The idea of connecting 50 homes may not be a huge draw for them but once the network is in place I plan on making enough noise publicly when I'm looking for operators that it should be in their interest to participate.

Upgrading the exchange in St Nom - Travail sur le NRA a St Nom

The other day one of my friends in the residence passed along news about our telecom exchange. He said that he heard our France Telecom exchange (NOM78) in St Nom La Breteche is about to be upgraded in December and the lines all regrouped back there from other distant exchanges. I've heard this before but haven't seen any movement near the exchange which would suggest imminent work.

Our mayor did have a meeting with France Telecom in June where they asked for more land to expand the exchange. The rumor around the village says that it was supposed to be completed next month (September) but now they've pushed the date back to December 2007.

I don't think there's much chance of it happening that quickly. If France Telecom asked for more land then they're going to need to build a bigger exchange and likely allow for collocation. The current exchange is just too small. I've lived here long enough to know that construction projects take longer than a few months to put together - particularly if France Telecom was still discussing the land issue two months ago.

There are some interesting implications however for the fiber project. Our exchange is probably 400-600 meters from the residence which means people could see a huge jump in bandwidth using ADSL2+. I would hope that competitive operators would take advantage of full unbundling at our exchange because those are the best offers in the market right now.

This is great news for the residence but could make convincing people to switch to fiber and pay more for it a bit more difficult. If they do upgrade quickly then I'm going to have to come up with an interesting "local" application for fiber that would convince people to sign up through us. I thought about a security service for their homes but it's an area I don't know much about.

Worried about the road work /Inquiété de la réparation des routes

I rode home yesterday with one of my neighbors from the residence. We talked a lot about the progress of the project and I explained exactly what I'd done so far.

In the course of the discussion he expressed concern that we may not be able to convince some of the holdouts in the residence to agree to do the general road work. That could be a problem because putting in the conduit is probably only economically viable if we're already digging up the roads. The roads will have to be done eventually. It's just a question of how much time we'll have to wait.

If we have to postpone the road work one year then the positive aspect is I'll have more time to get everything ready.

Excavation work? Lay empty conduit. / Excavation? Installer le fourreau vide.

Sweden really seems to get it when it comes to looking for ways to get fiber into the ground. I found this today from the government's IT Policy Strategy Group and was impressed with their foresight:

Pipe-laying should be coordinated, including the allocation of costs, the goal being that empty piping should at least be laid when excavation must in any case be carried out.

“Policy for the IT society: Recommendations from the members of the IT Policy Strategy Group”, IT Policy Strategy Group – Sweden, 26 October 2006, at: http://www.sweden.gov.se/sb/d/574/a/76046;jsessionid=aRgt9J6DAf-g/

I've tried to break this project down into manageable steps and the first is simply getting conduit into the ground. Everything else can progress from there including the details about interconnection with ISPs. For the time being the focus should be on getting the conduit in when they dig up the roads in the residence.

The Swedes do raise another interesting point. Should I announce my intentions and offer to share the costs of putting in the conduit with the other providers? I'd be more than happy to see them come (which I doubt they would) but that could also make it difficult for me to personally recoup my own costs. That then begs the question of how many open access fibers are necessary to each home...

End of vacations in St Nom - fin des vacances à St Nom

August is a very quiet time in France and our village is no exception. I've never seen things so quiet and it feels like a ghost town. That will all change in the next two weeks as people return from vacation and school starts.

I'm planning on preparing a small handout that I will pass around to all the neighbors in the residence explaining what I'd like to do for soon after they get back. It will explain what I plan on doing and where I'll need their help.

I was thinking about it last night and much of this is really going to be about marketing the idea to people. Getting people excited about fiber in English is one thing but trying to do it in French (writing) is somewhat daunting. I've decided to it first in English and then I'll get help translating it into perfect French.

I'll post my drafts of the handout here on the blog and would welcome any comments.

New networks drive innovation / Nouveaux réseaux stimulent l'innovation

I rode on a new Delta Airlines plane the other day across the US and was impressed with the television/entertainment system installed in every seat. The movie and TV portion of the system were the same as you would find on any other long-haul flight. However, the new system also allows you to play interactive games against other passengers.

Delta customers also will be entertained with a suite of 10 video games, including Book Worm, Trivia, Bejewled, Zuma, Texas Hold 'em Poker and an interactive trivia game that allows for some friendly competitive play among passengers. Panasonic's eFX single aisle in-flight entertainment system gives Delta an interactive technology platform to offer even more in-flight options in the future like laptop connectivity, broadband internet, and e-mail access.
http://biz.yahoo.com/pz/060913/105167.html

My favorite was the interactive trivia game which pits travelers against one another. You can see all the participants' screen names and seat numbers alongside their scores as you play. I played round after round and was amazed at how quickly the time passed on the flight. I was struck by how this new and innovative application was made possible by networking the seats on the plane together. After seeing and trying the trivia game for the first time it seems like such a wonderful, simple and obvious use of the plane's upgraded internal network.

I immediately thought back to the FTTH network in St Nom and the struggles I've had trying to explain to people what applications will need 100 Mbit/s now or in the future. The answer is we probably don't know yet but they will appear once the networks are in place. They too will likely strike us as wonderful, simple and obvious after we've tried them the first time.

Time to think - Du temps a penser

I'm looking forward to having a bit more time to stop, think and plan. We've come to the US on vacation and that will hopefully give me some time to make calls and ask some questions here in English about fiber rollouts. There are some interesting projects going on here in the US and hopefully I'll be able to make a site visit to one of them.