Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Type II Service

It's not all about ON-Net unless you are a fiber provider like AFS, FiberLight or Cogent. If you are a CLEC, it's all about Type II.

  • Type I is the CLEC owns all of the network facilities.
  • Type II is the CLEC leases part of the network (usually from the ILEC).
  • Type III is Resale.

When a CLEC talks about Lit buildings, that's Type I service. It means that the building already has a fiber customer turned up in that structure. In theory, this can result in quick turn up for future customers. For example, XO has a quick install if the service is all On-Net (lit building to lit building). But that doesn't mean equipment and ports will be available as a client learned at 56.

Carriers still have way more OC-x ports than Ethernet ports. There is a wait time to get a 10-GB or even a 1 GigE port in some locations, if those kinds of ports are available at all. (I provision and quote for 20+ carriers, I have seen often enough where they are NOT available).

If you resell now, you should either ramp up the resell engine and get critical mass. Or start looking to move to Type I (build a network - WiMax, fixed wireless, Fiber-to-the-whatever) or Type II (colocate in ILEC Central Office and lease loops to provide service).

In rural areas, cellular may be the way to build. Sprint is selling its 800 MHz and 900 MHz Nextel spectrum in some markets. The spectrum is measured in kHz, so its only viable for voice. But that's a booming business - like Leap, Cricket and MetroPCS.

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