Chiu proposes leasing of city fiber, towers

At last week’s Board of Supervisors meeting, Board President and mayoral candidate David Chiu  proposed leasing excess capacity on city-owned fiber and space on city-owned buildings, poles and radio towers to businesses and internet service providers as a revenue opportunity for the city.

From the SF Examiner:

Board President David Chiu announced two intriguing revenue ideas: leasing space on The City’s fiber-optic network and also leasing space on city-owned communications facilities.[...] According to Chiu, “Initial research shows there’s a very real demand and market for dark fiber paid for by the private sector — particularly industries that require high bandwidth, such as biotech, digital media, health care or education.” [...] The second proposal is related to the two radio towers and some 50 siren poles that The City uses for emergency communication. Companies would not be allowed to jump on to The City’s emergency network, but rather they would pay to strap their own wireless transmission equipment to these structures.

SF Fiber supports the idea of selling wholesale access to a city network and space at city-owned locations (a component of previous proposals), as a means of bringing more choices for internet and communications services to the public, generating revenue for the city. There may be some complexities to this process, as the city network sometimes uses underground conduit from utilities, which may be restricted to government or educational use, but it also possesses miles of unrestricted assets — notably fiber under MTA trolley and bus lines, and conduit in the AWSS, San Francisco’s emergency firefighting water network.

Unrestricted fiber conduit under trolley and rail lines

City Facilities

Additionally, we believe the city should take this idea a step further by offering  permits for microtrenching, and non-disruptive methods of fiber installation.