wholesale dilemma (and solution)

Who wants wholesale access to our community fibre networks?

1. government want to see wholesale access offered if there's public money spent on their construction
2. ISPs believe they have a right to offer services on networks where there is a monopoly operator (irresepective of who paid for it)
3. consumers want a "choice" of ISPs

Sounds reasonable but the downside is that to engineer wholesale access can result in an inferior technical solution.  The standard wholesale architecture sees IP packets to and from a subscriber "tunnelled" to the serving ISP which can be quite some distance away.  Packets can't be processed (routed) at the Digital Village Pump.

BT Wholesale supportive of comunity networks - not!

ISPreview reports that Sally Davis, head of BT Wholesale, is advising the government not to rush to give money to smaller ISPs to build rural fibre access network.

She seems to be worried that once built, BT will have problems providing its services over a "patchwork" (her word) of access networks.  She seems oblivious to the fact that these communities aren't simply putting in access networks to do BT's job for them; they may not want (or need) BT's services at all.

It isn't suprising that BT should be discouraging competitors, but what is galling is BT's assumption that they should be the recipient of any government subsidies to build out their monopoly network, and the arrogance that we should be waiting our turn before BT deigns to sell their limited choice of overpriced services to us.

Active Line Access (the new Wholesale)

NICC are busy standardising the way that service providers can use third parties' local loop or last mile access circuits, or to put it the other way around, the way that an access circuit provider opens their network to allow others to sell to their subscribers.

BT Wholesale's lavish HQ (nr. Gatwick)

BT have been doing this for years via the IPstream/Central products in the ADSL world, WBC in 21CN, WLR, LLU and all manner of other wholesale acronyms and it's no bad thing that these interfaces should be standardised; it levels the playing field and clarifies the demarcation between access and service providers.

I'm not sure it helps a community-built FTTH (or hybrid) network though.