U.S. Telecom Antitrust Investigation

The Wall Street Journal has published an article stating that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has begun reviewing if large U.S. telcos such as ATT and Verizon are abusing their market power. This review is not targeted at a specific company today. The review is expected to cover all areas from land-line voice and broadband service to wireless.

The article points to exclusive contracts with handset vendors such as ATT's iPhone contract with Apple as an example. It also points to traffic management such as ATT's suppression of peer to peer traffic on its mobile data network as another example.

It sounds like this review is much more wide ranging than these two examples. The DOJ forced the breakup of ATT in 1984. This has largely been undone through the mergers and acquisitions that Verizon and the current ATT have made. Maybe it is time to take them apart again. The level of competition in the U.S. is certainly much less than in France, and we Americans pay for it.

Verizon Increases Fiber Upstream Speeds

Light Reading has published an article describing how Verizon is increasing the upstream speeds of its FiOS FTTH service.

Tier Old New Old New
Upstream Upstream Downstream Downstream
Entry-level 2 Mbit/s 5 Mbit/s 10 Mbit/s 15 Mbit/s
"Flagship" mid-level 5 Mbit/s 15 Mbit/s 20 Mbit/s 25 Mbit/s
Entry-Level (NY area) 2 Mbit/s 15 Mbit/s 10 Mbit/s 25 Mbit/s
"Flagship" mid-level (NY area) 5 Mbit/s 20 Mbit/s 20 Mbit/s 35 Mbit/s

Verizon is taking advantage of the the technical advantages of fiber vs. cable modems to respond to an aggressive Cablevision in the New York area in particular.

Wireleine Woes

The New York Times published and article discussing if the U.S. wireline telcos will need a bailout to rescue its copper based access business. It pointed out that AT&T lost 12 percent of its access lines in 2008 and Verizon lost 10 percent. The article paints a pictures that the wireline business in the U.S. is headed toward bankruptcy.

I have been tracking U.S. switched access lines at my website from 1991 through 2007. The FCC has stopped tracking switched access lines, so that one of its most interesting pieces of data will no longer be updated.

It is clear that copper is being replaced by the cable companies coax, by wireless technologies, and by the telco's own fiber services. The more aggressively that they deploy fiber, the better off they will be in the long run.

Verizon to Deploy 4G by 2014

Light Reading has published a Verizon interview that states that the timetable of Verizon's planned LTE deployment of a couple of test markets in 2009 and "30 or so" markets in 2010. He then suggests that the build out could be completed relatively quickly after that.

This is an aggressive deployment schedule and I expect that it will be 2012 or 2013 before Verizon's 4G build out is complete.

Verizon FiOS to Poach ATT Customers

Verizon is planning to expand its FiOS deployment in the Dallas, Texas area to cover homes now served by ATT. It will extend its fiber network a few miles to accomplish this.

I would like to think that this is a major push by Verizon into ATT's territory, but it is just a border skirmish. Verizon is taking advantage of communities that are close to its current network.

Verizon can do this in other former GTE territories such as Los Angeles and Los Gatos (a small community in the heart of Silicon Valley). Verizon would find strong demand for FiOS in both of these communities.

Microtune Introduces 120 Mbps DOCSIS 3.0 Upstream Amplifer

Microtune has introduced an RF gateway that permits DOCSIS 3.0 upstream speeds of 120 Mbps and downstream speeds of 160 to 320 Mbps. Its chips are available for less than $5.00 in volume quantities.

DOCSIS 3.0 is shaping up to be a formidable competitor to Telco fiber technologies. It will compete directly with Verizon's FiOS BPON and GPON services. It leaves ATT's VDSL service in the dust.

DOCSIS 3.0 to Provide Fiber Push

An article on Light Reading cited a statement by Charter Communications that it will cost about $8 to $10 per subscriber to bring DOCSIS 3.0 services to a home, including the new cable modem termination system (CMTS) equipment and the routing systems. It does not include the cost of the new DOCSIS 3.0 cable modem or the cost of provisioning the service.

Verizon has said that it costs them $800 to $1,000 per home to make its FiOS fiber service available with a maximum 50 Mbps data service today. The cable companies can accomplish the same thing for one percent the cost.

DOCSIS 3.0 will provide the cable companies a strong defense against FiOS and be a very strong offensive weapon against ATT's VDSL U-verse service. Verizon will need to improve the performance and lower the price of its FiOS high speed data services. ATT will need to move from VDSL to GPON to be competitive.

FTTH Council Says 3.8M FTTH Subscribers in North America

The Fiber to the Home Council of North America published a presentation giving its latest FTTH statistics. It has found that there are currently 3.8 million FTTH subscribers and 2.2 million FTTH IPTV subscribers in North America. This is an increase of 848 thousand FTTH subscribers and 550 thousand FTTH IPTV subscribers over the last six month. The current take rate for FTTH services in North America is 30 percent.

Verizon is driving this growth, but there are a number of smaller deployments as well. It is well spending the time to review the entire presentation.