How Much Will Consumers and Business Pay for Really-Fast Broadband?

As the Federal Communications Commission shifts universal service programs to support broadband access rather than voice, the European Commission pushes for ubiquitous 30-Mbps service across the community, with a further objective of 100-Mbps service for roughly  half of potential consumers by 2020, it is fairly clear that there is widespread support for the idea that faster broadband can have important economic and social benefits.

If Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski gets his way, the FCC will set a goal of 100-Mbps service delivered to 100 milliion American homes by 2020. 100 Mbps or faster is the FCC goal

Genachowski says his preferred approach to a national broadband policy would require ISPs to offer minimum home connection speeds by 2020. The “100 Squared” initiative might in fact be too modest a goal, he suggests.

"We should stretch beyond 100 megabits," he adds. But "availability" is only part of the business equation. Demand is the other part. And at least so far, there isn't much evidence that substantial numbers of businesses or consumers are willing to pay for 50 Mbps, 100 Mbps or potentially 1 Gbps service. 

It might be a different story is the cost of such service were no more than what consumers now pay, but it seems highly doubtful investment can be raised, if that were to be the expected outcome.

Few customers now buy 50-Mbps services where such speeds are available, in large part because the cost is in the triple-digits range. Proponents might argue that the goal is 100 Mbps for not much more money than people now pay for 4 Mbps or 7 Mbps service, but it is hard to envision how even "free" opto-electronices could support such a value-price combination.

In other words, even if all the active elements actually were provided for free, could service providers actually build ubiquitous networks offering 100 Mbps or faster speeds, and price in middle-double digits? So far, the answer appears to be negative.

About 60 percent of the cost of building an FTTH network is construction work, ducts and cables, not to mention cabinets, power supplies and other network elements. Still, in some dense areas, it might be possible to do so, since the construction and cable might amount to about $1200 per home passed. Again, keep in mind we assume totally free opto-electronics.

In suburban areas the business case is marginal, at best, since about $2400 might have to be spent on construction and passive elements.

Since the FCC goal only calls for connecting 100 million homes out of possibly 113 million, we can safely assume the cost of most rural networks of such capacity need not be considered.

Of course, opto-electronics are not "free." But the point is that construction costs, were nothing else an issue, would still be a tough proposition, if the goal is very high speed access at prices most consumers would pay.

American consumers will be paying more for broadband in the future, if for no other reason than that most mobile plans will require it, and those charges will be paid for on a "per-device" basis, not "per home."

What seems improbable is that U.S. consumers are willing to increase overall broadband spending by an order of magnitude (10 times) to have 100 Mbps or faster service on a fixed basis.

One can of course argue from history. Prices for lower-speed broadband services have declined over time, while the prices for the faster tiers have remained stable, but speeds have increased. The issue is how much price compression is possible.

"In order to earn a return for investors, you have to be conscious of what consumers will pay. I don't know this is something consumers will pay for," Piper Jaffray analyst Christopher Larsen says. "It's a nice goal, but it's a little on the over ambitious side."

And in a capital-intensive business such as communication networks, being too early, with too much additional capacity, processing or storage, can be ruinous. One might point to the dramatic bubble in capacity investing, competitive local exchange networks or e-commerce sites around the turn of the century.

Equally to the point is the serious gap that developed between 3G mobile networks, especially in Europe, and the promised new applications that proponents expected would develop.

It has been roughly a decade since European mobile operators placed big spectrum bets on "third generation" mobile broadband, and then largely watched as killer apps failed to emerge, customer use of the new networks remained sluggish, and executives ruefully noted they had overpaid for spectrum.

As operators now gear up for a transition to 4G, we will hear similar talk about new applications the network will enable. The difference is that, a decade after launch, the  "killer app" for 3G turns out to be mobile broadband access.

Right now, 4G is mostly “just” faster access. But 4G looks to be a potential replacement for fixed-line broadband, so maybe, early on, a lead application for 4G will be displacement of fixed-line broadband connections, and not any particular new application.

Some might argue that a lead app for 4G is turning out to be personal Wi-Fi hotspots, for example, another “access” function. A decade from now, we are likely to have discovered that some important new applications, enabled specifically by 4G, have arisen. But it will take some time, if 3G is any predictor.

At some point, the gap can be bridged either by “build it and they will come” improvements in processing, storage or communications that outstrip known demand, or “build it and they will come” applications that might be usable by only a fraction of potential consumers.

Some think the logjam can be broken only by moving faster towards faster networks, to create the right environment for application developers. That tends to be an opinion held by people whose core business interests do not require investing the money.

Service providers are quite a bit more circumspect, and “greed” is not the primary reason for such views. In fact, experience teaches service providers that consumers are quite careful about spending their own money on communication services, devices and features.

One case in point is a study of small-business broadband by Columbia Telecommunications Corporation, which conducted a nationwide survey on behalf of the Small Business Administration.

The really significant finding is that respondents won't pay all that much for 100 Mbps or 1 Gbps connections. Businesses Want 100 Mbps, 1 Gbps, but won't pay

And price resistance is stubborn. Even when the price for such a service is just 10 percent to 20 percent higher, businesses are significantly less likely to switch to a 100-Mbps service from what they currently buy.

As you might guess, if small businesses are hesitant to spend 10 percent to 20 percent more to get 100 Mbps, they are even more hesitant to spend more for an extremely fast Internet connection of 1 Gbps. This is especially true for prices that are 40 percent or more higher than their current prices.

If you asssume the average prices now range between $70 a month to $124 a month, then survey respondents show significant resistance to paying much more than $84 to $149 a month for 100 Mbps service, or $98 to $174 for 1-Gbps service.
This graphic might confuse you. The taller the bars, the less likely the respondent is to take the action indicated. The tallest bar, a score of "5" would mean "highly unlikely" to take the action. SMB broadband demand report

A score of "1," shown by a shorter bar, would indicate strong willingness to take the action.

The point is that small business users aren't willing to spend much more to upgrade from their current level of service to 100-Mbps service.

The most surprising finding is that even the same prices, or prices 10 percent 5to 20 percent lower do not cause small business respondents to become certain of switching. Scores around "3" indicate a "maybe, maybe not" attitude.

No matter what these respondents say about wanting higher speeds, they don't appear to be willing to pay much of anything for it.

U.K. Will Not Reach 30 Mbps Broadband Access Goal by 2020

Rural fiber infrastructure cost

BT Group Director of Strategy and Policy Sean Williams considers the EU target of 30 Mbps to all citizens by 2020 as "not achievable for any country." 


That doesn't mean complete or even substantial failure. In fact, one might argue the opposite. 


BT does seem to believe it will be possible to provide 30 Mbps access to about 90 percent of the U.K. population. 


For the final 10 percent of homes or locations, 2 Mbps might be more reasonable, for all sorts of good reasons related directly to the cost of building communications infrastructure in rural and isolated areas. Some might argue that the cost curve looks very much like the curve that describes the cost of providing health care to people, where most of the cost is incurred late in life. 


Likewise, the cost of building facilities to the last couple of percentage points of locations is very high. That's one reason satellite broadband providers have a business. The core market is about two percent of U.S. households, for example. 


The high cost of reaching the last 10 percent of locations in either the U.K. or U.S. markets always will be a problem, at least when using fixed networks, whether the services are narrowband or broadband . EC broadband target unreachable 


So some might argue that 90-percent coverage of the United Kingdom with 30 Mbps service by 2020 is not in any way "a failure." It is a success. But the problem with all infrastructure goals is that it always is a stretch to reach the last 10 percent of potential customers with networks of any kind.

Ofcom Warns of "Low Interest" in Super Fast Broadband

Ofcom chief Ed Richards has warned that cash-strapped U.K. consumers lack enough incentive from access providers to upgrade to "superfast" broadband packages. In other words, "prices are too high."


"For superfast broadband, subscriber numbers are still low, perhaps because the nearest thing we have found to a ‘killer app’ so far is the demands of the multi-user household," Richards said. "The fact that we cannot identify specific ‘killer apps’ beyond bandwidth hungry teenagers is in some ways beside the point." Ofcom boss warns of low interest in 'superfast' broadband

That argument illustrates an important, and sometimes overlooked, aspect of national broadband plans. Some supporters of faster broadband think the "problem" is availability. But there is a mounting amount of evidence that "availability" is not the problem.

For whatever reason, including compelling applications or prices, where super fast broadband is available, and a workable definition is access at 50 Mbps or 100 Mbps at the moment, demand has tended to be low, even in some markets, such as Singapore, where prices are low, by global standards.


Time Warner Cable in early 2010 had about nine million high-speed access customers. It had about 20,000 customers for its fastest DOCSIS 3.0 service, which depending on configuration can support speeds up to about 43 Mbps per 6 MHz channel in the downstream direction, or more, if more bandwidth is made available.


All that means is that few customers are willing to pay $100 a month or more to get really-fast broadband access running at speeds of about 50 Mbps maximum. Low demand for 50 Mbps?


Fiber access does not sell itself, BT has found. As it begins to market its new fiber-based access services, BT has found that consumer demand for 40 Mbps Internet access is less robust than some had anticipated.

"Cardiff has been given a head start by Openreach but some fiber-enabled parts of the city are proving to be a bit slow out of the blocks to take up the opportunities fibre presents," said Richard Hall,BT Openreach NGA Deployment Director for Wales. BT UK Frustrated by Lack of Superfast FTTC Broadband Uptake

"With the notable exception of Whitchurch, residents are proving slow to take advantage of the technology on their doorstep and so we are working with the local council to raise awareness and drive demand," he said.

In the U.S. market, service providers have not fared much better with sales of 50 Mbps or faster services, which largely remain products bought by business customers. Another typical U.S. market issue also could be a factor. Customers in these areas already can buy fast service from Virgin Media.

Google Doesn't Want to be a Service Provider

From a return on invested capital perspective, the difference between Google’s current business model and that of a facilities-based wireline service provider like Verizon could not be starker,” say Sanford Bernstein analysts Craig Moffett and Carlos Kirjner.

“In 2011, we expect Google to post an ROIC of 56 percent, or 38 percent when including goodwill,” they say. “In 2010, Verizon’s wireline segment (which includes FiOS) sported an ROIC excluding goodwill and ‘one-time items’ of  just 1.6 percent.”

“Including goodwill and similar intangible, and smoothed one-timers, it was minus one percent,” the analysts say.

Those are good reasons why Google will not want to become a service provider, even as it considers the virtual necessity of offering entertainment video and voice services in addition to broadband access on its 1-Gbps test networks in Kansas City, Kan. and Kansas City, Mo.

Wireline networks have the weakest returns on invested capital with a 1.5 percent gain over the last decade, Moffat says Wireless networks had a meager return of 0.3 percent. Cable garnered a 2.5 percent return. Low returns from invested capital
Satellite networks had the best return on invested capital at 5.5 percent. It’s no wonder that DirecTV shares have trounced other companies in 8-year returns. Others stocks—AT&T, Comcast, Dish, Sprint and Verizon—have negative returns.



Google, reports the Wall Street Journal, is looking to add video entertainment services, and possibly voice, for customers of its 1-Gbps fiber to home network in Kansas City, Mo., and Kansas City, Kan. The moves would be logical.

Many observers have wondered how such a network, delivering only 1-Gbps Internet access service, at prices "comparable" to existing services provided by telcos and cable companies, could possibly generate enough revenue even to break even.

As it turns out, Google has no magic rabbit to pull out of its hat. The costs of its network are not dissimilar from the costs any other service provider would incur. And few service providers would contemplate building a fiber-to-home network with a single revenue stream, namely Internet access.

Of course, Google could have chosen to operate as a "wholesale only" provider of bandwidth to other service providers. It could still do so. But the few U.S. examples of access network providers who attempt to operate "wholesale only" have not proven highly viable, most would probably conclude.

The only way to approach break-even apparently is to operate the network the way all other such networks are operated, namely providing retail triple-play services to consumers.

Nobody expects Google to become a "service provider" with its own facilities, on a wider scale. But that isn't the point. To some small extent, Google might become a distributor of voice and video services, not just a broadband access provider. But once it secures distribution rights, there are other possibilities.

So far, it seems unlikely Google would get licensing rights that will immediately save consumers money. In fact, any video rights will likely include the normal clauses that require Google to pay as much as other video distributors. But if Google were to focus its services only on "over the top" delivery, it might still have a clear price advantage, compared to other service providers who must build and operate access facilities, of course.

Google might also find it only can get content rights if it agrees to bundle channels in the typical way cable, satellite and telco TV providers do, which would limit the amount of innovation Google could attempt. Also, until Google got serious volume, the prices it pays for content rights will not allow significant retail price discounts.

But any move by Google into the triple-play services market would be a bit of a shock, even if nobody thinks Google wants to become a traditional service provider. The broader issue is that if Google can get what essentially amounts to "streaming rights" to most of the standard TV channels, it would have a bit of room to challenge not only the telco, satellite and cable providers, but over time might gain some leverage to package those channels differently.

In the near term, we should anticipate little change, as the content providers will act in ways to protect the existing distribution model. Longer term, if Google should get traction, matters will change. Google Ponders Pay-TV Business

Google Looking at Triple Play Services

Google, reports the Wall Street Journal, is looking to add video entertainment services, and possibly voice, for customers of its 1-Gbps fiber to home network in Kansas City, Mo., and Kansas City, Kan. The moves would be logical. 


Many observers have wondered how such a network, delivering only 1-Gbps Internet access service, at prices "comparable" to existing services provided by telcos and cable companies, could possibly generate enough revenue even to break even.

As it turns out, Google has no magic rabbit to pull out of its hat. The costs of its network are not dissimilar from the costs any other service provider would incur. And few service providers would contemplate building a fiber-to-home network with a single revenue stream, namely Internet access.

Of course, Google could have chosen to operate as a "wholesale only" provider of bandwidth to other service providers. It could still do so. But the few U.S. examples of access network providers who attempt to operate "wholesale only" have not proven highly viable, most would probably conclude.

The only way to approach break-even apparently is to operate the network the way all other such networks are operated, namely providing retail triple-play services to consumers.

Nobody expects Google to become a "service provider" with its own facilities, on a wider scale. But that isn't the point. To some small extent, Google might become a distributor of voice and video services, not just a broadband access provider. But once it secures distribution rights, there are other possibilities.

So far, it seems unlikely Google would get licensing rights that will immediately save consumers money. In fact, any video rights will likely include the normal clauses that require Google to pay as much as other video distributors. But if Google were to focus its services only on "over the top" delivery, it might still have a clear price advantage, compared to other service providers who must build and operate access facilities, of course.

Google might also find it only can get content rights if it agrees to bundle channels in the typical way cable, satellite and telco TV providers do, which would limit the amount of innovation Google could attempt. Also, until Google got serious volume, the prices it pays for content rights will not allow significant retail price discounts.

But any move by Google into the triple-play services market would be a bit of a shock, even if nobody thinks Google wants to become a traditional service provider. The broader issue is that if Google can get what essentially amounts to "streaming rights" to most of the standard TV channels, it would have a bit of room to challenge not only the telco, satellite and cable providers, but over time might gain some leverage to package those channels differently.

In the near term, we should anticipate little change, as the content providers will act in ways to protect the existing distribution model. Longer term, if Google should get traction, matters will change.

Google Ponders Pay-TV Business

1/2 of New Virgin Media, BT Broadband Connections are for 30 Mbps or Faster

About half of new connections for high-speed broadband service at Virgin Media and BT in the United Kingdom are for service at 30 Mbps or faster. That is a pretty big deal, as up to this point, take rates for "super fast" service have been fairly minimal. 


This level of service, as a stand-alone product, retails for £35 ($56) a month on Virgin Media networks.  That's an important fact. Many have argued that even when "super fast" services are available, price is a barrier. 

Virgin Media is still on target to meet its coverage target of its 100 Mbps service being available to its complete cable network by the middle of 2012, this represents roughly half of U.K. households. 1/3 of UK Virgin Media customers can get 100 Mbps


By way of comparison, in Denver Comcast sells 20-Mbps connections for about $68 a month on a standard basis. CenturyLink sells a 40 Mbps connection for about $80 a month, where it is available, as a stand-along product. The Comcast Xfinity service running at up to 100 Mbps costs about $200 a month. 


The Xfinity 50 Mbps service costs about $150 a month. 50 Mbps Xifinity Most observers would say the 50 Mbps and 100 Mbps services are purchased mostly by business users.


German cable network operator Kabel BW claims that around 40,000 customers are using broadband with speeds of 50 Mbps or 100 Mbps. About three million homes are able to buy service at those rates. So buyers represent about one percent of customers. 100-Mbps demand

Also, the price for the 50-Mbps access service is about $41 a month. Kabel BW has found only about one percent take rates, at prices of $41 a month. 

Verizon Tests 10 Gbps to Home

Verizon says it has managed to push 10 gigabits per second through its FiOS trunking network, including 2 gigabit per second service to a customer’s house with two simultaneously-used PCs.


The XG-PON field trial connected a FiOS customer location with 10 gigabits per second downstream to the home and 2.5 Gbps upstream.

The test demonstrates the capability of the Verizon's FiOS network to accommodate a wide array of new and emerging video services and the growing demand for streaming video content and other bandwidth-intensive applications.

The latest field trial was conducted in May in Taunton, Mass., with a XG-PON system developed by Motorola, a supplier of BPON and GPON optical networking equipment to Verizon.

At the customer's home, the optical network terminal (ONT) received the 10/2.5 Gbps feed and used two data communication ports to simultaneously provide transmission speeds of close to 1 Gbps to each of two PCs inside the home. Combined, the two ports delivered approximately 1.85 Gbps in aggregate bandwidth in each direction.

Tests were designed to simulate what two different customers might experience while using their PCs to download, upload or share files to the Internet when served by a 10G PON system.  In addition, speed tests were performed to Verizon's speed test server located more than 400 miles away in Reston, Va., realized speeds of up to 915 Mbps between the PC and the speed test server.

"XG-PON can provide the capacity needed to support the explosive growth in bandwidth envisioned for new and emerging services such as 3DTV and Ultra HD TV, and the growing demand for streaming video content to the PC and TV, as well as the increased use of concurrent applications," said Vincent O'Byrne, director of technology for Verizon's FTTP architecture and design effort.


Verizon trumpeted the test as proof that its gamble on building out a large fiber-optic network will pay off in the future, as user needs for bandwidth outstrip the capabilities of cable and DSL.

The test appears aimed to reassure investors that Verizon made the right decision to deploy the fiber-to-home network, and to assure observers that Verizon can keep up with any new bandwidth initiatives cable competitors may deploy.

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