> by creating a public policy around municipally owned Layer 1 infrastructure between customers in their cities and a city exchange building. Conceptually it wo

> by creating a public policy around municipally owned Layer 1 infrastructure between customers in their cities and a city exchange building. Conceptually it would be no different than the city owning the sewers and outsourcing the water treatment plant to a contractor (or two). Creating a new "ISP" would involve installing equipment in the City Exchange(s), providing compatible customer premises equipment to subscribers, and then patching their 'port' at the City Exchange to the ISP's gear. This is precisely what we're attempting to do in Australia with the National Broadband Network—with the delays, technical changes and cost estimating issues you'd expect from a project that's survived across two federal governments. NBNCo installs the fibre, the termination devices, the optical splitters, and brings it back to a POI where ISPs then bring in their own transit or purchase backhaul capacity from NBNCo (as needed). It also, in my view, makes the critical process of engaging local councils, utilities, and ripping up roads, footpaths and driveways much more 'palatable' to the average householder, because it's seen as a public infrastructure project and not as a private organisation expanding their 'own' reach (even if it would achieve the same end goal).