Tag: West Des Moines

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The Industry

The New Open-Access

It’s fairly easy to understand the concept of open-access. This is where somebody owns a fiber network and allows other ISPs to use the network to compete for customers. The most common owners of open-access networks have been owned by local governments, although SiFi Networks, a commercial entity, has built and is operating several open-access networks.

The open-access dynamics have been similar everywhere. The network owner makes the big investment in the network and sells individual connections to ISPs. This is an interesting operating model for an ISP because it doesn’t have to make any significant capital outlays to be able to provide gigabit bandwidth over a fiber network. In the traditional open-access model, the network owner not only owns the fiber, but also the electronics needed to reach customers. The network owner maintains the network and is responsible for repairs and periodic electronics upgrades. The ISPs sell and provide service to customers.

The traditional open-access model has mostly attracted local and relatively small ISPs. The appeal of the model for ISPs is that they don’t have to make a big capital investment to gain paying customers. If there is any downside to the traditional open-access model, it’s that having multiple ISPs tends to force down consumer prices and pushes down margins. Traditional open-access also requires a different marketing pitch because every ISP is using the identical technology – the value proposition from an ISP has to be based on price and service.

But there are new models related to open-access that don’t fit the traditional open-access model. Consider the West Des Moines conduit model. The city is building empty conduit to reach every home and business in the city. ISPs that want to use the network have to make a significant investment by pulling fiber throughout the city and also providing the electronics. The conduit model is not going to attract undercapitalized ISPs since an ISP has to make a significant investment to reach customers. So far, the City has attracted Google Fiber and Mediacom, and the City is hoping for more ISP tenants.

It’s hard to describe this as open-access. Instead of getting a dozen or more small ISPs on the fiber network, West Des Moines has attracted two large ISPs so far. That’s not meant as a negative, because the West Des Moines model is already bringing more competition using fiber than if the City had decided to become an ISP or if the City had entered into a more traditional public-private partnership with a single ISP. Bringing two or three large ISPs to compete in a city seems like a big upside.

I’m just speculating, but my guess is that a market that draws a handful of large ISPs is probably not going to bring a lot of price competition. I would be surprised if Google Fiber or the other ISPs interested in this model will lower their prices due to the presence of a few other large ISPs in the market. In West Des Moines, the ISPs aren’t sharing a network since each ISP brings its own unique set of electronics and associated features – although everybody will have fast speeds.

Another new model that I see a lot of cities contemplating is best described as dark fiber leasing. In this scenario, a city builds fiber everywhere and leases unlit fiber to ISPs. This model requires an ISP to provide end-to-end electronics. which is a far smaller investment than requiring an ISP to pull fiber through city-owned conduit. There are hundreds of cities doing this already on a small scale, but I can’t think of a larger city that has tried this everywhere yet. But I won’t be surprised if somebody tries this.  I also have a hard time calling this open-access since there would likely not be the capacity to offer this citywide to more than a few ISPs.

But maybe these are open-access, and I’m just getting hung up on the labels. Perhaps the easiest names for these operating models are open-access conduit and open-access dark fiber. It just makes it harder to talk to policymakers and politicians about open-access if it covers such a wide range of business models.

Categories
The Industry

Mediacom and West Des Moines

In 2020, the City of West Des Moines, Iowa announced it was building a fiber conduit network to bring fiber to pass all 36,000 residents and businesses in the city. It was a unique business model that can best be described as open-access conduit. What is unique about this arrangement is that conduit will be built along streets and into yards and parking lots to reach every home and business. The City is spending the money up front to cross the last hundred feet.

The City’s announcement also said that the conduit network is open access and is available to all ISPs. Google Fiber was announced as the first ISP tenant and agreed to serve everybody in the city. This means that Google Fiber will have to pay to pull fiber through the conduit system to reach customers.

Mediacom, the incumbent cable company in the city, sued West Des Moines and argued that the City had issued municipal bonds for the benefit of Google Fiber. The suit also alleges that the City secretly negotiated a deal with Google Fiber to the detriment of other ISPs. The suit claims Google Fiber had an advantage since one of the City Commissioners was also the primary Google Fiber lobbyist in the state.

As is usual with such suits, outsiders have no idea of the facts, and I’m not taking sides with either of the parties. A recent article said the two sides are nearing a settlement, and if so, we might never understand the facts. I find the lawsuit to be interesting because it raises several interesting issues.

A lot of cities are considering open-access networks. Politicians and the public like the idea of having a choice between multiple ISPs. But this suit raises an interesting dilemma that cities face. If a city launches an open-access network with only one ISP, like in this case, that ISP gets a huge marketing advantage over any later ISPs. On an open-access network, no ISP has a technological advantage – every ISP that might come to West Des Moines will be providing fiber broadband.

If Google Fiber is first to market, it has an opportunity to sign everybody in the city who prefers fiber broadband over cable broadband. In the case of West Des Moines, each future ISP would also have to pay to pull fiber through the network, and a second ISP might have a hard time justifying this investment if Google Fiber already has a large market share.

From my understanding of the West Des Moines business model, the City needs additional ISPs to recover the cost of building the network – the City clearly intends to bring the benefits of open-access to its citizens. It’s hard to believe the City would intentionally gave an unfair advantage to Google Fiber. But did they inadvertently do so by giving Google Fiber the chance to gain a lock-down market share by being first?

Another interesting question this suit raises is if Mediacom considered moving onto the fiber network? When somebody overbuilds a market with fiber, the cable company must be prepared to compete against a fiber ISP. But in West Des Moines and a few other open-access networks like Springfield, Missouri, the cable company has a unique option – the cable company could also jump onto the fiber network.

It would be interesting to know if Mediacom ever considered moving to fiber. The company already has most of the customers in the market, and one would think it could maintain a decent market share if it went toe-to-toe with Google Fiber or another ISP by also competing using fiber. It would be a huge decision for a cable company to make this leap because it would be an admission that fiber is better than coaxial networks – and this switch probably wouldn’t play well in other Mediacom markets. I also think that cable companies share a characteristic with the big telcos – it’s probably challenging for a cable company to swap to a different technology in only a single market. Every backoffice and operational system of the cable company is geared towards coaxial networks, and it might be too hard for a cable company to make this kind of transition. I’m always reminded that when Verizon decided to launch its FiOS business on fiber, the company decided that the only way to do this was to start a whole new division that didn’t share resources with the copper business.

Finally, one issue this suit raises for me is to wonder what motivates ISPs to join an open-access network in today’s market. I understand why small ISPs might do this – they get access to many customers without making a huge capital investment. But there is a flip side to that and there can be a huge financial penalty for an ISP to pursue open access rather than building a network. In the last few years, we’ve seen a huge leap-up in the valuation multiple applied to facility-based fiber ISPs. When it comes time for an ISP to sell a market, or even to leverage an existing market for borrowing money, a customer on a fiber network that is owned by an ISP might easily be worth ten times more than that same customer on a network owned by somebody else.

That is such a stark difference in value that it makes me wonder why any big ISP would join an open-access network. Open-access is an interesting financial model for an ISP because it can start generating positive cashflow with only a few customers. But is the lure of easy cash flow a good enough enticement for an ISP to forego the future terminal value created by owning the network? This obviously works for some ISPs like Google Fiber, which seems to only want to operate on networks owned by others. But consider a small rural telco that might be located outside of West Des Moines. The telco could generate a much higher value by building to a few thousand customers in a market outside West Des Moines than by adding a few thousand customers on the open-access network.

The giant difference in terminal value might explain why open-access networks have such a hard time luring ISPs. It probably also answers the question of why a cable company like Mediacom is not jumping to join somebody else’s network. It’s an interesting financial debate that I’m sure many ISPs have had – it it better to go for the quick and easy cash flow from open-access or take more risks but hope for the much bigger valuation from building and owning the network and the customers?

Categories
Current News

Google Fiber Comes to Iowa

The City of West Des Moines recently announced a deal with Google Fiber to bring fiber to pass all 36,000 residents and businesses in the city. This is a unique business model that can best be described as open-access conduit.

The city says that the estimated cost of the construction is between $35 million and $40 million and that the construction of the network should be complete in about two-and-a-half years. The full details of the plan have not yet been released, but the press is reporting that Google Fiber will pay $2.25 per month to the city for each customer that buys service from Google Fiber.

What is most unique about this arrangement is that conduit will be built along streets and into yards and parking lots to reach every home and business. I know of many cities that lease out some empty conduit to ISPs and carriers, but the big limitation of most empty conduit is that it doesn’t provide easy access to get from the street to reach a customer. West Des Moines will be spending the money to build the conduit to serve the last hundred feet.

This business arrangement will still require Google Fiber to pull fiber throughout the entire empty conduit network – but that is far cheaper for the company than building a network from scratch. The big cost of building any fiber network is the labor needed to bring the fiber along every street – and the city has absorbed that cost. The benefit of this arrangement for Google Fiber is obvious – the company saves the cost of building a standalone fiber network in the City. It’s the cost of financing expensive networks up-front that makes ISPs hesitant to enter new markets.

From a construction perspective, I’m sure that the City is building fiber with some form of innerduct – which is a conduit with multiple interior tubes that can accommodate multiple fibers (as is shown in the picture accompanying this blog). This would allow additional ISPs to coexist in the same conduits. If the conduits built through yards also include innerduct it would make it convenient for a customer to change fiber ISPs – disconnect fiber from ISP A and connect to the fiber from ISP B.

The City is banking on other ISPs using the empty conduit because Google Fiber fees alone won’t compensate the city for the cost of the conduit. The press reported that Google Fiber has guaranteed the City a minimum payment of at least $4.5 million over 20 years. I’m sure the City is counting on Google Fiber to perform a lot better than that minimum, but even if Google Fiber connects to half of all of the customers in the City, the $2.25 monthly fee won’t repay the City’s cost of the conduit.

This business model differs significantly from the typical open-access network model. In other open-access networks, the City pays for 100% of the cost of the network and the electronics up to the side of a home or business. The typical monthly fee for an ISP to reach a customer in these open access-networks ranges between $30 and $45 per month. Those high fees invariably push ISPs into cherry-picking and only pursuing customers willing to pay high monthly rates. The $2.25 fee in West Des Moines won’t push ISPs to automatically cherry-pick or charge a lot.

Any ISP willing to come to the city has a few issues to consider. They avoid the big cost of constructing the conduit network. But a new ISP will still need to pay to blow fiber through the conduit. Any new ISP will also be competing against Google Fiber. One of the most intriguing ISPs already in the market is CenturyLink. The company has shown in Springfield, Missouri that it is willing to step outside the traditional business model and use somebody else’s network. I would have to imagine that other ISPs in the Midwest perked up at this announcement.

In announcing the network, the City said that they hoped this network would bring fiber to everybody in the City. Google Fiber doesn’t typically compete on price. Earlier this year Google Fiber discontinued its 100 Mbps broadband connection for $50. Many homes are going to find the $70 gigabit product from Google Fiber to be unaffordable. It will be interesting over time to see how the city plans on getting broadband to everybody. Even municipalities that own their own fiber network are struggling with the concept of subsidizing fiber connections below cost to make them affordable.

One thing this partnership shows is that there are still new ideas to try in the marketplace. For an open-access conduit system to be effective means attracting multiple ISPs, so this idea isn’t going to work in markets much smaller than West Des Moines. But this is another idea for cities to consider if the goal is to provide world-class broadband for citizens and businesses.

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