Connected Car Benefits for Insurers

Though some desired business outcomes from Internet of Things advances will reduce the cost of inputs such as energy, arguably the biggest benefits will come from direct impact on business models or policy outcomes (lower air pollution, less traffic, accidents avoided, equipment protected, lives saved).

IoT sensors, for example, could help insurance companies better assess risk, and therefore premiums, charged to its customers. That is one direct benefit of connected air applications.

Since the basis of the insurance model is risk arbitrage, IoT sensors would help in several ways, allowing companies to safely provide “safe driver” discounts, while better matching premiums to risk in other cases.

That is one reason connected car applications are seen as early adopters: there are advantages for drivers (safe drivers, at any rate) and insurance companies. When an innovation had tangible benefits for both buyers and sellers, adoption can occur faster, because there is less friction (inertia or resistance).

source: Business Insider

"Fiber to Home" Not Setting U.S. Internet Access Speed Agenda

With the caveat that the U.S. market is somewhat unusual in having robust fixed network competition on a facilities basis, it is hard to deny that cable TV operators now are setting the agenda for Internet speed upgrades.

A few years ago, one might have argued that Google Fiber was setting the agenda. A decade ago, you might have argued that Verizon’s FiOS was setting the bandwidth agenda.

These days, it is multi-gigabit services enabled by DOCSIS 3.1 that will likely set the commercial deployment agenda, given the ubiquity of cable TV networks across the country.

It is hard to tell at this point how important--or when--symmetrical bandwidth will become important for cable operators. At the moment, with some caveats, downstream bandwidth likely remains the key driver of marketplace positioning.

Downstream speed tends to be--with price--the way consumers evaluate offers, and downstream capacity grows at a 50 percent to 60 percent compound annual growth rate.

In the next wave of platform development, it seems likely that dramatic leaps in mobile (perhaps in small cell or fixed applications) will complement and possibly compete with fixed networks, to some extent. The new competition will center on multi-gigabit speeds, at a headline level.

Perhaps the more-important development is that mass-deployed bandwidth in the hundreds of megabits range will be widely available, from fixed and mobile networks.

For many veterans of the telecom industry, the notion that “fiber to the home” no longer sets the speed agenda will be shocking. The importance of physical media periodically shifts, so we might yet see another shift back to fiber access as protocols continue to advance.

source: Cablelabs

RCN to Launch Gigabit Internet Access in Chicago Market

RCN, a provider of triple-play services to some 377,000 customers, will sell gigabit Internet access services in its Chicago market, including the communities of Skokie and Lincolnwood, using DOCSIS 3.1 technology. Pricing will start at $70 a month.

RCN began life as a supplier of triple-play services primarily to high-rise and other multiple dwelling units in a few Northeast U.S. cities, and now is owned by TPG, a private equity firm.

TPG also acquired the assets of Grande Communications, an overbuilder operating in Texas.

Like privately-held WOW, TPG operates as an overbuilder, competing against both other cable operators and telcos in the consumer and business customer segments. WOW has something more than 700,000 customers.

Though both WOW and TPG have accounts two orders of magnitude behind the top-tier service providers, WOW now ranks about 10th on a list of largest triple-play providers, while TPG ranks 12th.

After a recent wave of mergers, the leader board is vastly changed. Perhaps most surprising, for many observers, is the fact that AT&T now is the biggest supplier of consumer video services.

By way of comparison, AT&T has 26 million video accounts, Comcast has 22.4 million, Charter Communications 18.4 million, Dish Network 13.9 million, Verizon 4.7 million accounts.

The other possible surprise is that an overbuilder (typically a service provider competing against both telco and cable) now is in the top-10 rankings.

Rank	Provider	Total Subscribers
1	AT&T	26,000,000
2	Comcast Cable	22,400,000
3	Charter Communications	18,421,145
4	Dish Network	13,909,000
5	Verizon	4,700,000
6	Cox Communications	4,540,280
7	Altice USA	3,948,000
8	Frontier Communications	1,700,000
9	Mediacom	862,000
10	WOW! (f.k.a. WideOpenWest)	702,101
11	Cable One	451,000
12	TPG	377,000
13	Windstream	359,000
14	CenturyLink	311,000
15	Atlantic Broadband Group, LLC	246,000
16	Midcontinent Communications	236,250
17	Armstrong Cable Services	234,573
18	Service Electric Cable TV Incorporated	213,058
19	Metrocast	164,921
20	Blue Ridge Communications	164,796
21	WaveDivision Holdings, LLC	152,975
22	General Communications	140,000
23	Buckeye Broadband	130,954
24	Consolidated Communications	117,882
25	Google Fiber	68,715
26	TDS Telecom	41,200
26	Hawaiian Telcom	32,000

Source: Wikipedia

source: PCmag

Someday 100 Mbps Will Not Qualify as "Broadband"

easonable people will differ about the value of changing the definition of broadband from time to time. When definitions are changed, though, it becomes more difficult to track progress, even if higher minimum definitions are indirect proof that speeds are increasing, across the board.

Three decades ago, in the U.S. market, “broadband” was, by definition, any speed faster than 1.5 Mbps. A decade and a half ago, fiber to the home meant symmetrical 10 Mbps speeds. These days, anything below 25 Mbps is not even “broadband.”

Someday, even 100 Mbps might not be considered “broadband.” It just depends on adoption of speeds in the gigabit range, on both fixed and mobile networks.

source: Arris

source: Arris

Latency Becoming a Bigger Issue than Speed

Despite the fact that consumer Internet access speeds have increased about two orders of magnitude over the last 15 years or so, how much bandwidth any single user “needs” is less clear, with some studies suggesting that, beyond about 10 Mbps to 15 Mbps, users get negligible incremental value.

Eventually that will change as apps are crafted to take advantage of nearly-universal higher speeds. Still, for the moment, gigabit really is about marketing, not end user requirements.

There is one clear exception: multiple users at a single location. As always has been clear for business Internet access connections, the number of users at any single location makes a huge difference, as it is not the amount of typical bandwidth, but the amount of bandwidth per user, on average, that is key.

Some might still argue that advertised headline speeds are a chimera, but studies by the Federal Communications Commission find claims and peak hour speeds are highly correlated, reaching about 97 percent of advertised speeds during peak hours.

The point is that “gigabit” Internet access is, at the moment, more about marketing than it is actual end user requirements. In fact, end user usage limits might now start to be the key issue, not access speed, for many users.

For many other users, latency likely now is becoming the key issue for gaming, 3D video and even web surfing.

Cablevision Launching 200 Mbps, 300 Mbps Internet Access Services?

Despite the big push to launch gigabit Internet access services in the U.S. market, that is only part of the story. Just as important is the boost in speeds at levels below 1,000 Mbps, at price points that many consumers will find compelling, compared to a gigabit offer.

The “101-Mbps” tier presently costs $55 a month, down from about $100 a month in 2009.

Cablevision, for example, appears to be launching new consumer Internet access tiers at 200 Mbps and 300 Mbps, up from the 100-Mbps tier it already offers. Services for business will be launched at 250 Mbps and 350 Mbps.

Optimum Online Ultra 60	$4.95
Optimum Online Ultra 75	$20.00
Optimum Online Ultra 101	$55.00

source: Cablevision

source: DSL Reports

Will U.S. Linear Video Accounts Grow in 2017?

Though customer losses get the headlines, it is net gains or losses for any legacy service that matter, not just the number of customers who drop service.

The reason: though churn matters for any legacy service in a zero-sum market, net account gains or losses matter more.

Consider a recent forecast by cg42 that perhaps 800,000 U.S. customers will drop linear video subscriptions over the next year.

What that same study also suggests is that six percent of survey respondents who never have bought linear video said they are “very or extremely likely” to subscribe to cable in the next 12 months.

If there are about 16.9 million “cord-never” households, that could represent a gain of perhaps one million households. If 800,000 accounts are lost (and not not switched to another provider), it is conceivable that there could be a net gain of about 200,000 accounts.

Linear TV might be a mature product, but its decline remains very slow, with year-over-year account loss of less than one percent, on a net basis.