Topology and layout ideas / Idées pour la topologie

I had lunch with Vincent MONVILLE again this week and we talked about some of the fiber details of the project. I was interested in his estimate of installation costs (to see if I've set aside enough) but he explained that first I had to decide exactly how I was going to distribute and split off each connection. Only then would it be possible to get a better grasp on the prices.

He was right so I took out my trusty Garmin GPS III Plus and marked all the handholes specified in the France Telecom map. That allowed me to get a pretty good estimate of the distances from each handhole back to the main aggregation point for telephone lines in our residence.

Here are the numbers I came out with.

• Total length of all fiber pair segments to the handhole (handhole to aggregation point): 3934 meters
• Total length of all fiber pair segments to the house (generous estimate of home/apt to aggregation point): 4719 meters
• Average loop length to handhole: 79 meters
• Longest loop length to handhole: 220 meters
• Shortest loop length to handhole: 19 meters

• Best aggregation point: In the street next to waypoint #021

I figure the best way to distribute the 50 lines is using some sort of microconduit within the existing conduit in the street. That way the line would be protected at the split-off points. I'm not sure though so any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

UTOPIA Speed Update / UTOPIA Nouvel essai de vitesse

In July I posted about the slow speeds I found when testing a UTOPIA connection. Ben, one of the roommates in the house, wrote and said the slow result was likely the due to the groom's slow computer which I used to run the test.

Ben kindly ran a new speed test using his computer and Google's new Chrome browser (which gave better results than both IE and Firefox). His new results are much better and show the line is producing high speeds.

I was impressed with the high upload speed, particularly because it was better than the download side.

Next Steps: Business formation / Etapes prochaines: formation de l'entreprise

1. Get an attestation of the original funds blocked in the bank (completed)

   The bank sent me an attestation today which shows that I put EUR 1000 into an escrow-type account for setting up the business. I need this to move forward with the business registration and it's called a:

   "CERTIFICAT CONSTATANT LES VERSEMENTS DE FONDS SOCIETES EN FORMATION"

   It essentially says that the bank has the money and a copy of the statuts of the business.

2. Registering the business information with the tax authority

   Now that I have the attestation showing the funds are blocked away the next step is submitting the business registration to the tax authority. They need a copy of the "Status" of the business. This is an 18 page document that my friend (an attorney here in France) helped me prepare. It describes the nature of the business and sets up the framework of the business.

   They put a stamp on the original statuts when I register them.

3. Register with the Chamber of Commerce and Industry

   The next step (as I understand it) is taking the information to the Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Once they have the necessary documents they give me the business license, called a "Kbis" here.

4. Return to the bank with the stamped "statuts" and the Kbis to create a real bank account

   Once I have both the Kbis and the stamped statuts I can open up a real bank account and start doing business.

Now, I'm no lawyer and I'm still a bit in the dark about how this registration system works. I'll update this page if I have any new (or improved) information though.

There is one thing I do plan on doing to learn more about the process. The Versailles Chamber of Commerce and Industry has a free seminar once every month where people starting businesses can go and learn about setting up a business in our area. I plan on attending the one on October 14th if possible.

Appointment with the bank - Rendez-vous à la banque

I made an appointment for next Saturday to open up a dedicated bank account - one of the key first steps to starting a business here in France. The bank told me they need four things from me.

1. Projet de statuts (official paperwork for the business)
2. Pièces d'identité (Proof of identity like passport or resident card)
3. Justificatifs de domicile (Proof of residence from the town)
4. Dépot du capital (Initial capital for the business to be put in the account)

A good lawyer friend was really helpful with the paperwork for the projet de status but it is taking me a bit longer than I had planned to gather up all the paperwork - including proof of marriage. I will likely pay someone to handle all the paperwork once I have everything checked off the list.

France Telecom: map of the conduit - France Telecom: Carte des fourreaux

I came back from the US this month and my neighbor had a big surprise waiting for me. He had called France Telecom to get more information about the conduit in the residence and to request a map.

He presented it to me at the door the day I got back. It's great. Now I can see where I need to put my own aggregation point (bottom right of the communal property) in order to get back to the exchange in the most efficient way.

There is, however, still some confusion over who actually owns the conduit. My neighbor was able to dig up some information from the original builder but it is information already had (Article 14: Passage de Canalisations). It is fairly clear that even if we don't own it we have a right to have the communal antenna (RF over fiber on the second pair) in the conduit.

He gave me the name of his contact at France Telecom and I'll follow up with him this week.

Slow speeds sting UTOPIA FTTH - Une vitesse réduite gêne des abonnements de UTOPIA

I'm in the US for a wedding in Portland and I helped the groom move his things out of his current house in Utah this week. I found out he had a UTOPIA FTTH connection so I asked him if I could take a look. I snapped this picture of his installation in the basement and I was excited to try out the connection.

Luckily he had given me some warning so I wasn't too disappointed. It was very slow and I was unable to get more than 3 Mbit/s download from speedtest.net to an ISP in Utah. Sure there are a lot of factors at play with these speed tests but it did get me thinking. UTOPIA (and iProvo) face some serious challenges and it will be very difficult to convince consumers to switch to fiber if the offers and services aren't better than the one I tried with UTOPIA. In fact, it took us over 10 minutes to upload the pictures I took of the installation to a mail account. The ISPs need to do much better than that if they want these rollouts to obtain high penetration rates and cover their costs.

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Now contrast this US FTTH deployment with an apartment LAN fiber test I did in Korea the month before using Powercom. I was able to achieve 12 Mbit/s down and 20 Mbit/s upstream all the way to the server in Japan on a Sunday afternoon (screenshot below). I believe the only way to make FTTH projects viable is to offer fast enough speeds to differentiate the offers from DSL and Cable. Sadly, UTOPIA didn't have to stretch too far to outshine cable and DSL but the service I saw wasn't even able to do that.

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.