Carrier Ethernet will be Driven by Consumer Services

You might think the carrier Ethernet market is a product category driven by business customers.

But Yankee Group analysts predict that most of the market will be driven by services sold to consumers, not businesses, beginning this year.

That is evidence of the new role for Ethernet used to support broadband access and digital video services.

TIA Forecasts "Unprecedented" ICT Industry Revenue

For the first time in its 23 years of forecasting for the information and communications technology industry, the Telecommunications Industry Association is projecting a 3.1 percent decline in revenue for the overall global ICT market in 2009. In the United States, revenue will suffer a 5.5 percent decline in 2009.

Some will read the numbers and translate that into a dip in telecommunications spending, but that is not what the headline number indicates.

The TIA is talking about the ICT industry, not the telecom service provider industry. In fact, roughly 70 percent of the ICT data refers to things such as sales of computers, information technology consulting, PC and other software and services related to creating, modifying or maintaining data networks, on the premises.

For example, the TIA forecasts a dip in U.S. revenue from about $1.1 trillion in 2008, dipping to about $1 trillion in 2009, falling to $990 billion in 2010.

But according to the Federal Communications Commission, total U.S. communications service provider revenue in 2008 was about $300 billion. So roughly $700 billion of total ICT revenue is from hardware, software and services related to computing.

The data I have access to does not break out forecasts for the U.S. communications service provider industry. But I would be very surprised if industry revenues failed to grow in 2009, compared to 2008.

VoIP, WANs, IPTV, Mobility Will be Supplier Bright Spots in 2009 and 2010

It now appears 2009 and 2010 will not be happy years for suppliers of equipment and software to many segments of the global telecom industry, though investments in backbone capacity, IPTV, mobility and VoIP will be salient exceptions. 

Releasing its latest market forecast, the Telecommunications Industry Association predicts U.S. carrier capex spending will be down 13 percent in 2009, compared to 2008. 

Global capex spending will dip about 3.1 percent, TIA says. 

A recovery in spending will occur in 2010 and 2011, TIA now projects, and U.S. capex will climb about 14.4 percent when the rebound happens. 

As you might expect, spending will vary by segment and by growth prospects in each segment. U.S. landline infrastructure spending will decline about 11 percent in 2009, but there also will be a 15 percent growth in backbone spending. Operators will spend about 27 percent less on access. 

Spending on wireless infrastructure and broadband will climb, however. Indeed, spending on IPTV and VoIP will grow 42 percent in 2009. 

None of these projections address service provider revenues, though, and are limited to capital spending programs by service providers. So far, first quarter 2009 service provider reports suggest service providers, as an industry, are on track to grow revenue in 2009, compared to 2008.

More Competition in Rural Markets Likely

Whatever else might happen with the broadband stimulus program, odds are that the spending of those funds will increase the amount of competition in rural markets. The reason is simple enough: cable, mobile and fixed wireless service providers are likely to apply for grants under the programs, and it is likely some will receive funding.

The American Cable Association, an industry group for small independent cable operators, probably will make a fairly significant play for funds. To be sure, many rural telcos also run separate cable system operations. But even where an in-region telco gets funds to support its in-region cable operation, increased broadband access from the cable unit will dampen demand for telco-provided broadband.

It isn't clear whether fixed wireless providers will apply, but there are many hundreds of small Internet service providers using fixed wireless to provide broadband in rural and thinly-settled areas. Also, depending on the final language adopted, larger mobile providers might be able to apply as well.

The impact might not be felt immediately. It is possible many competitive networks will get funding to support operations in nearby communities, if not directly in rural areas.

But we all know what happens when an incumbent in one area looks for growth. The answer in rural areas tends to be expanding service into adjacent or nearby communities. So stimulus funds might allow providers to fortify their backhaul and other assets enough that later access operations in nearby communities are more feasible.

AT&T Goes Nationwide with Subsidized Netbooks

People sometimes think the real "problem" with broadband is that it isn't available. In fact, there is growing recognition that adoption (demand) is the primary issue. And about all it takes to boost broadband usage is to make it easy, affordable and even a bit fun. 

AT&T, for example, has announced it is adding mobile broadband equipped Acer, Dell and Lenovo netbooks to its standard line of products this summer. AT&T began testing sales of 3G-equipped netbooks in its retail stores in April. Based on the successful results, AT&T is going nationwide. 

Pricing for the nationally-available offer are not yet available, but AT&T in "limited trials" has been offering a netbook for a $49.99 in Atlanta and Philadelphia test markets. To get that price, users sign a two-year contract for wireless and wired Internet access.

In the test markets the Acer Aspire One, Dell Inspiron Mini 9, Dell Inspiron Mini 12 and LG Xenia were available. 

Prices for the netbooks start at $49.99 and go up to $249.99 with a purchase of AT&T's Internet at Home and On the Go plan, which starts at $59.99 per month. Customers who just wanted the netbooks could buy them for $449.99 to $599.99.

A third option, DataConnect only, allowed users to buy netbooks starting at $99.99 and going up to $349.99, with purchase of a 3G DataConnect plan costing $40 to $60 a month.

“It’s clear there’s a demand for mini laptops,” says Ralph de la Vega, AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets president and chief executive officer says. “We’re getting interest from tweens, teens, young adults, moms on the go and small business owners."

High-Definition Voice: Most Impact in Conferencing Apps

A poll of 186 industry professionals shows a belief that high-definition voice quality will have greatest impact for video conferencing and conference calling.

The Global IP Solutions-sponsored poll also shows that a third of respondents think high-definition voice quality also will benefit overall productivity in the workplace, while 57 percent considered conference calling would benefit the most in a work setting.

About 16 percent believe high-definition audio will have greatest impact for call center operations.

Some 11  percent of respondents say they use high-definition voice service “all the time or whenever they can” and an additional 30 percent reported having used it once or twice.  About  47 percent of respondents have not used it yet.

AT&T Launches "Synaptic Storage" Cloud Service

AT&T now is selling enterprises a new "AT&T Synaptic Storage as a Service", a storage-on-demand offer that provides enterprise customers with control over the storage, distribution and retrieval of their data from any location, anytime, using any Web-enabled device.

The service automatically scales storage capacity up or down as needed, and users pay only for the amount they use, AT&T says.

AT&T is introducing the service to customers on a controlled basis this month, with plans to make the service generally available in the third quarter. The service is deployed in AT&T Internet data centers (IDCs) in the U.S. and will be accessible by customers connecting to the Web anywhere. In time, AT&T plans to add the service to select global IDCs to meet customer demand internationally.

http://www.att.com/gen/press-room?pid=4800&cdvn=news&newsarticleid=26821

"Build it and They Will Come..." Again?

"Build it and they will come" became a demolished business strategy in the global bandwidth business, even though for a brief moment around the turn of the century, people believed that to be the case.

Still, the logic behind fiber-to-the-home projects in many ways represents the same sort of thinking. "New applications will flourish on a 100Mbps FTTP rollout even though nobody knows what those apps will be," says Khoong Hock Yun, Infocomm Development Authority assistant chief executive, and reported by CommsDay.

Still, it might still turn out to be correct, at least for providers of access connections, at some point. FTTH Council of Europe President Karel Helsen argues that content, gaming and entertainment companies now aer being invited to join the FTTU Council.

“If you provide the pipes, people will make sure that they fill it,” Helsen says. "Companies such as Nintendo, Sony, and Time Warner we welcome into our council and we’ve started talking to those companies since the beginning of this year.”

“We just had the first gaming association also join the European council and we believe also by having those people as members, you also create the pull effect from the market side to stimulate the rollout of fiber to the home,” Helsen says.

That isn't to argue such networks should not be built, or that new revenue-generating applications will not ultimately be developed. But it is likely to take some time.

Goodbye Sarbox?

The Supreme Court apparently is going to test the constitutionality of Sarbanes-Oxley rules. Personally, I hope the Supremes do rule that way. Sarbox has been a major burden for smaller and mid-sized firms, adding millions of dollar in annual cost, in many cases, and killing the Initial Public Offering market. 

http://www.businessinsider.com/henry-blodget-supreme-court-may-kill-sarbanes-oxley-and-resurrect-ipo-market-2009-5

Why Broadband "Penetration" Measures Often are Misleading

If you were trying to figure out how prevalent televisions, radios, digital video recorders, Slingboxes, PCs or DVD players were in people's lives, would it make more sense to measure how many Best Buy retail locations sold such products, or how many units are sold in any given time period?

Alternatively, if you were trying to measure the penetration of such devices, would you track the number of homes, businesses, or both, that have such devices in use?

Would you try to measure "personal" devices such as mobile phones or MP3 players the same way?

The questions aren't as "academic" as might first appear to be the case.

While it makes sense to measure the penetration of any mobile and personal technology on a per capita basis, because that is the way people buy and use such services and products, it arguably makes less sense to measure other products, such as T1 lines, Ethernet or other fixed broadband connections the same way, because that is not the way people buy or consume such products.

Were we to measure Ethernet connections on a per-capita basis, penetration would be quite low, for example. Most people intuitively would understand that sort of issue.

But where it comes to fixed broadband penetration, that is precisely the problem we face. Agencies are used to measuring fixed broadband in just about that fashion: per capita, even though people do not buy such services that way.

The point simply is that we need to measure things in a way that reflects the way people actually use a given product or technology.

People do not buy fixed broadband subscriptions the same way they buy mobile phones.

So per capita indexes are more suited to some products than others. Per-capita fixed broadband indexes are affected by mundane things such as household size, business adoption and consumer preferences.

"Consider Portugal, in which there are approximately three persons per household," says George Ford, Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal and Economic Public Policy Studies chief economist. "If every household had a broadband connection, then the per capita subscription rate in Portugal would be 33 percent"

"In Sweden, alternately, there are approximately two persons per household," says Ford. "So, if every home had a

connection, then the per-capita subscription rate is 50 percent."

"The number of fixed broadband connections per person is a flawed measure because it will vary based on the average size of a household or business establishment," Ford notes.

"In the United States, nearly every business and household had a fixed line telephone when the 1996 Telecom Act was passed," Ford notes. "Yet, telephone subscriptions per capita were only 49 percent at the time."

"In Sweden, which also had near ubiquitous telephone adoption, the telephone per-capita subscription rate was 69 percent.

The point, says Ford, is that per-capita measures are not meaningful tests of fixed broadband adoption, especially when comparing different regions or nations.

http://www.phoenix-center.org/perspectives/Perspective09-01Final.pdf

Verizon Wireless Reduces Overage Charges

Verizon Wireless has increased the data allowance for all mobile broadband customers on its lowest priced monthly plan and also has reduced overage pricing on the standard plan.

Users of the $39.99 monthly access plan used to have a cap of 50 Mbytes with an overage charge of 25 cents per megabyte. The new plan includes a 250 MByte monthly allowance and 10 cents per megabyte overage.

Users of the $59.99 monthly access plan have an unchanged 5 GByte monthly allowance and five cents per megabyte overage charges, compared to the older overage charge of 25 cents per megabyte.

4G will Grow 33% Faster than 3G, Juniper Predicts

It took nearly six years for third generation mobile services based on UMTS/HSPA to reach 100 million subscribers but it will take Long Term Evolution just four years to reach the same milestone, say researchers at Juniper Research.

The number of LTE subscriptions worldwide will grow at a cumulative average growth rate of 404 percent from 2010 to 2014 and reach 136 million subscriptions by year-end 2014, Juniper forecasts.

You might think this has something to do with spectrum efficiency, more efficient coding, signal propagation or some other technology attribute, but if the forecast proves accurate, it will be more a result of a changed mobility market than anything else.

When 3G networks were launched, the expectation was that new data services would fuel revenue growth. That largely failed to happen, at least early on. What is different now is that mobile broadband is approaching mass market status.

Mobile broadband demand is growing about 30 percent a year, while video usage is growing only a bit slower.

DPI Raises Consumer Ire, Should it?

"Network bandwidth is a finite resource, especially so in wireless networks, so it is reasonable and indeed expected that carriers will manage their network bandwidth to assure sufficient quality of service for all subscribers," says Brian Wood, Continuous Computing's VP. That tends to mean use of deep packet inspection, and that tends to raise hackles in some quarters.

The problem is that Internet access, and Internet backbones and servers, are shared resources. There is a "tragedy of the commons" problem if a few users have behavior patterns dramatically different from those of the typical user, because all networks are engineered statistically.

Nobody builds a network that provisions bandwidth on a "nailed up" basis, because nobody could afford to do so. Instead, bandwidth is "underprovisioned," on purpose. Network architects assume that not every user will be putting load on the network, all at the same time.

That works remarkably well most of the time. What causes problems are unexpected loads that haven't been engineered into the network.

"Without traffic management, a few 'bandwidth hogs' can easily degrade the user experience of many other users on the same network," says Wood. That might especially be true in the access network, but the entire Internet transmission  network, including all the servers, are shared resources.

"For consumers, DPI-based traffic management ensures that subscribers get the quality of service that they expect, or at least that they pay for," says Wood.  So, for example, a business user might opt to pay a slight premium for a guaranteed level of service (e.g., guaranteed minimum bandwidth) while a frugal college student might go for a cheaper "best effort" rate plan.

Basically, DPI or other traffic shaping mechanisms are about fairness: making sure most users get reasonable performance most of the time. The other advantage is the ability to learn or be instructed by a user on what activities are most important, so those activities get the highest priority during congested periods.

DPI can be viewed as an automated away, or a self-learning kind of way, for the network to provide those kinds of benefits, says Wood. "It's all a matter of filtering out the stuff that, based on past behavior or the behavior of similarly-profiled individuals, is deemed to not be of value and, instead, prioritizing the stuff that is deemed to be of value."

Behavioral tracking is an issue, though. "Cookie-based tracking seems to be a generally-accepted practice with web sites these days, but there was great concern when cookies were first introduced," says Wood. There are end user advantages, of course, such as sites "remembering" who you are and what your preferences are.

Behavior-based tracking has raised more concern. Deep packet inspection is deemed by some as intrusive and too personal, says Wood. The same sorts of concerns are raised about DPI-based ad insertion.

"What's interesting to me, though, is that Google has been offering Gmail for free to users in exchange for content-based advertisements being displayed next to their emails, and I haven't heard of any uprising against Gmail," he says.

Subscriber notification, how subscribers are notified, and whether those subscribers have any say in the matter, seem to be the key sticking points here, he muses. "Nobody likes the idea of being monitored without their consent, especially if they feel like information gathered through such monitoring will be used in an attempt to profile or manipulate them in the future."

But behavior-based marketing seems to work well for Netflix and Amazon, Wood notes. The difference seems to be one of perception. Lots of people are afraid technology will be used "on" them, rather than "for" them.

Consumer Spending on Internet Access, TV and Mobility is Stable, Poll Suggests

Cutbacks in home communications and entertainment services have yet to emerge as a measurable trend, despite the ongoing recession, say researchers at Pike & Fischer, who recently polled 600 consumers nationwide about their spending on phone, Internet and multichannel video.

Scott Sleek, Pike & Fischer director of broadband advisory services, says the firm conducted the survey because it has been hearing so much "doom and gloom" from service provider executives.

But the study indicates respondents say they would rather keep Internet, video and voice services in their budgets than any other type of expense, including gym memberships, personal care products and apparel.

But the results also point to customers becoming more aware of ways to spend less on those services. That suggests average revenue per user is, or will soon become, an issue for service providers.

"We found very consistent consumer behavior," says Sleek. "We found no evidence of downgrading, for example."

"What I found interesting was that when we asked what people planned to do with their phone and TV services, most said they were planning absolutely no changes," says Sleek.

"Of course, neither are they upgrading, buying more premium channels or adding faster Internet tiers, either," he notes. That is "better than a lot of people thought would happen," he adds.

But one reason service provider executives remain nervous is that there are so many free and cheaper services available now that didn't exist five years ago. Nobody was sure what would happen, this time around.

So far, though, behavior is what one would have predicted, based on behavior in past recessions: stability of subscriptions, but some pressure on average revenue per user.

"The cable guys are worried about over the top video, but so far, it seems to be augmenting video consumption," says Sleek.

People report spending more time at home, so TV and Internet arguably are more valuable.

Energy Consumption up 250% by 2030, but Mobiles Help

Electricity consumption by "electronics" grew by nearly seven percent each year from 1990 to 2008, says Paul Waide, International Energy Agency senior policy analyst. And electricity consumption is likely to grow by 250 percent by 2030, as a majority of growth already is coming from non-OECD countries.

But use of mobile devices, which is growing rapidly, helps, as mobiles tend to be more power efficient. In fact, says the IEA, matters would be worse but for the convergence of technologies and the growth in mobile applications such as laptop computers, which draw less power.

The IEA study finds that over the next seven months, the number of people using a personal computer will pass the one billion mark. Electronic devices currently account for 15 percent of household electricity consumption but their share is rapidly rising.

Already there are nearly two billion television sets in use, with an average of over 1.3 sets in each home having access to electricity.

Without new policies, the energy consumed by information and communications technologies as well as consumer electronics will double by 2022 and increase threefold by 2030 to 1 700 Terawatt hours (TWh), says Nobuo Tanaka, International Energy Agency Executive Director

Higher efficiency technologies that are already available would half this demand, he notes. So aside from more-efficient technologies, unplugging devices when not in use, unplugging mobiles when fully charged and turning off unused applications such as Bluetooth or Wi-Fi when not needed are steps people can take to limit electrical consumption.

http://www.iea.org/Textbase/press/pressdetail.asp?PRESS_REL_ID=284