<div dir="ltr">Good questions.<div><br></div><div>The economics of gigabit are different from cable/dsl. Cable/DSL is dealing with very low bandwidth connections to the premises. They have to optimize for a particular purpose, and for consumers they make it asymmetric with a very strong bias to downloads. (Their business model also pictures homes as media consumers, not producers -- like cable.) They sell a different package to businesses, often needing to provide special connections higher fixed and variable costs.</div><div><br></div><div>Very high bandwidth connection to premises as infrastructure changes the economics. It's no longer the fixed capital component that's the limiting factor. In an open-access model, different Internet connection providers compete in their Internet connection offerings mainly based on their variable costs. So, the fixed cost for a house and a business aren't much different, though the business might pay more for higher bandwidth use. So, the competing open-access providers may offer different packages to consumers vs business, but the infrastructure cost is the same.</div><div><br></div><div>That said, this does really affect how we look at municipal financing. If a tax is based on living units, that would leave businesses out. If we had to use such a tax to bootstrap the infrastructure bill, it would then certainly be appropriate to have different connection terms for anyone who didn't invest via their taxes.</div><div><br></div><div>If municipal infrastructure was financed by a city bond, paid back via monthly charges for those using the service, then there's no economic reason for charging businesses differently for their part of the fixed costs.</div><div><br></div><div>By the way, these arguments only apply to municipal gig; they would have nothing to do with financing of high-speed connections to new business parks.</div><div><br></div><div>Steve</div><div><br></div><div><br></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Mar 30, 2015 at 11:37 PM, Shneor Sherman <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:szsherm@yahoo.com" target="_blank">szsherm@yahoo.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">If there really are 6,000 busineses in Davis, all could benefit from having high-speed internet - browse a store visually with data available at the touch of a finger, for retail, for example. The burden should be shared by businesses, not just paid for by homeowners.<br>
<br>
Shneor Sherman<br>
--------------------------------------------<br>
On Mon, 3/30/15, Steve McMahon <<a href="mailto:steve@dcn.org">steve@dcn.org</a>> wrote:<br>
<br>
Subject: Re: [Davisgig] Thoughts on "why the average user needs this"<br>
To: "<a href="mailto:davisgig@list.omsoft.com">davisgig@list.omsoft.com</a>" <<a href="mailto:davisgig@list.omsoft.com">davisgig@list.omsoft.com</a>><br>
Date: Monday, March 30, 2015, 3:14 PM<br>
<div><div class="h5"><br>
I just<br>
wanted to pitch in that I think Wes' argument is very<br>
important. Connections made available via the local duopoly<br>
are generally very asymmetric. They are about (passive or<br>
semi-passive) consumption of media, not production or<br>
participation. We can do better.<br>
On Mon, Mar 30, 2015 at<br>
2:58 PM, Wes Hardaker <<a href="mailto:wes@hardakers.net">wes@hardakers.net</a>><br>
wrote:<br>
<br>
<br>
I'm a geek, I run lots of stuff from my house and I know<br>
there has been<br>
<br>
discussions that this is not good enough for the average<br>
user. So I've<br>
<br>
been thinking a lot about this and thinking about why does<br>
the average<br>
<br>
person might want a super fast network. Then I started<br>
thinking of the<br>
<br>
kids (those kids that stand on my lawn all day).<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
The one huge thing that has been taking off lately is the<br>
usage of<br>
<br>
uploading video content to youtube, vimeo, etc. But<br>
it's not just<br>
<br>
video-streaming for hangouts/skype/etc (which you can do<br>
over a minimal<br>
<br>
connection). It's high quality videos of<br>
screen-sharing videos that<br>
<br>
kids are creating that take forever to upload. For<br>
example, my son<br>
<br>
has created a bunch of minecraft tutorials and even though<br>
the videos<br>
<br>
themselves were only 10-20 minutes long, he complained<br>
greatly when he<br>
<br>
learned they'd take an hour each to upload or so. And<br>
I have about the<br>
<br>
fastest DSL rate you can get to my house. And he's not<br>
the only<br>
<br>
teen-ager doing this kind of thing. It seems to be fairly<br>
popular to do<br>
<br>
right now and would be a good data point for our efforts<br>
here.<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
And I suspect more and more of the population will be doing<br>
these sort<br>
<br>
of things, like recording and uploading family videos,<br>
etc. And having<br>
<br>
to tie up the connection for hours is just frustrating. <br>
One way to lead<br>
<br>
the pack is to advertise that we could enable long distance<br>
connection<br>
<br>
sharing and family history archiving better via the new<br>
speeds.<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
... random thoughts<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
--<br>
<br>
Wes Hardaker<br>
<br>
My Pictures: <a href="http://capturedonearth.com/" target="_blank">http://capturedonearth.com/</a><br>
<br>
My Thoughts: <a href="http://pontifications.hardakers.net/" target="_blank">http://pontifications.hardakers.net/</a><br>
<br>
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<div class="HOEnZb"><div class="h5"><br>
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