Gigabit Networks Will Destabilize the ISP Market

There are times in the global communications business when stability is the main trend. The first 125 years of telecom history were such times of fundamental stability.

But there are other times when instability and change are the main trends. That might have been said to be the case when global privatization and deregulation happened in the 1980s and 1990s. And instability now is growing with the maturation of voice and the rise of Internet access and mobility as anchor services.

Some might argue growing instability is what we will see over the next decade. Consider only the impact of symmetrical gigabit Internet access service. Quantitative change is not the only issue. Qualitative competitive implications will exist for contestants using different network topologies and access media.

Consider cable operator frequency plans and use of hybrid fiber coax, for example. Executives typically argue that HFC can be upgraded incrementally to support future bandwidths of that sort.

To support gigabit networks, it is argued, fiber is simply extended deeper in the access network, decreasing serving area size by about an order of magnitude, creating the same sorts of advantages mobile operators gain by using a fixed amount of spectrum in a cellular configuration.

Though the least disruptive, such an upgrade might feature per-user peak bandwidth of 100 Mbps, still an order of magnitude slower than Google Fiber’s 1 Gbps, symmetrical. Some say only the high-split and new top-split frequency plans, all featuring more fiber, will support gigabit speeds.

But some might suggest it would be easier to overlay some sort of fiber to home capability than to dramatically change frequency plans now commonly used by U.S. cable operators to support symmetrical gigabit Internet access services. At least so far, most cable executives deem that too expensive an approach.

Though three different frequency plans (low split, mid-split, high split) have been available for decades, virtually all cable operators use the low split plan. Basically, that means frequencies up to 54 MHz are reserved for return signals, while all the rest of the bandwidth up to about 850 MHz is used to support downstream communications and services.

But even traditional “mid-split or high-split networks are not symmetrical. The mid-split frequency plan increases return bandwidth up to about 85 MegaHertz. The high-split network increases return bandwidth to about 200 MHz. The new top-split network offers support for gigabit speeds gigabit speeds.

For cable operators, as for others using radio frequency networks,  the challenge symmetrical gigabit services pose is not simply quantitative (more) but qualitative (equal split networks are needed).