U.S. FCC Broadband Definition and Blog

The U.S. FCC is requesting comments on how to define what broadband is. It breaks the definition down into three categories:

• Form, Characteristics, and Performance Indicators
• Thresholds – typically minimums
• Updates that address the fact that a static definition will fail to address changing needs and habits

This part of the FCC's efforts to create a national broadband plan by February 17, 2010.

The FCC has started a blog called BlogBand discussing its broadband activities.

It appears that the FCC is putting needed attention on broadband in the U.S. It is about time. Broadband in the U.S. is behind leading European and Asian countries by every measure.

Survey Shows Preference for FTTH

The U.S. FTTH Council has published a survey of U.S. broadband users that shows that there is a strong preference for FTTH over cable modem broadband services. DSL had the least favorable rating for broadband services. FTTH had an even stronger preference for HD TV over FTTH compared to satellite and cable services.

The survey is well worth reading. The results are no surprised but do underscore the technical superiority of FTTH technologies.

UK Digital Britain Report

The UK government has published its Digital Britain report along with an Impact Statement. These are extensive reports. The Executive Summary by itself makes 83 separate points. There are a couple of significant things that I saw:

• It wants to increase the households that can access broadband at 2 Mbps from under 90 percent to 100 percent. It expects that wireless will be important in accomplishing this. It expects to make 200 million pounds available to support this goal. It also encourages the allocation of new spectrum for this purpose.
• It encourages the deployment next generation fixed broadband, which it defines at 50 Mbps by example.

This is not an ambitious set of goals. A number of other European countries have much more aggressive programs, including France, Switzerland, and the Scandinavian countries. It does not come close to matching what is going on in Asia, especially Japan, Korea, and China.

Following this plan will keep the UK at the back of the pack. At least it will be in good company along with those of us in the U.S.

GVT Brazil to Offer 100 Mbps Broadband Service

GVT, the Brazilian CLEC, will launch 50 Mbps and 100 Mbps broadband services in cities where it currently operates. This follows on to its successful 10 Mbps offering, which now accounts for 29 percent of its sales and is available to 9 percent of its ADSL foot print.

GVT is taking a disruptive approach to the Brazilian market by offering significantly higher speeds and the same price or less than the incumbent carriers. It is another example that shows the preference for higher speeds.

FCC to Create U.S. to Create National Broadband Plan

The recent American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 also known as the stimulus act, charged the Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service (RUS) and the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) with making grants and loans to expand broadband deployment and for other important broadband projects. Congress provided $7.2 billion for this effort but is not insufficient to support nationwide broadband deployment. Consequently, the Recovery Act charges the FCC to create a national broadband plan by February 17, 2010, that will seek to ensure that every American has access to broadband capability and establishes clear benchmarks for meeting that goal.

This kind of comprehensive plan is over due. Europe and countries such as Japan, Korea, and Australia are well ahead of the U.S. in this effort.

The problem is that such a comprehensive view is very a very complex project. It will be difficult to bring focus to such a large effort that will make it effective. It could easily end up so general that it does not provide a useful perspective.

I think that the FCC should focus on creating an open environment that creates a competitive service environment based on fiber to the home and 4G wireless. The current approach that relies on competition between the telco and cable giants impedes competition. ADSL, VDSL, 2G, and 3G wireless are all technologies that are either now obsolete or rapidly approaching their obsolescence. Drawing such clear lines will help the FCC make this effort meaningful.

Australia will Establis New Company to Build Fiber Network

The Australian government has unveiled a plan establish a new company to build and operate a national broadband network that will provide 100 Mbps fiber connections to homes, schools, and businesses in towns of a population of about 1,000 or more, which will provide coverage to 90 percent of the people in Australia. Wireless and satellite technologies capable of providing 12 Mbps will be used in more remote locations. This network will include fiber links between cities, major regional centers, and rural towns.

The services of this network will be provided on wholesale-only, open access network. The initial estimate is that this network will cost $30 billion to build. The government plans an immediate investment of more than $3 billion. The Australian government will seek private investment in the company to draw on private sector capacity and expertise. However, ownership restrictions will be established to protect the Government's objective of a wholesale open-access network.

This is a strong commitment to an advanced broadband network. It provides a unique approach to provide an open fiber network. It illustrates the importance of government policy in building fiber networks.

T-Mobile Says Mass Market Femtos Will Wait Until 2010

Light Reading published and article on a presentation by T-Mobile at the Mobile World Conference about its plans for femto cells. T-Mobile said that it will start with a controlled femto cell introduction in the middle of 2009. T-Mobile said that it will wait for Release 8, expected in 2010, before it makes a mass market introduction of femto cells.

T-Mobile tested femtocells from three different suppliers with 100 employees in Germany, about 90 employees in Poland, and about 60 employees in the UK. The trial in the UK is still on-going and will probably involve up to 100 participants.

Some of the problems discovered included limited mobile data rates due to the limitations of lower speed DSL broadband connections; issues with femtocell location detection; reduced battery standby time in terminals; and interference between the macro cell and femtocell.

Femto cells will be a significant development and have far reaching implications for mobile and broadband services.

Cox Cable's Traffic Management Strategy

Light Reading published an article describing Cox Cable's strategies for traffic management. Cox's pilot approach divides traffic into "time-sensitive" (e.g., Web pages, voice calls, streaming videos, games), and "non-time-sensitive" (e.g., file uploads, peer-to-peer, and Usenet) categories. The system will delay the upstream, non-time-sensitive traffic when network congestion is detected. All traffic returns to normal when the congestion abates.

This is the right approach - classifying traffic by its response time requirements and delaying lower priority traffic during periods of congestion. This is a much more reasonable approach than the monthly usage caps that other operators are implementing.

FTTH Green Postitive in U.S. in Six Years

The FTTH Council has published a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers that shows that the environmental impact of the deployment of a typical FTTH network in the United States will be positive within less than 6 years in average considering only benefits associated to telecommuting.

FTTH is much greener than DSL or VDSL in the U.S. Both of these technologies require powered remotes, which significantly raises their energy requirements. This is a much more significant problem for VDSL than DSL.

ATT's Cuts

Light Reading published and article with various opinions on ATT's announcement that it would cut 12,000 people and reduce its CapEx budget. The gist of it is that ATT will not make cuts in wireless or broadband but will cut its wireline operation. The article ends with a quote from one analyst who believes that cutting spending on its POTS network will be a major mistake for ATT.

What ATT is reportedly doing is consistent with how networks will evolve during the next decade. Wireless and broadband will become more important and POTS services will fade away. Personally, I think ATT is making the correct choices.

BT Introduces Integrated Wireline/Wireless Data Service

BT introduced broadband packages for small businesses that include mobile broadband as part of a wireline/wireless offering. It provides a service that includes wireline broadband along with BT Openzone Wi-Fi hotspots and mobile networks (GPRS/3G/HSDPA/HSUPA). It now offers three usage plans:

BT Business Total Broadband Options	Broadband Option 1	Broadband Option 2	Broadband Option 3
Price Per Month (on a 24 month term)	£15	£26.99	£40.50
Fixed line Download Limit	10GB	Unlimited†	Unlimited†
BT Business Mobile Broadband	Unlimited† usage available for £17.50 per month	One Mobile Broadband USB stick per contract – 1GB usage 2,000 BT Openzone minutes	One Mobile Broadband USB stick per contract – 1GB usage 2,000 BT Openzone minutes
Wireless Router	£79 or £59 online exc. VAT	Included	Included
Security	Anti Virus and Anti Spam	Anti Virus and Anti Spam	Internet Security Pack for 5 PCs
Support	24/7 UK-based Freefone Support	24/7 UK-based Freefone Support	24/7 UK-based Freefone Support IT Support Manager - allows our IT experts to help fix problems remotely, no need to call out an engineer

This is one of the first examples of what I expect will be a very important trend. I believe that similar integrated services will be offered to consumers and will become an important competitive advantage for Telcos over their cable competitors. However, this approach to offering services will have a significant effect on the organization of the Telcos as well as the structure of the industry itself. I will write more about this later.