User-owned fiber (in preference to net neutrality)

Bill St. Arnaud of the CANARIE CA*net 4 Optical Internet program has a great post on his email list today.  It's titled "The future of the net - restrictive monopolies or network neutrality?" but makes the point:

Network neutrality and maintaining the Internet end to end principle are valid concerns, but in your humble correspondent's opinion, are neither practical or achievable through regulatory fiat.  Instead we need to look at a new network paradigm and business model.  One possible model is to look at what our universities, schools, hospitals and businesses are doing in acquiring their own fiber and building their own last mile networks. Rather than waiting for a carrier to build a network to the customer, the customer, instead is building out a network to carrier neutral meet me point to connect to the carrier{s) of their choice. Some carriers may offer walled gardens, while others may offer some form of network neutrality - but the key issue is that the customer has a choice of more than one or two service providers.

See the full post for an interesting set of links to first mile approaches in Toronto, Quebec and New Zealand.  Whether it's user owned fiber (sometimes via condominium fiber) or other forms of competition in the first mile, we need more focus on the first mile right-of-way, or as I've put it in the past, Layer zero competition.