Imsong Lee called the meeting to order at 7:40 AM.
Imsong introduced Frank Robles, CEO of NanoSpace, who was asked by 2 of the participants what he thought of the recent RFI (request for input). Frank noted that he believed NanoSpace was one of 2 ISPs (internet service providers) who replied to the RFI from the City on serving users of the FTTH (fiber to the home) project. The City home page lists 4 companies, one of them doesn't even have a URL (uniform resource locator) yet.
He was asked again by a participant what he thinks of the RFI. Frank replied that the RFI asked many very thorough and appropriate business questions, questions that any responsibile party should ask. There were questions before the meeting about the fiber architecture and how it works both for local data exchange and for access to the Internet. I feel that we should build a star topology so that everyone can talk to all the others on the local network at high speed and at no cost, and there is no need to pay an ISP to talk to your neighbor. The city will pay for the switch at the star which connects local users, but not for connections to the Internet.
Michael Silverton asked who owns the fiber? Frank said the ISP pays the City 110% of the cost of the fiber to connect from the local splice point to the building, and also pays all the cost of the switching and connection equipment, and then pays lease fees to the City. It's very unattractive to an ISP, but Van Heimke wants to recover all the City capital costs in 3 years. It's not like an electrical utility where everyone is hooked up and uses it, so the costs are spread to everyone. This system will be used by a limited number of people, not 100%. So the companies that are first are charged disproportionally.
Margaret Cooley asked if this is similar to the garbage company. Who owns PASCO?
Marvin Lee replied that it is a private company with a contract with the city to provide service. Bob Moss added that PASCO is guaranteed a profit and a return on investment (ROI), and recently negotiated an increase in both ROI and profit margin.
A major question is who funds the connection to the Internet, and what are the costs, both to the ISP and the users?
David Harris said the community shouldn't own the connection to the Internet.
Frank agreed that community ownership is undesirable, and noted only 1 or 2 of the 31 ISPs at the Compaq Exchange replied to the RFI. The national Internet network is slower than the Palo Alto network, and the FTTH proposal could draw down data at maximum capacity from the national backbone to the local network. The ISP could not do this at no charge to the local users. The ISP pays the charges for downloads from the Internet but wouldn't be able to charge costs back to the customers. No one has made it clear how this would be done and benefit the ISP.
A discussion followed regarding peering relationships at the Internet level, and how the Palo Alto setup would work to peer with the outside world. There are possible ways to track and charge for data services independent of the local loop, but it's difficult.
Presently NanoSpace is providing DSL (digital subscriber line) services and has partnered with Covad, IGC, Pac Bell and Pac West.
How does the Palo Alto proposal relate to users of the fiber loop?
Frank said everyone is tied together to the local Palo Alto network, and can communicate to others on the local network at very high rates and with high quality signals for free, with other homes and local agencies. Tying to the internet means tying to a backbone with speeds of 1.54 MBPS to 45 MBPS to 155 MBPS for the national network, so actual data rates from the Internet to a user will be far lower than the maximum speed possible for purely local communications. Since homes would have the ability to run 10X faster than the rest of the Internet, connections to the rest of the Internet will have data rates lower than the nominal data rate maximum speed within Palo Alto.
Michael Silverton asked why can't we tie to the Internet at higher data rates with connections to Quest or others with high speed backbones?
Frank said yes that can be done, but it will be very expensive. Actual data rates to the rest of the country will be far slower than data rates possible in the local area, and it's a real economic issue getting higher external data rates that are anywhere near the internal loop speeds. The local loop at 100 mbps will have more capacity than much of the Internet
Frank Robles said he plans to meter data at $20/gigabyte for external data services. He wants to maintain 70% utilization of his system, since NanoSpace pays a flat rate for the access whether they actually use the capacity or not. Frank plans to log every customer's IP address so NanoSpace can charge more to high data users, and may be able to arrange usage limits for those who want them. NanoSpace is also planning for load/usage balancing to reduce potential harm by some users and maintain a high level of quality of service for everybody on the network.
Andrew Smith asked how about using the system for delivering video?
Frank Robles said video doesn't use much bandwidth and it works OK in the fiber setup. It can be done if people want it and can pay for it. Video can be delivered via the Internet now, and will be done fairly commonly eventually. An uncompressed non-streaming movie can be downloaded and saved for about $80 based on the $20/gigabyte of data transferred. Compressed or streaming content will be a small fraction of the cost. Once a user pays for the movie download and saves it to disc, it's theirs to use all they want.
Question was asked about using the fiber and the City trial to tie into libraries and schools? There are several schools, libraries, and public facilities like churches in the Community Center Neighborhood area, and it is very desirable to connect them to the fiber also.
Emily Harrison said the City is looking at those kinds of connections, and is talking to the School District about access to the fiber.
Frank offered to tie in to schools and libraries as part of the program.
Mary Jo Levy said Utilities has looked at where equipment might be placed for neighborhood connections and that there is a City facility conveniently placed to hold the stuff in most areas. If a library is used, it could conveniently be connected to fiber then.
Warren Kallenback noted that there is an unused utility facility near the CNN area which might accommodate the equipment for the local fiber loop in a weather resistant enclosure. Van Heimke had looked at the location on a map and said it was near a splice and thus could work, but he hadn't looked at the facility itself.
Michael Silverton said the City should waive engineering fees for connections to schools, libraries, and churches.
It was noted that it is surprising that connections to schools and libraries is not part of the pilot project.
Emily Harrison noted that fiber installations will be included in most schools as they are remodeled.
Mary Jo said there is a long range plan to link all city facilities together, but they haven't worked out the details yet. It is possible the libraries can tie into the fiber at the same time a local neighborhood does as part of the FTTH trail, and then test downloading data at high speeds using the fiber.
Peter Kacendes noted that the number of people actually paying for the FTTH connection will drop greatly if rates for access are nearly those of T-1 lines today.
Marvin Lee said their idea is to have low monthly rates and pay up front for the connection.
Frank Robles noted that one can design for quality of service, and then charge at a metered rate for bandwidth as it is used.
Margaret Cooley said she understands how having 1 ISP works but how will multiple ISPs work together and communicate with each other?
Frank said that locating the equipment is important, but it's not necessary to be with the Compaq center downtown. (This was the DEC center, and now is called the PAIX). The City could set up a switch near any splice point in the system, and then make the connections between the this switch, the ISPs and other switches on the local network. This would be sort of a "Local Internet Exchange" or LIX.
Frank said that for the local network there will probably be 2 boxes, 1 near the community and 1 at the LIX where ISPs would connect. One proposal had a setup with several switches, several routers, and cost would have been over $1 million, which is expensive and a bad idea.
There will be low maintenance charges for the internal fiber network, but if the City required routing or brokered ISPs fees to the City will be significant. It is very expensive to maintain this type of system.
It's possible to set up a local mini exchange and have multiple ISPs use it to provide service to homes. It would be a local Palo Alto exchange on City property for use with the FTTH equipment.
Marvin Lee asked "Can the community buy into NanoSpace?"
Frank said that might be possible.
Frank pointed out that there must be a charge for network access and use. Flat fees are offered because they don't expect high data usage rates from most customers. With high actual data rates the equation changes and charges for use will be higher.
Next meeting will be Wed. Oct. 7, at a location to be announced. The suggestion is for Van Heimke to speak about the responses to the request for interested people to contact Utilities and show interest, and the status of the project.
Marvin Lee said the count of responses to the City's utility bill insert regarding the FTTH service is 873 received as of late August 31. (Van Heimke reported later that as of Sept. 2 they had 902 replies, in several clusters. About 18% wanted the 100 Meg service)
Adjourned the meeting at 8:32.
Submitted by Bob Moss
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