Residence Picnic / Pique-nique de la residence

Today was the annual residence picnic with our neighbors. We were excited to go to get to know people better and also to talk a bit about the fiber project. Turnout was good from the stand-alone homes but I didn't get to meet anyone new from the apartments.

I prepared a handout in French (PDF here) to give to each family telling them the status of the project and the next steps. There was overwhelming support from the people I spoke with.

The status report lays out the two main steps of the project:

1. Installing fibre to each house/apartment in the residence
2. Obtaining a connection between our residence and the local exchange

I also explained the four things I'm going to need from the residents:

1. A place to install an ODF or manhole for aggregating the connections
2. Access to the existing conduit in the residence
3. One-time access to their garage to install/terminate the fibre.
4. An idea of how many homes would be willing to change providers to fibre once we attracted an operator

Item #4 actually got me the most questions. People wanted to know whether we would all have to subscribe to the same operator or if they would have a choice among operators when switching to fiber. I had to answer that we'd likely start with one operator but that the plan is to offer the fiber lines to any operator willing to connect with us. My goal is for households to be able to choose from a number of different fiber providers using the same line but we probably will need a larger (i.e. expanded) subscriber base before multiple providers would be willing to participate. That means initially it would probably be a "first-in takes all" scenario.

The update letter explained that we would probably need 80% of homes committing to switch if we wanted to attract an operator to build out to us. Otherwise, we'd likely have to pay ourselves to build back to the exchange in step 2.

One of the residents suggested I organize a meeting to answer questions. It wouldn't be an official meeting of the residence but rather something informal where they could ask questions. I think it's a good idea and I'll set it up.

Two steps behind - Deux pas derrière

Talk about missed opportunities. This is the residence just next to ours which dug up their sidewalks this week - without putting in any new fiber or conduit. It is really too bad we are not better coordinated in our village because this is one of the next two residences I wanted to target for expansion of our own network.

They do have existing conduit which we could probably use but this would have been an opportune time to put in a telecommunication chamber (hand hold) as well.

I'm going to try and schedule a meeting with the mayor soon so we can get an idea when these projects are going on.

Residents association meeting 2008 - La réunion de l’association 2008

Last night was the resident association meeting and it went well. As always, there were some crazy, heated moments but there seems to be a new consensus that everyone will pay to redo the roads and sidewalks. Part of the impetus is that the value added tax in France on these projects is 5.5% now but will jump up to 19.8% after next year. That means we would had to pay more for the same work after that.

The road work comes out to be EUR 3200 (USD 4800) per house and less for the apartments. It makes the additional cost of a fibre rollout at the same time seem pretty small. At one point the engineer was explaining how they would dig the road and re-install the electrical conduit in the roads to reach the lamp posts. One of the older residents raised her hand and asked where the fibre optic conduit was going to be put! I was thrilled because she was looking forward to it.

I spoke up and explained that we will likely use the existing conduit but may need to cross streets with new conduit in certain places. That can be done at the same time they are doing the road work. I have very little time left (only 2-3 months) to get things ready before we vote officially on the road work. I need to have a proposal ready for them before the vote and I'm translating a handout right now which I'll pass out to all homes in the next week or two. I'll post the handout shortly.

Attracting investors / Attirer les investisseurs

I had an interesting discussion with one of my friends from our old neighborhood the other day. He had heard me mention that I wanted to roll out fiber-to-the-home in St Nom. We talked for about an hour and a half and I explained why the transition to fiber is so important and how I think a small scale project could work in our particular case. I also explained that I thought this could be a good test case for whether the model really will work or not, or if the project could expand at some point.

After we were done speaking he said that he'd be interested in investing in the project. I thought that was really great news, not because I'm looking for investors at the moment, but because he could see the value of the project without being someone involved directly in telecom.

I'm moving forward in steps to put this together. First, I'll work on putting the conduit in the ground in our residence. I won't need investors for that portion. The conduit would likely be a risky part of the investment because there is no guarantee that I will be able to convince an operator to connect with us. Obviously having a conduit for fiber in the ground would pay off one day (at least in terms of connectivity). The big question is how to recover that initial investment. I can take the risk because I'm more interested in learning everything about this than recovering this part of the investment.

However, outside money will likely play a part in the second stage of the project. I may need to raise some money to run fiber between our residence and the exchange in St Nom (where we could potentially interconnect with a number of operators). The numbers here wouldn't be huge - probably in the EUR 40,000 range, but this is where I'd start looking at financing options. Given the willingness of my friend to participate I may consider approaching the people in the residence in becoming co-owners of the fiber between the exchange and our residence. That could be a win-win situation because it would increase their incentive to actually use the line themselves.

How to sell fiber / Comment vendre la fibre

I was recently attending a conference abroad where someone brought up an interesting point that got me thinking. The speaker was saying that we spend too much time trying to sell broadband. Instead, we need to sell people on what they can do with broadband. Essentially users don't buy lines. They buy services.

A lot of my planning recently has been how to convince people in the community that they need fiber. Maybe that's missing the point. I should focus on things they would be able to do with fiber that are not possible with standard ADSL - particularly where we are.

The big question for me (and probably the rest of the telecommunication world) is what are these services? What services could attract a 70-year old couple in the village and make it worth it to pay a little extra for fiber services?

Why our sidewalks need repair / Pourquoi nous devons réparer nos trottoirs

I noticed how badly our sidewalks need repair as I was walking out of the residence the other day. The asphalt has simply broken away in certain areas. It some ways it was nice because it allowed me to look at what was going on underneath. I was a bit surprised at how shallow the asphalt actually is. There was just rock and dirt underneath.

I had never really thought about the depth of the asphalt on the road and sidewalks.

I uploaded the picture I took that morning to my flikr account along with the other photos I snapped of the gas dig in our neighborhood. I laughed as I was uploading the pictures because my account is full of pictures of dirt, holes, sidewalks and streets - all interesting to me but probably not to the general public!

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.

French civil costs with Vincent MONVILLE / Discussion des coûts civils avec Vincent MONVILLE

I had lunch with Vincent MONVILLE, a French fiber specialist who is a friend of Benoît FELTEN. I met him to talk about general costs and civil works here in France. He's very familiar with providing point-to-point fiber connectivity and clued me in to some of the hurdles I'm going to have to go through. I took notes and even snatched the part of the paper table cloth where he'd drawn some network diagrams.

He broke the network into three geographical parts:

1. Outside the residence
   This is one of the most complex parts of the civil works to manage bureaucratically. He suggested this is best handled by the operator from whom we eventually purchase connectivity or bring in to provide their own services. In these areas we're also required to dig down the full 60 cm for the trenches.
2. Public areas of the residence (sidewalks, roads. aggregation point)
   Vincent explained that in a residence I'll probably need to put my request to use the public spaces (and dig the road) to a vote of the residents. That seems natural. I then asked him if I'd need unanimous support from the residents. This could be difficult to obtain after watching some of the debates at the previous association meeting. However, he explained that the process for getting approval is different among associations. In some you only need permission of the "syndic" or president of the association. Others may require a majority vote. Finally, there are some circumstances when we'd have to have all residents in agreement. I'll have to check more on how this works for our own residence. One positive element - we may be able to reduce the depth of the trenches to 15 cm since the residence is private property. That will reduce costs.
3. Personal property
   Obviously here we'd need permission of every owner before digging in their property. I think most will agree to this, particularly if they're not paying up front. However, there could still be cases where people may decide they don't need fiber and don't want their lawns and gardens touched. This poses a particular problem. In order to attract operators we need to have as many potential clients as possible. Skipping a house with the network (because an owner refuses) will be slightly less costly but also will decrease the incentive for operators. Vincent suggested a work-around here. We could simply put a small drop box in the public portion of the sidewalk in front of their home. As soon as the owner changed his/her mind we could pick up the conduit from there and bring it to the house.

Vincent also explained several steps before the contractors come in and start digging up the road/sidewalk in the residence:

1. Ask the mayor for a list of network owners
   We need the list of the network owners (electricity, water, sewer, gas, phone, cable) so we can ask them for maps of where their networks are in the area. We'd need to map our own conduit around the existing infrastructure. Vincent explained this was part of a 1991 law I'll have to dig up (so to speak).
2. Wait four weeks for answers
   The operators have four weeks to answer us with their maps. These will typically come as a PDF or as paper copies.
3. Present maps and plans to residents
   Once I've mapped out the proposed route for the network I need to present it to the residents. This would show them where we would like to dig in the public areas and on their property.
4. Notifying existing network owners of the dig
   The company doing the digging has to send a "DICT" to all network owners 10 business days before the work starts. This notifies them that there may be work near their own networks and I assume it allows them to come and ensure their networks remain untouched.

Vincent also gave me a bit of information about the rack I'd need to install and the elements that I'd need to put in it. I'll try to locate this in the public area of the residence which will serve as the aggregation point for the fiber connections.

• Enclosure: 2m x 60 cm x 60 cm
• Uninterrupted power supply
• A fiber entry point
• The actual switching/termination equipment
• Batteries

Vincent gave me lots of good advice and suggested I speak next with people who have been doing FTTH projects to see how they would plan out the network. Once I have that information he said he'd be able to give me a better picture of the costs involved.

Backyard vs. Street / Jardin vs. Rue

Street and curb in our residence

I've been having some discussions offline with several experts the past few days that have been really helpful. They've mainly been about the physical network components and topology. I'll summarize the discussions soon (along with my key findings) but one of the most interesting ideas has been where to put the conduit/cables.

I decided that I wanted to do the project when I heard that all households were being asked to pay roughly EUR 2000 to redo the roads in our "residence". I couldn't think of a better time to put down conduit in the streets to run fiber.

It's never quite that easy though. There are a couple of issues I've run into that I'd never thought about before in my life. For example, I've been going to bed at night thinking about how I could traverse the concrete curbs between the road and the sidewalk which are not scheduled for repair. There is also the question of how we'll dig the trenches too.

One of the options put forward is that I could consider actually running the network through the back gardens of the homes - rather than the streets. There are some interesting possibilities there but also some challenges.

My French friends have explained that France has a long socialist history where people band together. BUT, one area where this does not apply is in housing residences. I saw this in the meeting I attended and can imagine that there may be owners who wouldn't allow us to dig through their gardens.

Meeting with head of the association for our residence / Parler avec le president de notre residence

Saturday I walked down to talk to the head of our residence association about the fiber plan. He was very open to the idea of the project and we talked for about 30 minutes about what I think we should do. He said that he'd allow me a few minutes to make my case at the association meeting on June 13th.

In some ways it may be an uphill battle. The association has had trouble before convincing everyone that now is the time to redo the road. There seems to be a split among the younger residents (for the repairs) and older residents (against).

While we were talking he said that he could understand why I would want to put in the network but that the connection he has now is sufficient for their family. The mayor said the same thing when I met with him.

I think this highlights a challenge for all municipal or local rollouts. We don't appreciate what high-speed broadband can be used for when we haven't had access to it at home. It reminds me of a conference I attended a few years back where someone stood up and said that his software company of 10-15 people did just fine sharing an 64 kbit/s connection. There was an audible gasp in the room.

In these cases I typically explain how much bandwidth is required for one HDTV stream (10 Mbit/s). However, there are other applications I think will have an even larger impact on our everday lives. One of these will likely be teleworking. Sure, it hasn't panned out yet but all the new focus on reducing carbon emissions is bound to make it a more attractive option in the future.

Luckily the cable company Noos has done me a huge favor with the association president and others in the village. There is this rage directed at the company that lurks beneath the surface here among its subscribers. I've never seen anything like it with a company before. It's not just our village either. Noos was recently put under surveillance by the DGCCRF (Competition and Consumer Fraud Department of the Finance Ministry). The president of the association said that while his connection worked well that he had lots of difficulties with them over billing.

Noos is making selling this idea much easier.