100 Mbps for 100 Million Homes by 2020?

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.

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.

The proposal is part of the FCC's national broadband plan, due for initial public comment in March 2010.
The goal is sure to come under some scrutiny by service providers, in part because there is not currently any way to provide bandwidth of that magnitude on a national basis while pricing service at rates most consumers would pay.

There is not enough usable wireless spectrum to provide that kind of coverage and usage, and fixed access networks are not completely or primarily subject to Moore's Law. While chipsets and processors do get faster, the cost of digging trenches does not get less expensive over time. In fact, construction cost is the dominant cost element for any optical network providing service directly to end users.

 "One hundred meg is just a dream," says Qwest Communications International Inc Chief Executive Edward Mueller. "We couldn't afford it."

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."

Having a "stretch goal" is fine. Firm mandates, though, might run smack up against stubborn consumer willingness to pay and the fixed costs of building access infrastructure.

79% Business IP Voice by 2013, In-Stat Forecasts

VoIP penetration among U.S. businesses will increase rapidly over the next few years, reaching 79 percent by 2013, compared to 42 percent at the end of 2009, In-Stat says. This penetration reflects companies having a VoIP solution deployed in at least one location.

 In-Stat now finds that 41 percenrt of businesses with VoIP capability have no legacy TDM voice services, compared to 34 percent in 2008. About 42 percent of US businesses now have a VoIP solution in at least one location, In-Stat says.

Hosted IP services such as IP Centrex also saw steady growth in 2009, while IP PBX growth was significantly stunted.

While there are indications that the economy and high-tech investments are in slow recovery, IP equipment investments are likely to lag other areas, In-Stat says.

VoIP adopters now have a good understanding of the cost savings associated with VoIP, and have oriented their limited budgets to optimizing efficiency and savings by replacing legacy TDM voice solutions, says David Lemelin, In-Stat analyst.

With businesses opening up fewer new locations than we have seen in recent years, much of this current investment is occurring at headquarters locations where efficiencies and savings can be maximized.

Hosted IP Centrex has now surpassed broadband IP telephony as the leading revenue-generating, carrier-based business VoIP solution. In other words, business IP telephony now generates more revenue than other forms of business VoIP, In-Stat says.

Still, 33 percent of businesses that have already deployed VoIP solutions report that recent economic conditions have caused them to slow additional deployment plans, compared to 30 percent reporting no change in plans.

Broadband IP Telephony revenues continue to grow and will more than double by 2013, compared to 2008, driven by single-user applications among increasingly distributed and mobile workforces.

10,000% Mobile Bandwidth Increase by 2015 is Just One Problem, Nokia Siemens Says

 Mobile data from smart devices will increase 10,000 percent by 2015, says Rajeev Suri, Nokia Siemens Networks CEO. And that's only part of the problem. The other issue is signaling overhead, apart from bearer traffic, that can tie up radio ports even when not much actual bandwidth is being consumed.

That's one reason "adding capacity" does not solve all congestion issues in a mobile network. Congestion also can occur when signaling load is heavy. But bandwidth growth is an issue.

Nokia Siemens Networks predicts that by 2015, annual mobile data traffic will reach 23 exabytes , equivalent to 6.3 billion people each downloading a digital book every day.

Pure capacity is just one issue, however, intermittent connectivity and shifting locations plus signaling overhead are problems as well.

As an example, having predicted the current surge in smarter mobile devices, Nokia Siemens Networks is the only vendor to have built into its networks an industry standard, already common in smart phones, that allows it to reduce unprofitable, congestion-causing signaling by three times while increasing smart device battery life, says Suri.

Skype on Verizon Wireless Will Use TDM Network

The Skype  Mobile client that will run on Verizon Wireless smartphones will run in the background on Research in Motion BlackBerry Storm, Storm 2, Curve 8330, Curve 8530, 8830 World Edition and the Tour 9630 devices.

It will also be available on the Motorola Droid, the HTC Droid Eris and the Motorola Devour.
Subscribers will be able to make and receive unlimited and free Skype-to-Skype calls, and use Skype Out to make international calls to any phone at Skype's standard rates. So, the client will be especially useful for users with family abroad, according to Verizon Wireless.

The calls will be carried over Verizon Wireless' voice network, and won't impact overall network quality, according to John Stratton, executive vice president and chief marketing officer at Verizon Wireless. That's probably the most-significant element of the plan.

The Skype client could well help Verizon Wireless set itself apart from other U.S. mobile operators in terms of the dependability of audio quality.

What "you'll see from Verizon, you won't see from anyone else," Stratton says.

So there's your plot twist: Skype, designed to circumvent the old TDM voice network, now will use the TDM network to ensure voice quality on global calls to non-Skype telephone numbers.

It's also a clever way to make better use of an existing asset to provide better user experience and differentiation in the market.

"File Sharing" While in Conference Seen as Most Important "Collaboration" Feature

In-Stat says SIP trunking, wireless and cloud-based computing are key changes in the unified communications business.  But notice that respondents to a recent In-Stat survey say "collaboration" means "file sharing," not necessarily visual communications, telepresence or videoconferencing, as some might mean in the phrase "unified communications and collaboration."

File sharing while in conference is seen as the application of most importance, not necessarily "seeing" other participants.

Unlimited Skype Calling on Verizon Smartphones in March 2010

Starting in March 2010, all Verizon Wireless customers with smartphones and a data plan) will be able to make and receive unlimited Skype-to-Skype voice calls to any user in the world over its 3G network, which is something that AT&T users have been able to do since last autumn.

From right to left,  John Stratton, executive vice president and chief marketing officer for Verizon Wireless, and Josh Silverman, Skype's CEO, announcing their strategic relationship to bring Skype to Verizon Wireless smartphones during a press conference at the 2010 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain.

30% of U.S. Households Don't Use the Internet

Despite the growing importance of the Internet in American life, over 30 percent of households and 35 percent of persons do not use the Internet at home, and 30 percent of all persons do not use the Internet anywhere, say researchers at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.

Those with no broadband access at home amount to more than 35 percent of all households and approximately 40 percent of all persons, with a larger proportion in rural areas in both categories.

The two most important reasons given by survey respondents for not having broadband access at home are “don’t need” and “too expensive." But many survey respondents also say their PCs are "inadequate" or that no computer is available.

Canadian Video Providers Test Partial "A La Carte" Buying of Video Channels

In an important test of market demand, Canadian cable and telco multi-channel video providers are beginning to test market demand for more-flexible ways of selling cable channels. It isn't a full-blown switch to à la carte television, but will provide an important test of how well consumers like the ability to buy service in ways that might offer more targeted buying of channels they actually watch.

Bell Canada now is offering a more-granular approach to buying multi-channel TV service. The service is being introduced in Bell Canada's Quebec service territory.

The company says it will allow television customers to subscribe to individual channels, rather than the standard bundles that have been the mainstay of the multi-channel video business.

Customers must first take a basic $25 package that includes standard channels such as Global, CTV, CityTV and CBC, and can then choose 15 channels for $15, 20 for $19 or 30 for $22. Bell is also offering individual channels for $2 each.

"TV just got better for subscribers in Quebec, who now have the ultimate control and flexibility to get the channels they want," says Kevin Crull, Bell's president of residential services.

Vidéotron already offers similar options, with basic service and 15 extra channels starting at $37 a month.

Quebec has been one of the most competitive regions for telecommunications, with some of the lowest prices in the country, says the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

Bell Canada apparently is not offering à la carte channels in Ontario, its other main television territory.

Rogers, Bell's chief TV rival in Ontario, does offer individual channels on top of basic service at a typical cost of $2.79 each. Basic television services in Ontario from both Bell and Rogers start at around $35 and $30, respectively.

So far, no U.S. provider has taken this route, but consumer demand will be watched closely for any signs the practice might be useful in the U.S. market as a way of providing service differentiation.

Video Cord Cutting Threat is Overestimated, Parks Associates Says

Despite the growing amount of video available online, less than eight percent of U.S. broadband households, or about 5.5 million households, are considering canceling their multi-channel subscription services in favor of online video, according to Parks Associates. You may interpret that as good or bad news.

The 2008 study found 11 percent of U.S. broadband households were considering canceling pay-TV services, and in an earlier 2009 survey, the number was 10 percent. The upside is that people might be finding it is harder than they thought to replace their current multi-channel video experience with alternative sources.

Where there clearly seems to be more danger is in the area of churn. As many as 2.75 million of those households report they are considering a switch to a new service provider. That's the bigger danger, as consumers do not have to change behavior or lose any of the value when switching providers, but might save some money, or even increase perceived value for equivalent levels of spending.

Online viewing is correlated with switching propensity, though. Parks found that households saying they are likely to switch or cancel their services watch 10 hours of online video each week, much higher than typical video consumers.

They express strong interest in having online access to pay-TV channels as well. Such video-intensive customers also use offline video, such as DVD rentals, at higher rates than typical consumers do.

Their median number of DVD rentals from the last six months is 18, compared to two rentals among other households.

“Just 0.5 percent of broadband households appear to have cancelled their video subscriptions, according to  John Barrett, director, research, Parks Associates.

In fact, the profile of a "switcher" is someone who does not watch much TV. That makes sense. Though conventional wisdom is that "heavy" users are more likely to "cut the cord," in reality it is light users who are most prone to cancel their service, simply because the value-for-price equation is not so high.

GSM Association Embraces "One Voice"

The GSM Association has adopted the "One Voice Initiative" as a way of delivering voice and messaging services for fourth-generation Long-Term Evolution (LTE) services. One Voice is based on IP Multimedia Subsystems and will provide a standard for voice and text messaging interconnection and international roaming on 4G networks, just as carriers now support 2G and 3G interworking.

The GSMA’s Voice over LTE (VoLTE) initiative has the backing of more than 40 organizations from across the mobile ecosystem.

Mobile operators supporting the initiative include 3 Group, AT&T, Bell Canada, China Mobile, Deutsche Telekom/T-Mobile, KDDI, mobilkom austria, MTS, NTT DoCoMo, Orange, SKT, SoftBank, Telecom Italia, Telecom New Zealand, Telefónica, Telenor, TeliaSonera, Verizon Wireless and Vodafone.

Handset manufacturers and equipment vendors supporting the initiative include Acme Packet, Alcatel-Lucent, Aylus, Camiant, Cisco, Colibra, Communigate, Comneon, Ericsson, Fujitsu, Genband, Huawei, LG, Motorola, Movial, Mu, NEC, Nokia, Nokia Siemens Networks, Qualcomm, RADVISION, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and Tekelec.

24 Carriers, 3 Handset Vendors Launch 3 Billion User App Initiative

A new consortium already including 24 global mobile service providers, Sony, Samsung and LG are creating a new applications community, allowing developers to create apps working across networks serving three billion people.

The new "Wholesale Applications Community" is a recognition of the role application stores now playing in fostering new applications and a great deal of the value of mobile broadband services.

América Móvil, AT&T, Bharti Airtel, China Mobile, China Unicom, Deutsche Telekom, KT, Mobilkom Austria Group, MTN Group, NTT DoCoMo, Orange, Orascom Telecom, Softbank Mobile, Telecom Italia, Telefónica, Telenor Group, Telia Sonera, SingTel, SK Telecom, Sprint, Verizon Wireless, VimpelCom, Vodafone and Wind, as well as Samsung, LG and Sony Ericsson are founding members.

Whether directly or indirectly, by design or by default, the new development community will compete with the Apple App Store as well as other app stores being created by Google and other device and application providers.

The real carrot for developers, if the initiative can iron out any number of important details, is access to a potential audience of three billion mobile users. In practice, discrete markets will be smaller, limited by natural language communities, for example. But it is an ambitious initiative showing access providers are not interested in forfeiting their roles in the application ecosystem to other handset or application providers.

60% of Calls are Video-Enabled on fring in W. Europ

After just two months, video over Internet calls account for more than 40 percent of fring's global call traffic, on devices capable of doing so, and more than 60 percent of its call traffic throughout Western Europe, where fring mobile video call usage doubles the leading PC-based video call services, fring says.

Fring launched the world’s first interoperable service between mobile video users of fring and Skype last November, enabling users to conduct video calls to other fring users as well as with Skype users using aWi-Fi or 3G mobile Iternet connection.

The majority of fring's mobile video calls are international.

Keep in mind that fring only works on devices running the Symbian or Apple mobile operating systems, including all Symbian 9.2 and 9.3 Nokia devices including the E71N95, N95 8G, N83, N97, 5800 and other Nokia touch-screen S60 devices and the iPhone and iPod touch.

Voxbone Adds Text Messages to Global Phone Numbers

Proponents have argued that  new IP-based communications would offer many innovative features not possible on older telephone networks. Voxbone, for example, now provides "global phone numbers" that are not tied to a specific country, and now has added text message support for those numbers, a feature that will be welcomed by users who see the advantages of a single, global telephone number.

Voxbone’s carrier and enterprise customers now can offer their subscribers one global number that can receive SMS messages at competitive rates, on mobile phones that do not have Internet access. In other words, it works the way the current services do, in terms of user interface and experience.

The move marks something of a potential breakthrough in "iNum" usage, as wireless subscribers from a growing number of prominent carriers, including Vodafone, T-Mobile, Orange, Virgin, and Boost Mobile, now are able to send text messages to iNum "phone" numbers.

The service is already available in the United Kingdom, France and the United States, at prices ranging from 10 to 20 pence per message in the United Kingdom., for example.

Voxbone will be adding reachability from more wireless carriers in more countries in the coming weeks.

The new feature highlights another interesting angle: Landline phones have not traditionally been able to receive text messages. It isn't entirely clear how many people would find this interesting or useful. But it could be done.

All iNum numbers have a prefix of +883, the International Telecommunications Union-assigned international code for the Internet, just as +44 is the code for the U.K. and +1 refers to the U.S.
As a wholesaler of direct-inward-dial numbers and IP transport provider, Voxbone receives calls, and now SMS messages, to numbers with this code and delivers them over IP to its carrier customers, for delivery to their end users.

Consumers Now Drive Unified Communications

A funny thing has happened to VoIP, unified communications and videoconferencing. Originally seen by many developers as products most important to business and enterprise users, each has gotten most traction in the consumer space.

 Analysts at Gartner, for example, now say that consumer markets, and not the unified communications and collaboraion vendors, are driving innovation in the UCC space.

Some 79 percent of respondents to a recent survey by Global IP Solutions said that they currently use a consumer application such as Skype as their primary videoconferencing application, for example.

Skype points out that more than 30 percent of its global user base uses the service for business, while “an average of 34 percent of Skype-to-Skype calls now including video,” says Josh Silverman, Skype CEO.

Skype also is used for international traffic and many businesses are becoming more open to using hosted solutions for business applications.

An argument might also be made that much of the value of UC or UCC actually is captured by use of relatively simple tools such as Skype, or Google Voice or any number of other rather easy to understand consumer applications.

9 Million Google Buzz Posts in 2 Days

Though it is far too early to say anything definitive about the potential success of Google Buzz, it probably is worth noting that Buzz users created nine million posts and comments in two days, buildiing on the strength of Gmail’s existing installed base.

I don't kow whether you consider that traction, or sampling. It does illustate the value of a huge installed base, huge name recognition and a cloud-based service, though. The day Google decided to go "live," it got noticed and used by enough people to create a substantial number of entries.

Also, one thing about "perpetual beta," which Google tends to rely on when launching new products, is that it does actually work. One of the "gotchas" Google Buzz rather quickly uncovered was a potential privacy issue. Under some circumstances, it might be possible for Buzz users to discover "follower" email addresses.

Google coders jumped on the problem and apparently have it fixed. And Google already is talking about launching an independent Buzz site that is not linked to Gmail accounts, to further address the issue. That's a fairly interesting illustration of how powerful social mechanisms are, though. Within three days, a potential privacy issues was uncovered and fixed, and enough users seem to indicate they want a version not linked to Gmail that Google already is considering that option.