Working together with the municipal government / Collaboration avec le gouvernement municipal

The meeting today with Bruno DIDIER and Philippe CHIVOT (les maires-adjoints) from the municipal government went extremely well. We spent almost 2 hours talking about the status of broadband development in the village and the best ways to move forward with a fiber project.

There were a number of key issues and developments:

• The new, upgraded exchange is due to be built early next year

  This is a huge development and is tied to a EUR 50'000 investment by the municipality. The deal is rather complex as I understand it. France Telecom owns the land where the exchange will be built but our local government will pay for the construction of the new building/shelter. After 20 years the building will be deeded back to France Telecom.

  I was never very happy with this arrangement but luckily the papers have not been officially signed and approved. This is excellent news. One of the key points of our discussion in the meeting was how to restructure elements of the deal to accommodate fiber rollouts.

• Competitive operators likely are coming

  The new exchange will be built to accommodate competitive operators and from the look of it there are some who may be interested in coming with their own equipment. Obviously there are no "done deals" yet but this would be a good sign if it turns out to be correct.

  Operators would install their own DSLAMs for DSL (and hopefully FTTH equipment at the same time) when the exchange opens. For the residents in my area that means DSL speeds at 400 meters, instead of 4500 meters. Others farther up and away from the exchange won't be so lucky but there is a bit of geography in our favor as well. Generally the farther you get from our exchange the more expensive the homes become. That means the most expensive lines would be installed to the most expensive houses where residents could pay more for the installation. All operators already have a fiber presence which passes through the exchange using the Yvelines Numériques backbone.

• We are all islands (private residences)

  It turns out that St Nom La Bretèche is different than many other French towns because we are largely made up of islands of private residences (where the roads are owned and maintained by the residents). This set-up actually makes rolling out fiber easier because the conduit in each of these private residences belongs to the residents, not France Telecom. The challenge is linking these various islands together by crossing streets or through France Telecom's conduit - and then back down to the exchange.

  We talked about ways to facilitate "bridges" (conduit) between these islands (subdivisions) and the municipal government seems very ready to help. I asked for a list of any proposed work on roads ahead of time so that we could put in manholes and conduit across streets between these "islands" whenever there was work planned.

  The really good thing about the island approach is that each private residence will only have to build out to the nearest "fibered" island and not all the way back to the exchange. it will take some planning to ensure we have enough fibers passing through each residence to ensure point-to-point connections back to the exchange but it is possible.

• Ensuring the new exchange is "fiber-ready" and open to competition

  As long as the village is going to be footing the bill to build the exchange for France Telecom why not insist on including space for an optical distribution frame which becomes the property of the village? That is one of the nice things about the government paying EUR 50'000 to build something for a private company. They have bargaining leverage. If France Telecom were against the idea the municipality could simply take the 50'000 and build their own public fiber exchange right next to the copper one instead.

  We spent some time talking about the details of what the municipality should require in the deal and I promised to get some feedback from experts in the Netherlands. I'll post their responses.

I left the meeting very excited for the project. The next step is contacting the competitive operators (with the help of the municipality) about putting a workable fiber plan into action.

Preparing to meet with the Mayor's cabinet / La préparation pour une réunion avec les Maires-Adjoints

I called the office of our Mayor (Manuelle WAJSBLAT) last week to ask for an appointment to speak with her about fiber. There are a couple of things I wanted to talk about.

1. The status of France Telecom's upgrade of our exchange
2. The need for a small space next to the exchange (which the village owns) for fiber termination equipment
3. The plan eventually to extend our network to other residences
4. Coordinating fiber planning with any civil work in the village

Her office called me back to set up a meeting for today with the heads of two municipal commisssions (les maires-adjoints).

• Bruno DIDIER
  Urbanisme, Environnement, Développement économique, Transports, Sécurité
  (Urbanism, environment, economic development, transportation and security)

• Philippe CHIVOT
  Travaux, Entretien du Patrimoine, Marchés Publics, Ordures Ménagères
  (Work, maintaining historical elements, public works and trash collection)

Before the meeting I spoke with a friend of mine who had a similar post in another city government and he gave me some key things to focus on for the discussions. He told me how it is important to focus on the benefits to everyone involved - the users, the businesses and even the political leaders.

I realized as I was going through my speaking points that there are some huge benefits for a village with fiber. First, it will add value to our homes at a time when people are worried that their house values are falling. We'd also move from having some of the worst connections in our department to having the best. We could also take advantage of the regional network backbone investments put in place by our department which have been, so far, underutilized. Finally, symmetric connections for telecommuting could help ease traffic congestion, improve business traffic for local merchants and help the environment. Those are some big social benefits.

Meeting with Yvelines Numériques / RDV avec Yvelines Numériques

I met up with Jean LEBRET of Yvelines Numériques today in Paris. (For a quick reminder: Yvelines Numeriques is a public/private backhaul network running through our French department). We walked over to a small cafe to talk about the project when French fighter planes cruised right above us in formation - flanking what looked to be a bomber of some sort. It happened three times on the short walk and the jets even left blue and red trails behind them. The whole ground shook as they flew by. Very impressive. We assumed it was practice for Bastille Day coming up.

Yvelines Numériques network path

Once we sat down I explained what I wanted to accomplish with the project and where our residence is located. I may be wrong but I think he was a bit surprised with my determination to see this project through. He jumped right in too saying that he hadn't heard of a similar project yet in France and thought this could actually work in our favor - helping us convince politicians to help me out.

He pulled out his computer and we started going over the maps. It turns out we are very close to their fiber backbone network - but not quite as close as their public map had made it appear. Their network actually dips down a street lower from us, away from the main road, as it comes near the church (and near us). He was able to measure the distance from the edge of the residence to the nearest possible splice point for their network (310 meters). Still not too bad.

He gave me an estimate for how much it will cost to get from our network (in the residence) to his (closer to the exchange): EUR 120 per meter.

310 meters * EUR 120/meter = EUR 37,200

Expensive. He did mention that the prices for the dig could actually be lower (down to EUR 50 per meter) if we were mainly going through fields - which I don't think we would be.

I was a bit taken back with the costs of simply getting to the backhaul but it make me think of some other options, particularly wireless. I'll write about those a bit later.

The main thing I pulled out of our conversation was that he thinks the best way to approach this is by convincing the government to help us get connected to the network. We would essentially ask the village or department to pay for (or subsidize) the connection to Yvelines Numériques as a way for them to save money on connectivity for government offices in the town (e.g. schools, mayor's office, post office). The more he talked about it the more I thought this could be an option. He gave me the names of two people in the Conseil Général to contact who may be able to help. He also suggested I go back to the Mayor and try to convince him to pool the demand for the local government as a way to justify running a fiber between the mayor's office and their network. We could take some strands as the network passed by on the road to the commercial center.

France Telecom Exchange (St Nom)

This could be politically attractive option since the Department helped fund half the backbone network and they would have an interest in seeing it lit. Yvelines Numériques only provides the dark fiber so the more cables they can light, the better. I got the impression that the network has much more capacity now than is in use. Out of the 144 fibers in their first cable it sounded like less than 10% were lit in our area. They would definitely have room for us if we could get to them. He also explained that once we'd be in contact with their own fiber the costs would be quite low to go the rest of the way to the exchange (100 meters). They charge EUR 1.80 per meter per year.

Once we made it to the exchange other operators could easily supply us with services since they also have lit fibers on the same backhaul network. The operators may not have their own equipment in the exchange now but it wouldn't be difficult or expensive to simply create a drop point.

Finally, Jean recommended I use PEHD (high density polyethylene in English) for the conduit when I lay it down in the sidewalks. By his calculation I'd need around a kilometer of it and he said the costs wouldn't be too bad.

I was very glad that Yvelines Numériques got back to me and there may be a way to work with them on this. The costs seemed high but I feel at least that this was sign that I can actually make this work.

Response from Yvelines Numériques / Réponse des Yvelines Numériques

Today I received an e-mail from the company running the Yvelines Numériques project (EIFFAGE Connectic 78). They explained that if I wanted to use their network I'd need to go through an ISP - which would then make the arrangements necessary for me to connect through the fiber backbone. I can understand that they would only deal with operators but the question is whether they will sell access to a new, small-scale operator.

I responded back just as I was leaving work with some information and a few more questions. I explained that we were in the process of speaking with ISPs about buying access through them or getting them to come patch into our network themselves. Then I put forward a few more questions:

1. If talks with the large operators fail, would Yvelines Numériques be willing to work with us as a new (and small) ISP?
2. Does your network terminate near or at an Internet exchange point?
3. I've heard that your network may be underutilized. If that is the case would you consider selling access directly to municipal fiber projects (assuming there is access to an Internet exchange)?

I was happy to hear back from them and they did offer a phone contact - which is not available on the website. I may call them on Monday since my spoken French is likely somewhat easier to understand that my written French.

Speaking with our mayor / Reunion avec notre maire

Today I met with the mayor of our village, Jean-Pierre GAUGENOT. I got lucky on two counts. First, he's an "informatician" (IT person) and second, he speaks English extremely well. That allowed me to jump into English when there were things I was having difficulty explaining.

It turns out he has a meeting with France Telecom scheduled for June 12th to discuss the future of their exchange in St Nom La Breteche (St Nom). I guess the municipality owns the land where it is currently located and France Telecom wants more land to expand. They've promised that they'll increase the size of the exchange (it's just for business connections now) and will give everyone in the village access to 8 Mbit/s connections with it. I quickly jumped in to say that wasn't enough.

He knew a lot about the fiber optic network from Yvelines Numeriques that passes by the town and said that he had given them the permission to build through. He wasn't sure that there was actually anyone using the network though. He mentioned that he would suggest they simply sell the network off to a private company. I figure there's little chance of that happening.

He bought up some very good points during our discussion that I'm going to have to eventually deal with.

1. A private individual or even a "residence" isn't going to be able to get a permit to cross a city street. I'd have to start a small company in order to even apply. He made it seem as if that may not be very easy.
2. There would be issues about who would be responsible for maintaining the network after it was built. He had concerns that it would be difficult to support when there were problems. I agreed and figuring out how to fix problems with the network when they pop up will be a key element of getting this off the ground.
3. He also suggested that pushing changes here in our village isn't easy. He said that the people love the way St Nom is right now and the best municipal projects are the ones that don't change anything.

It's a bit difficult for me to judge his reaction from the meeting. By the end of the meeting though he seemed interested in the idea and offered several good suggestions on how to proceed. I took that as a good sign.

1. He suggested that I try and partner with a big telecom provider to form a pilot FTTH project. He suggested contacting competitive operators to see if they'd be willing to help with the project as a model for future rollouts. I actually think that could be a good idea, particularly if I have to maneuver through a lot of red tape. I'm going to contact a few operators directly and ask them what they think.
2. He suggested that I write a letter to our "Conseiller Général", Colette LE MOAL. She is the elected person over our larger region and is influential in the Departement. He recommended I spell out the project to her, telling her I'd already discussed it with him. He said they were good friends I can see how that could help. He mentioned that she may have someone better to recommend as the contact for our project at her level.

I'll go ahead with his ideas and try and move this forward quickly. I'd like to have a letter ready for Ms. LE MOAL before his meeting with France Telecom as well.

Possible backhaul problem

I was gathering up information to take with me to my meeting with the mayor this week when I ran across some pricing information for connecting to the fiber backhaul(Yvelines Numeriques). I read through their literature and realize that I may have a problem using their network.

Our Department had the right idea about creating a fiber optic backhaul network that runs throughout our area. We've seen similar rollouts work well all over the world. The government comes in, helps fund the backhaul, and then lets the private sector take over - typically with open access rules.

The only problem here is that they've seemed to have decided ahead of time who they want on the network - and new operators are not part of that group. Their own website states:

FRENCH: Le Conseil Général des Yvelines ne cherche pas à favoriser l’éclosion d’un nouvel opérateur de télécommunications. Il cherche en revanche à attirer les opérateurs existants.

[ENGLISH: The General Council of the Yvelines is not looking to promote the development of a new telecommunication operator. Instead, it is looking to attract existing operators.

Essentially the goal is to bring in existing operators to use France Telecom's existing copper lines to homes - not create new ones.

I believe that this reveals a lack of a longer-term vision when they developed the project. From what I understand they've had trouble attracting the big operators to come and rent capacity to reach the local exchanges. To make matters worse, a French colleague of mine explained that they're locked into the terms of the contract for the 20 years of the "concession".

This seems to be their plan. They built the network mainly to help with local loop unbundling. Operators can lease fiber backhaul to local telecommunication exchanges and then rent copper lines directly to homes from there. The costs are probably too expensive for smaller operators.

They gave some of the pricing on the web. The entry-level price for a fiber strand is EUR 0.70 per meter per year. I initially wanted to run a connection back into Paris but that would be over 20 KM - if they even go that far. I did a few calculations and figured that I'd really need a much larger subscriber base even make the backhaul pay for itself. The minimum cost of taking a fiber from our village towards Paris would be EUR 14,000 per year. We'd have to spread that among a large number of households to make it even start to pay for itself - and that doesn't include the other costs of our own network or transit at the Internet exchange.

I may need to start looking into whether it would be possible to either buy capacity from a larger player or have them come to us.

No word yet from Yvelines Numériques / Pas de nouvelle des Yvelines Numériques

I haven't heard back from Yvelines Numérique yet. They are one of the big wildcards here in the project. I need to splice into their network to get from our village to one of the Internet exchanges in Paris. The price they'll charge for a fiber pair will set this project in one of two paths.

If the price is affordable then I think I'll stick with the option of becoming my own small ISP. However, if we have to sign up for a 30 year contract with them (and pay it up front), then that may not be an option. In that case I'd probably put in the duct infrastructure and fiber but wait for another operator to come along and light it.

I'm hoping their lack of response isn't the result of my terrible French. I've been warned by several French friends that this project could be an introduction to the French bureaucracy as well.

Contacting Yvelines Numériques / Contacter Yvelines Numériques

Today I wrote an e-mail to Yvelines Numériques to ask about splicing into their fiber in our village. I decided to send the letter off in my bad French rather than wait to have someone go through it and perfect it. That may have been a mistake but I figure I'd rather get as much information as quickly as possible. I've asked them how much it will cost to splice in and then how much I'll need to pay for connectivity per month to reach one of the Internet exchanges in Paris. I specifically asked about the prices to reach POUIX or PARIX.

The bad news / La mauvaise nouvelle

We live close to fiber but that doesn't mean that we're going to be able to afford splicing into it. I was at a conference in Paris earlier in the week and spoke with several backhaul carriers who were familiar with the Yvelines Numeriques project. They mentioned that since it was open access and non-discriminatory that meant that I would have to pay as much for a fiber line as a large telco which was unbundling at the exchange. That makes sense to me (from an economic perspective) but does imply that our little residential project may run up against scale economy problems. One possiblity is that we'll be able to make the initial splice and pay for capacity which can then be resold in bits to other neighborhoods in the village which may be interested.

The other bad news could be the road construction. It seems as if several neighbors have been against spending EUR 2000 each to upgrade our roads. I spoke to my wife and she thought the roads were in perfectly good shape and would probably recommend holding off on doing the road work if it were up to her. That could pose a problem - or maybe just end up leaving us another year to work out the details.

The good news / La bonne nouvelle

One of the main reasons I think this project could work is that we live very close to an open-access fibre backbone ring running throughout our French department (Les Yvelines - 78). Our community (residence) within the village has 24 homes, one apartment building and a few commercial shops. At the closest point we're less than 100 meters from the fibre running down the main street of the village and then out to the rest of the department.

From my understanding the fiber ring project, Yvelines Numeriques, was built to provide companies using unbundled local loops a way to connect to local exchanges. We happen to be geographically very close to the network so the civil engineering costs should be quite low to reach the fiber ring.

The other good news is our "residence" will vote next month on whether we should pay to have our roads redone. Our road is private and we're looking at roughly EUR 110,000 to redo it - spread among the residents. If the road work does go ahead then this would be an excellent opportunity to lay the fiber.

There also seems to be a lot of support from people in the neighborhood for such a project. Everyone has trouble with their broadband connections. Our DSL was out for 4 weeks straight in April and others have had similar problems. A few people in our village work in telecommunications and others have jobs that rely heavily on Internet connections. I believe that take-up could be high, particularly among the newer residents.