[Mesh] Mapping the physical/political/economic infrastructure of the local internet

I've been reading this: http://gen.lib.rus.ec/book/index.php?md5=B96257CF84CE1CBD7D1E544B431F74E5 and while that book is a lot less to the point than I'd like, it got me thinking about how the internet is structured in the bay area with regards to stakeholders, their relationships and their physical connections. I would like to begin an effort to map this out on our wiki. Who's interested in helping out? Here are some of my questions: Exactly who owns the fiber? How much do those companies pay the cities/counties to lay the fiber? Is it mostly run on phone poles or in the ground? Is it a recurring monthly fee or all up front? Can anyone lay down fiber? When someone is laying down fiber, do those companies have to provide an opportunity for other companies to lay down fiber at the same time (apparently some cities require this in order to prevent the same street from being repeatedly dug up)? Why exactly did Google Fiber give up on the bay area? Was it too expensive for them to lay down fiber? If so, why is Comcast special? (they are currently laying down massive fiber in Oakland and starting to offer 2 GB to the home) Which internet exchanges exist here and where are they located? Are the exchanges for-profit companies? What are the requirements to have a presence at an exchange? Do the exchanges charge per rack-mounted unit? Do they charge per peered connection? How do small ISPs get peering agreements with Level 1 ISPs? What do those agreements look like? How do the agreements between AT&T and Comcast resellers work? Where do wireless ISPs like Unwired get their bandwidth? How do they physically bring it to their towers? Where are the major data centers? Where do data centers get their bandwidth? How physically separate is Internet2? Would it make sense for us to get on Internet2? How would we go about that? -- marc/juul