Rural Access: More Capacity Than One Might Think

The popular sterotype is that rural America does not have broadband and that service providers refuse to offer it. Like all stereotypes, there is a grain of truth. Rural America is a tough place to provide communications services.

But a new survey of 146 members of the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association, 100 percent reported they offer broadband access. In 2000, 58 percent of surveyed members offered broadband service, so there has been substantial progress.

That does not mean every rural cooperative or service provider now offers broadband, or offers access at all the speeds it might desire. It does indicate that rural citizens increasingly are getting broadband and other new services despite the challenges. 

Higher speeds arguably are a good thing, of course, and might benefit from some changes in the way universal service and related mechanisms are structured.  But there is some mix of "demand" and "supply" drivers in rural, as well as urban, markets. 

Also, about 93 percent of survey respondents indicated they face competition in the provision of advanced services from at least one other service provider, up from 87 percent a year ago. That includes providers of satellite TV and broadband access, cable operators, Internet service providers and wireless providers. 

To the extent that most telcos already have broadband access competitors in their markets, adoption 

Some 99 percent use digital subscriber line, but 44 percent also say they use fiber to the home or fiber to the curb, up from 32 percent last year. About 17 percent use unlicensed wireless, 16 percent use licensed wireless, 14 percent use satellite access and 10 percent offer cable modem service. 

Some 91 percent of customers can receive service at 200 kbps to 768 kbps service. About 83 percent of cusotmers can get speeds of  768 kbps to 1.5 Mbps.

About 58 percent have access to speeds ranging from 1.5 Mbps to 3 Mbps. Some 46 percent of customers can buy service at speeds between  3 Mbps and 6 Mbps, while 25 percent can buy service at speeds greater than 6 Mbps. 

On average, 11 percent of customers buy 56 kbps service. About 19 percent subscribe to service at 200 kbps to 768 kbps.

Roughly 36 percent buy service in the 768 kbps to 1.5 Mbps band. Another 10 percent buy service in the 1.5 Mbps to 3 Mbps range.

Some 11 percent buy service at 3 Mpbs to 6 Mbps. Just five percent buy service at speeds greater than 6 Mbps. Overall, dial-up take rates declined and broadband take rates rose significantly in the past year, NTCA says. 

Of those respondents with a fiber deployment strategy plan, 71 percent plan to offer fiber to the node to more than 75 percent of their customers by year-end 2009, while 74 percent plan to offer fiber to the home to at least 25 percent of their customers over the same time frame.

Some six percent of respondents currently offer VoIP, but 46 percent have plans to offer VoIP in the foreseeable future. About 68 percent of respondents offer video service to their customers.

Wholesale Business: Perception and Reality Might Not Match

At the risk of appearing foolish, I have been writing a lot recently about the need to maintain some rigor in assessing the likely impact of the recession on communications service provider revenues, growth rates and profits. There is a natural tendency to panic and over-react when virtually everyone around you "feels so bad."

The emotion is real, and strains are real. But there is some amount of evidence that consumer and small business buyers, for example, have not been reducing their buying of services. So it might be noteworthy that, at the Pacific Telecommunications Council annual conference,  Stealth Communications CEO Shrihari Pandit says neither carrier nor enterprise customers, in aggregate, have reduced spending with Stealth in 2008. In fact, revenues have grown all year. 

That isn't to say every company, every customer segment or every industry segment can say the same. It is to point out that in times when emotion tends to cloud decision making, it is more important to pay close attention to the actual numbers, rather than relying on one's own emotions, or the emotions business partners might legitimately feel. 

Though it always is possible I am wrong, I would argue from history that, when the recession is over, communications service providers will have shown absolute revenue growth, though at lower rates than in 2007 or 2008, with lower average revenue per unit. There might be segments that do less well, but the industry will emerge with net growth. 

Sprint Gives Boost to Pre-Paid: Unintended Consequences?

As it has done in the post-paid market with its "Simply Everything" package, Sprint Nextel Corp. now is attempting to create new value-price positions for itself now in the pre-paid market. The operator has said it will offer a $50 unlimited plan for its Boost Mobile service on the iDEN network. 

Keep in mind that the new plan will include a data plan bundle with unlimited data, talk, messaging, and push-to-talk service for only $50 per month. The iDEN network won't support 3G or 4G speeds, but many users will be intrigued by the value and price point. 

AT&T  and Verizon Wireless are  currently offering $100 unlimited plans, by way of comparison. 

The $50 plan might help Sprint bring some users back to the Nextel iDEN network. It also puts Sprint firmly in the ring 

with Leap Wireless International and MetroPCS  in the low-cost wireless game. But one never can discount the potential impact in other areas. 

True, it is a "Boost" product, not a "Nextel" product, so the potential impact on the broader Nextel brand might be muted. Keep in mind the drawbacks. 

Phones for the service will be from Motorola and will start at $20. Since Motorola has not kept pace in the handset space, this is a weakness. And there will not be phones from other suppliers, given the historic unwillingness the other suppliers have to supply essentially one North American customer. 

There will some speed issues for data usage as well. 

On the other hand, in a recessionary climate, some observers argue that mobility users will not stop using mobile service, but will look for better deals, so long as handset replacment costs are not steep. This is an advantage for the new Boost package, as rival plans from Metro PCS and Leap Wireless do not bundle in the unlimited data usage, push-to-talk and messaging, and generally run about $60 a month. 

Also, Leap ("Cricket") and Metro PCS are fixed-line replacement solutions more than national roaming solutions. 

So while the new offer does compete with Leap and Metro PCS, Boost will not have any regional restrictions, putting the service in more direct competition with Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile. 

It's an interesting move. The iDen network and service has some obvious limitations at the moment. But Sprint Nextel is doing what it can, with the assets it has, to create new positions in the market using those assets. Simplicity and value are the new factors in the equation, driven by the feature bundling and new industry price point.

It is the sort of thing one might expect from Dan Hesse, Sprint Nextel CEO. He widely is credited with pioneering the "Digital One Rate" plan that changed industry pricing for use of mobile minutes. "Simply Everything" and now the new Boost plan are in the same line of thinking: change the way usage is packaged and priced. 

Some will argue it is not enough. Of course not. But Sprint has to stop its bleeding before it can do other things that change the value proposition even more.  

$6 Billion Boost for Rural Broadband?

The U.S. House of Representatives version of a stimulus plan includes $6 billion dollars in grants for broadband deployment. The Senate will have its own economic recovery package, but the Fiber to the Home Council believes that the proposal is a good indication of where Congress is headed on the issue of broadband.

 

The responsibility for awarding the broadband grants would be divided between the Agriculture Department's Rural Utilities Service and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration in the Department of Commerce.  

The RUS money ($2.825 billion) would bolster the agency's current program of grants, loans and loan-guarantees to extend broadband infrastructure into largely unserved rural areas, and would not require that the services provide connection speeds higher than what typically passes for broadband today.

 

The NTIA money (also $2.825 billion) will consist of new grant programs for the development of broadband and wireless services in unserved and underserved areas.  Of this amount, $1.825 billion would be for wireline broadband - and 75 percent of that ($1.37 billion) is directed toward "advanced broadband," which is defined in the legislation as 45 Mbps down and 15 Mbps up.

About half the money would be of obvious interest to providers of fixed broadband in rural areas, as the new funds would simply bolster existing efforts to subsidize broadband deployment in rural areas. The other half is noteworthy because, if the eligibility rules remain as now conceived, the new infrastructure will have to operate at a minimum of 45 Mbps downstream and at least 15 Mbps upstream. 

That might provide a boost for wireless-based providers, such as Clearwire, if bidding rules allow them to compete. Fixed networks would have to deploy a "deep fiber" design to allow such bandwidths, in all likelihood. There is likely to be some wrangling over the right to bid for such support. 

Some tier one providers, such as Qwest, do serve many rural communities in the western United States, though Qwest has generally been denied rural broadband support because that support is awarded on a "statewide" basis rather than on a "community" basis. 

Consumer Wireless Spending Now Exceeds Wireline

Since 2007, Americans have been spending more for mobile than for landline telephone services, according to a new report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In 2007, 55 percent of all consumer telephone expenditures were for wireless service, the latest year for which official figures are available. Landlines accounted for 43 percent, with the remaining two percent going for other services, such as pagers and phone cards.

It marked the first time that cellphones had topped landlines in annual consumer spending, as monitored by BLS.

In 2003, consumers spent 65 percent of their communications budget on landline voice. But the share for landlines dropped rapidly in subsequent years. Landline share fell to 60 percent in 2004, 54 percent in 2005, and 50 percent in 2006, before the latest slip to 43 percent in 2007.

The typical U.S. consumer spent $1,110 on telephone services in 2007, with $608 going for cellphones, $482 for landlines and $20 for other services. the BLS study obviously does not include spending for broadband access or other related services such as cable TV, in these amounts.

The BLS study found a direct correlation between age and cellphone spending, as you might expect. Consumers under the age of 25 directed 75 percent of their telephone expenditures to cellphones. That figure dropped for each rung on the age ladder. People between the ages of 25 and 34 spent 67 percent on cellphones; 35-44, 59 percent; 45-54, 57 percent; 55-64, 48 percent; and 65 and older, 33 percent.

More Mobile Broadband Subs than Fixed in 2011

Worldwide wireline broadband subscribers reached 287 million in 2007. But mobile broadband subscribers ultimately will surpass fixed broadband, for obvious reasons.

Fixed broadband, like fixed voice, is a service sold to places. Mobile broadband, like mobile voice, is sold to persons. There generally are more people than dwellings. 

By about 2011, it is possible that cellular

mobile broadband subscribers will catch up, or overtake, wireline broadband

subscribers, with an expected total mobile subscriber base passing 5 billion by 2011, say analysts at Infonetics Research. 

End of the Internet"

There's probably no shortage of people who decry the "end of the Internet as we know it."

Some think it is a good thing, in the sense of the Internet becoming a utility like electricity. "The biggest take-away from last week’s Consumer Electronics Show is that every device in our lives is rapidly becoming a computer connected to the Internet," says Edgelings CEO Tom Hayes. "That new reality means the Internet will soon transition from the conspicuous to the unconscious; from something you go “onto” to something you never go off of-and in fact hardly even think about."

Others worry or lament the emergence of "private," traffic-shaped," managed or other forms of IP networks. There are public policy issues, to be sure.

But IP networks are more than the Internet, and the Internet itself is changing. And there is a paradox here. Ask anybody in the communications policy community whether the Telecommunications Act of 1996 succeeded and you'll get, as often as not, an argument that it has failed in some major way. But ask those same people whether their own choice, value and services are better now than they were then, and everybody will say "yes, my services are better, cheaper, more valuable."

Ask many policy advocates about the health of the Internet and they will say things are terrible, for any number of reasons. But ask those same people whether the Internet is more valuable today--much more valuable and useful--than it was before 1996. I suspect we all know the answer.

There are serious public policy issues, of course. But the Internet is not now what it was. Neither are television; radio; audio; magazines; newspapers; theaters; library catalogs; classifieds; phones; computers or data networks. In one sense, we can "save" the Internet about as meaningfully as we can "save" black and white, monaural, NTSC, broadcast television.

End? How about "beginning"?