Mobile broadband, especially the faster 3G and new 4G networks, now will begin to offer a serious alternative for a signficant number of end users. Consumer resistance to paying higher prices for higher-speed fixed broadband (50 Mbps and above) has not lessened.
Cable companies have solidified their position as specialists in the consumer services segment, with the exception of wireless. Given cable's position in consumer video and voice, financial returns from fiber-to-home deployments, in the mass market, are getting harder to justify, not easier.
In many ways, leading U.S. telcos have found that their strengths in wireless and enterprise services are matched by relative cable strength in the mass market video and voice product segments.
Also, opportunity costs arguably have risen over the last 10 years, opportunity cost representing the potential gains a company might have made if capital had been deployed elsewhere,, such as wireless or software, instead of high-capacity fiber access.
In the background are concerns about the long-term relative value of multi-channel entertainment and voice revenues as well, which dampen financial returns from those two core services.
Take all of that into account and the apparent lessening desire on Verizon's part to continue investing in fiber to the home is logical, perhaps even prudent.
Given capital scarcity, burgeoning wireless and mobile broadband opportunities, as well as the slower growth for legacy services such as entertainment video, fixed access and voice, it would be hard to argue with an argument that effort is better placed squarely in the wireless arena, rather than fixed line services.
For that reason, it is not a complete surprise that Verizon seems to be slowing its FiOS program, which had been nearing the end of the major construction phase, in any case. The company says it no longer will seek to build FiOS in communities where it has not already gotten video franchises issued.
That means Verizon apparently will not undertake FiOS builds in Baltimore and downtown Boston, for example, a scenario many of us would not have predicted.
Verizon is still negotiating for franchises in some smaller communities, mainly in New York, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, but it is not working on securing franchises for any major urban areas.
Verizon never committed to bringing FiOS to its entire local-phone service area, originally planning to make service available to about 18 milliion households by the end of 2010, a goal it will reach. Since the program began, however, Verizon also has been selling assets in less-populated areas in the Midwest and West Coast.
The recruitment of new FiOS TV subscribers slowed last year. In the fourth quarter, it added 153,000 subscribers, little more than half of the number it added in the same period the year before.
At the end of last year, Verizon had 2.86 million FiOS TV subscribers and 3.43 million FiOS Internet subscribers (most households take both).
Investors never have liked the FiOS program, which will wind up costing an estimated $23 billion. FiOS likely has been a key reason Verizon has been able to compete with cable companies.
Verizon is the only major U.S. phone company to draw fiber all the way to homes and the only one to offer broadband speeds approaching those available in Japan and South Korea. But the financial returns have not been so overwhelming that the decision to expand the program is completely clear.
Verizon's experience might be an implicit warning to policymakers that although the goal of 100 Mbps service, provided to 100 million U.S. homes, by 2020 is a fine stretch goal, but might face trouble if it means consumers have to pay significantly more for such service. Consumers might prefer 20 Mbps to 30 Mbps for $50 to $60 a month, rather than 50 Mbps for $100 a month, and certainly more than 100 Mbps for $150 to $200 a month.
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