74% Happy with Fiber to Home Access

Overall satisfaction among fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) subscribers reached a new high in 2011, with 74 percent stating they are "very satisfied" in a new study conducted by the FTTH Council. This compares favorably to customer satisfaction for cable users at 54 percent and 51 percent for DSL. Perhaps the only surprise is that "only" 74 percent were "very satisfied." Read more here.

The study also indicates that 54 percent of cable modem subscribers are "very satisfied," while 51 percent of digital subscriber line customers are "very satisfied." Read more.

The study further estimates there are about 162,500 U.S. subscribers buying broadband access at 50 Mbps, and about 69,700 buying services at 100 Mbps. One would suspect that most of those users are "business" users rather than consumer users. One possible hint about that pattern is that 67 percent of users with 50 Mbps connections say they "ever work from home." About 30 percent of all FTTH users say they "ever work from home." 

One might guess that 67 percent of 50 Mbps users say they "work from home" because they use connections subsidized by their employers. Only about

22 percent of users of 50 Mbps services (or higher) say they have "home-based" businesses. About 12 percent of all FTTH subscribers say they operate a home-based business. The take-away is that most at-home 50 Mbps connections are not supporting a home-based business.

The survey of more than 2,000 broadband subscribers, drawn randomly from a nationally balanced panel of more than 3.2 million consumers by the market research firm RVA LLC also found that overall satisfaction among FTTH users continues to lead that of other broadband subscribers, with those answering "very satisfied" at 74 percent - up from 71 percent a year ago - compared to 54 percent for cable users and 51 percent for DSL.

As of April 2011, fiber to the home services were available to more than 18 percent of North American homes and were connected to more than seven million of them. RVA estimates that there are now 170,000 North American households receiving FTTH service with connection speeds of at least 100 megabits per second, and a total of 347,000 receiving 50 Mbps service. Both of these figures were more than double those from last year's survey report.

With regard to cost of service relative to download connection speed, the RVA survey results showed FTTH subscribers paying $2.91 a month per megabit of bandwidth, compared to $3.83 for cable subscribers, $16.40 for DSL, and $49.38 per megabit for fixed wireless services.

YouTube Launches "Cosmic Panda"

YouTube is launching a beta test of Cosmic Panda, a new format for displaying videos, managing playlists and channels. TestTube experiments: Cosmic Panda. To take this experiment for a test drive go to http://www.youtube.com/cosmicpanda and click “Try it out!”

YouTube Cosmic Panda

Google+ Fastest-Growing Social Network, Ever?

"I predict that Google will go from 0 to 100,000,000 users faster than any other service in history," says Bill Gross, founder and CEO of Technology Incubator Idealab.

Gross thinks Google+ already could be the fastest-growing social network, ever.

Bill Gross on Google+

Google+ for Business is Coming

Google recommends businesses hold off creating Google+ accounts now, as a business-focused version is coming.

Why Google Circles Will Succeed

Google's Google+ might succeed, in part, for reasons that have nothing to do with features. Google has created the opportunity for people to get a social network "do over."

Where on Facebook a user has to "de-friend" a contact, something people might be reluctant to do, Google+ handles such actions gracefully.

Unlike Facebook, LinkedIn, or most other social networks, there's no such thing as a "friend request," in one sense.  


Users can create groups of friends, called Circles, including both other Google+ users and nonusers who receive status updates by e-mail rather than from the site. But that's not the key feature.



As a Google+ user, you never are in the awkward situation of receiving a friend request from someone you don't really want to be Google+ friends with.

Nor will you have to face the awkward decision of whether or not to de-friend a former contact. Just remove them from your circles, which are never revealed to other users. Other than that, Google+ looks and behaves a lot like Facebook.

Read more.

Mobile Execs Move to Banks

Omar Khan, head of strategy and product management, is joining Citigroup. Khan, who was the head of products and technology for Samsung's U.S. mobile division, will help develop Citigroup's global mobile services.

In 2010, Dan Schulman, who previously ran Virgin Mobile, moved to run American Express' mobile business. If you wanted more evidence that the mobile business and banking are "converging" at an important level, both moves are illustrative data points.

Samsung loses key mobile executive to Citigroup

Why Tech Companies Don't Want to be Called "Media" Companies

Advertisers and other publishers have pointed out for years now that assembling audiences, and selling advertising against them, makes some significant "technology" companies media businesses. Google, for example, constantly says it is a technology company, not a media company, despite the fact that its revenue stream is overwhelmingly based on advertising revenue.

Some might suggest that hesitance to embrace the "media" appellation is more than a cultural issue. One might argue that engineers and software developers just prefer to think of themselves as technologists, not publishers. It might be more simple than that.

Valuations of media companies are not as rich as those of technology companies. That alone would be reason to emphasize "technology leadership," rather than media operations.

Why Silicon Valley Can't Sell | Adweek