Google Fiber and AT&T Like Cities That Lay Fiber, Public IT Veteran Says

Three of the cities that have won Google Fiber service (including the first two, Kansas City and Austin), have something in common: Gail Roper.

Ms. Roper has one simple piece of advice for any city that would like to see telecommunications providers offer better fiber services in their city: when a city digs for any kind of infrastructure project (whether it be streets, sewers, signaling or anything else that calls for opening up thoroughfares), install some fiber (or at least conduit). It won’t add much to the cost of the project, but it will, over time, make the city much more attractive to providers.

Roper has some additional, more nuanced advice for city leaders:

• Calculate how much city government is spending for Internet service now, calculate that out to 10 or 20 years and then compare that to how much it would cost to build the city’s own access to the Internet (don’t forget to include maintenance costs). Compare the cost of building it to some long-term commitment in paying for access (for example, 20 years).
• Build more fiber than your city needs for its own service, and plan to lease out the rest. Roper recommends a minimum of 244 strands of fiber She called that break even scale to make fiber pay for itself. In other words, even the extra cost that cities add to projects by working in fiber or conduit will probably be recouped by leasing fees.
• Make the rounds to other public and private institutions before the project. Some of them may be interested in leasing fiber and becoming their own ISPs.
• Be sure to think in terms of likely demand for fiber around a given project. One of Roper’s first big successes was getting fiber added into a redevelopment project in downtown Kansas City, years before Google even considered showing up; it helped make the city look more attractive.