I’m in the car on my way to Chicago for Thanksgiving. The perfect time to catch up some reading! (I’m not driving. I’m a passenger in the family convoy – forced to listen to Billy Squire on the radio now that we’re beyond the reach of public radio.)

So I’m reading the new report from the New America Foundation, Homes with Tails What if you could own your own Internet connection?. In it Derek Slater (from Google) and Tim Wu (from Columbia Law School) flesh the concept of having residents own the fiber to their homes.

The idea is that homeowners would own the fiber from the curb to street to their house, probably in a condominium-model. So the homeowner would own the piece from their house to the curb then the neighborhood would cooperatively own the fibers to a place where they connect up to provides who might rent services – or to the Point of Presence. (Or a homeowner could possibly go solo by owning the fiber to all the PoP.) The reasoning being that plenty of folks would pay the big bucks to get fiber now.

If you’re reading a blog about broadband, chances are you know someone who would be interested in buying fiber to their house. I know a few, heck I might be one. The report didn’t necessarily give a cost – but it seemed as if $3000-4000 was a ballpark figure. If you live in a sprawling suburban or rural area it might be more, if you live in an apartment it would be less.

The most local advantage of buying the fiber to your house is that you get fiber sooner. The community-wide advantage is that early adopters help pave (or lay fiber for) the next wave of users. The advantage for providers (commercial and municipal/gov) is that the early adopters help speed ROI.

One disadvantage of this plan is that clearly it won’t work well in neighborhoods or towns where few people are interested in spending that kind of money. I’m a proponent of universal service – but I feel as if anything we can do to move forward with fiber will help innovators come up with the fiber killer app. Once that happens I think we will be much closer to creating universal demand. Until we have universal demand I think universal service/supply is an uphill battle.

Another disadvantage or challenge they have found in Ottawa where they have been inviting folks to buy fiber was that providers weren’t as interested in participating as they would have liked. Again I think once the market starts to build, that will change.

So while I think that customer-owned fiber isn’t the only way to go it may be a good way to breathe some life into the industry. And in fairness the report seems to say the same. It was an interesting read.