Geoff Daily writes about how a fiber network is altering community dynamics in Vasteras, Sweden, “arguably the fullest realization of what an open access, multi-service network can be.”

He writes:

“The fact that blew me away was about them and how the deployment of a fiber network impacted their use of broadband.

Before this community fiber network was put in place, more than 80% of the traffic on local networks was outbound, pulling in and sending out information over the world wide web.

After the fiber network came into being? That ratio basically flipped as now more than 80% of the bandwidth being consumed is for moving data around within the Vasteras network, so neighbors talking to neighbors rather than users pulling in data from all over the Internet.

It should be noted that just because the percentage dropped, doesn’t mean people on that network are consuming outlying Internet content less. Instead, it’s a sign of just how massively demand for bandwidth in-network has grown, literally more than a thousandfold.”