Broadband: As Good as It Gets

Competition in the wired network broadband space is currently about as good as it’s going to get for the foreseeable future, and could even backslide, according to Blair Levin, Stifel Nicolaus analyst. That accords with the thinking of analysts at the Phoenix Center, who have argued for some years that robust competition between cable and telcos, while not as good as having more facilities-based competitors, is as much as can be expected in the U.S. market, and offers the practical hope of delivering competitive benefits to users, despite hopes for more.

“Prospects for the long-heralded ‘third pipe’ appear dim and dimming,” Levin says, as reported by Telephony Online. There has been no shortage of possible contenders over the last 30 years. Wireless always tops the list. Then there are the electrical utilities, municipal networks and broadband-over-powerline technology, none of which have made much of a dent.

One wag quips that "wireless is the technology of the future, and always will be." But Clearwire appears set on building a facilities-based, national third pipe. And fourth-generation networks, overall, might shift share away from wired alternatives, many believe.

“The market is as competitive as it is ever going to be, as far as we can see," says Levin. At least on the wired network side of the ledger, that likely is true.

But Levin says 4G wireless rollouts in 2010 or 2012 could represent a significant change in the competitive landscape.

100 Mbps Wireless Broadband by 2010?

Mobile broadband could hit 100 Mbps before fiber to home access is widely deployed in many markets, according to the GSM Association. Japan and South Korea, as early as 2010, might be followed by access at those sorts of speeds in the European market by 2012.

That doesn't necessarily mean wireless broadband will be a fully-functional substitute for fixed broadband for every application. It does point out that the "race" to enhance fixed network broadband speeds is important for competitive reasons beyond the tactics of competing wired network providers.

AT&T Launches Nationwide Tech Support Business

One more example that the demarcation between "network" and "user premises" steadily is being erased, in the office or the home, AT&T has launched a nationwide "Geek Squad" or "Firedog" service for customers in all 50 States, whether they are AT&T customers or not.

The “ConnecTech” service will help consumers configure computers, set up networking, and install home theaters and mount TVs. Prices range from $69 for basic remote troubleshooting of a PC or home network support to $179 for at-home support.

Those are flat-rate prices, not per hour. It can cost $849 for a technician to mount a flat-panel TV over 32″ on a wall, connect audio and video components, conceal cables in the wall as construction allows, and demonstrate to how to use the whole system.

A simple PC set-up, where the tech hooks it up to a home network, downloads updates to Microsoft Windows and hooks up your printer will cost a flat-rate $119. An Apple Mac set up costs $159.

In the world of IP communications and digital devices, no service provider forever can ignore the need to operate on both sides of the network interface or firewall.

New Comcast Traffic Shaping Plan

Comcast has a new plan to deal with bandwidth hogs: slowing down their broadband access connections for periods of 10 minutes to 20 minutes, at peak congestion periods. Comcast hasn't yet offered a definition of what a "heavy user" is or how much bandwidth consumption qualifies one as a "heavy user."

At some level this is a marketing opportunity for fiber-to-home networks that should be able to operate without such restrictions. At another level, "heavy users" probably are not profitable customers at this point. Not only do their subscription fees not cover their consumption of network resources, but they also create problems for other users.

Still, the longer-term issue is that the usage profile of a "heavy" user today becomes more like the "normal" usage profile at some point in the future, when most people use the Internet to watch video.

Long term, there is but one reasonable alternative: much more bandwidth for every user. In the near term, there are some serioius marketing issues to grapple with. Though the overwhelming percentage of users will never encounter the traffic shaping, the existence of such shaping then becomes a potential marketing drag for some, an opportunity for others.

But it is a complicated matter. In truth, competitors probably are happy "heavy" users are Comcast's problem, as such customers are not profitable, and in fact create externalities. It isn't just the stress on the access networks. Comcast pays transit fees for all those video bits. So higher usage really does impose usage-based costs.

This will be an interesting marketing challenge for Comcast and its competitors. Longer term, it also is a packaging and pricing challenge, since most users ultimately will wind up consuming lots more bandwidth as video becomes a staple of Internet activity.

AT&T Offers 2-Year Guaranteed Access Rate

AT&T has announced a guaranteed broadband access monthly rate for two years without the hassle of a term commitment. The plan freezes rates for two years and does not have any termination fee.

New residential AT&T high speed Internet orders placed before Nov. 15 will include the price guarantee.

Given the shockingly low net high-speed access additions AT&T, Verizon and Qwest experienced in the second quarter, it is a smart move.

Another Shift in How Things Get Counted

There are times when the way things get counted tells you something about where products are growing, how companies want their growth measured and how revenue growth metrics are changing.

That seems to be the growing case for video entertainment. Until recently, "basic subscribers" have been a fairly reasonable way to evaluate how well a video provider is doing. Two decades ago, that might have been a reasonable way to evaluate how well a telco was doing. But markets are changing, and so are the "counting" mechanisms.

This data from the Cable and Telecommunications Association for Marketing track "digital video" in addition to basic subscribers. At some point, we might well find that digital video subscriptions are a better indicator of performance than "basic" subscriber units, where in the past the delivery protocols haven't mattered as much (satellite subscribers are, by definition, digital customers).

These days, "revenue generating units" make more sense as a way of describing either cable or telco growth. About a decade ago, "voice grade equivalents" began making more sense than "access lines" as a way of describing and measuring performance.

It looks like we are just on the cusp of a time when digital video units are a better growth metric than "basic" and "enhanced" or "digital cable" subscriptions.

1/3 of Vista PCs Downgraded to XP, Survey Suggests

In a survey of more than 3,000 computers, performance testing software developer Devil Mountain Software estimated that more than one in three new machines had either been downgraded by vendors such as Dell, or by customers once they bought the PC.

For whatever reason, large numbers of users still seem to be expressing a preference for XP.