FCC probes open community fiber access costs

The Federal Communications Commission is seeking comment on the cost of deploying community-based fiber access networks to anchor tenants such as hospitals, schools and libraries.

A number of communities across the country have recently pursued the deployment of open-access fiber networks that would provide high-speed connectivity to key institutions and lease excess capacity on the network to private providers, which would not only help pay for the network itself but also potentially enable the private sector to cost-effectively deploy broadband to previously underserved areas. One such project, OpenCape, is underway in Massachusetts. Another, in upstate New York, is expected to be complete next year.

Late last month, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation published a presentation that laid out cost models and estimates for deploying open community fiber networks to community anchor tenants. Those estimates put the cost of deploying last-mile fiber to the nearly 100,000 public schools, colleges, hospitals and libraries that don’t have it between $5 billion and $10 billion. Installation costs could fall between $10,000 and $200,000 per site, it said.

The FCC wants public input on the Gates Foundation estimates and the assumptions upon which it was based – for example, the assumption that 80% of non-library institutions currently lack fiber. The Gates Foundation based that assumption on studies showing fiber reaching only 20% of US commercial buildings housing more than 20 employees.