Will End of Moore's Law Impair ISP Ability to Rapidly Grow Bandwidth?

Theoretical physicist Michio Kaku believes Moore's Law has about 10 years of life left before ever-shrinking transistor sizes smack up against limitations imposed by the laws of thermodynamics and quantum physics.

Signs of the coming end are already here, according to AMD. AMD Chief Product Architect John Gustafson believes AMD’s difficulties in transitioning from 28-nanometer chips to 20-nanometer silicon shows we’ve reached the beginning of the end.

"You can see how Moore's Law is slowing down," Gustafson said. "We've been waiting for that transition from 28nm to 20nm to happen and it's taking longer than Moore's Law would have predicted.”

The coming limits mean processing power will not double every 18 months, Broadcom believes.

Some say we will postpone hitting the wall by tweaking architecture. Others think a non-silicon approach might shift us to a new curve.

Maybe it will be proteins or other molecules or something else that provides the physical basis for a new wave of computing advances.

Some think chip manufacturing economics will be a bigger problem. At some point, it might not make financial sense to produce a faster processor or denser memory, because buyers will not pay what that latest group of devices would cost, at retail.

Whether an end to Moore’s Law will have dire consequences for access and transport providers is not clear. Much of the cost of communications infrastructure comes from construction, not the cost of processing and storage.

90% of Republic Wireless Traffic Moves Over Wi-Fi

Almost 90 percent of mobile service provider Republic Wireless data traffic goes over Wi-Fi, leaving 11.5 percent traveling over Sprint’s 3G network. 

That does not mean a mobile service provider can provide service using only Wi-Fi, only that most of the consumed bandwidth can be shifted to Wi-Fi and stay off the mobile network.

About 50 percent of Republic Wireless customers appear to be able to use Wi-Fi for 93 percent of their total data consumption, Republic Wireless says.  

    Cellular Data Usage Across Republic Wireless Members

Cox Communications Offers Wi-Fi Hotspot Access

Cox Communications says its customers with its Preferred, Premier or Ultimate High Speed Internet service now have access to the nation's "largest Wi-Fi network,"  with public hotspots strategically located in high-traffic areas such as restaurants, malls, sports arenas, parks and beaches in cities like Washington D.C., Boston, Richmond, Philadelphia and San Francisco.

Some would argue that Wi-Fi hotspots have become the preferred way U.S. cable operators attain relevance in the untethered access business, even if they do not directly own full mobile networks.

To be sure, enabling such public hotspot access also creates additional value for the high speed access services cable operators have relied on for revenue growth.

But today’s proliferating tablet and smart phone installed bases, all enabled for Wi-Fi access, create potential new revenue models for any number of ISPs. Though creating direct revenue models remains a challenge, ownership of extensive public Wi-Fi hotspot networks creates at least a potential business for mobile and untethered device data offload, even when a cable company does not own the actual direct revenue relationship with the mobile customer.

The issue, as always, is to create a viable revenue model for a public Wi-Fi hotspot business. Some of the benefits are indirect and valuable, even when not creating a direct revenue model. Lower churn, higher customer retention and higher retail rates for one ISP service compared to another are some typical value drivers for an ISP.

And some think it also increasingly will be possible to create Wi-Fi-dominant untethered access models, especially as Internet access becomes a dominant underpinning for Internet application businesses.

For cable companies, extending the range of any future video business beyond the home could provide a direct or important indirect value driver.

Why U.S. Cable and Telcos are Chasing Home Automation and Home Security

There are a couple of reasons why telcos and cable companies in the U.S. market are putting sales effort and development effort into the home automation and security businesses. First, such businesses, while perhaps not of so much interest in a pre-Internet era, and in an era where other revenue opportunities simply were vastly larger, have become more important as legacy revenue sources have begun to wither.

As a line extension using the core features of telco and cable access networks, home automation and security offer a logical way to add more application value to an access network.

Also, the change in access from narrowband to broadband mean some new features, especially the use of cameras, now are possible.

At the same time, the availability of tablets and smart phones might dramatically affect the ease of use, as well as value of home automation and home security systems.

At the same time, the better technology now available to support alarm systems, surveillance systems, intercom systems, access control and energy management services are key changes on the supply side of the business.

Simply, broadband access, Internet Protocol and easy to use mobile and untethered devices increase capabilities and ease of use in new ways.

Security, as such, is becoming a huge market worldwide, as well.

And the U.S. market is among the most lucrative globally. In terms of revenue generation as of 2011, North America held the highest share of revenue, at about 56 percent, followed by Asia-Pacific at 28 percent, according to Marketsandmarkets.com.

Among the various end-products used for home security solutions (electronic locks, sensors, alarms, cameras, panic buttons), cameras are observed to be the most potential product market with a market share of approximately 27 percent as of 2011.

By definition, camera security requires a broadband connection. Revenues for suppliers of security systems, energy management systems are estimated to grow between 25 percent and 31 percent annually between 2012 to 2017, Marketsandmarkets has estimated.

The global home security solutions market is expected to grow from $20.64 billion in 2011 to $34.46 billion in 2017 at a compound annual growth rate  of 9.1 percent from 2012 to 2017.

Africa Might be Among the Best Places for Fast Internet Access Growth

“Emerging markets” enjoyed quite a run in the equities markets over the last decade, but have sputtered of late over concern about the legitimate impact of U.S. interest rate policies. It is too early to say whether the big emerging markets equity run is over, or only taking a pause.

What seems clear, though, is that growth prospects in Africa now are higher than has been the case over much of the last couple of decades. In fact, growth prospects, and therefore prospects for broadband access and any other Internet-related business, have grown, according to Gartner analyst Richard Gordon.

Gordon provides as evidence the growth of inquiries from Gartner clients, which are up significantly over 2012 levels, he points out.

“Most African countries are growing at seven percent to nine percent” rates, he notes.

So despite the likelihood that interest in investing in emerging markets will face a key test over the next couple of years, Gordon suggests Africa might well be a bright spot.

That should be true for providers of Internet access as well.

Google Names Top U.S. "eCities"

Google has ranked communities in all 50 U.S. States for “eCity” awards that “recognize the digital capitals of each state,” Google says. “These cities’ businesses are using the web to find new customers, connect with existing customers and fuel their local economies.”

The research methodology used AdWords data, combined with the base of small businesses in an area, to develop an online index of Internet intensity among small businesses in each community.

"Net Neutrality" Will Kill the Teleconm Business

If you are the sort of person who enjoys deep thinking about the future of the telecom business, it always makes sense to listen to Martin Geddes. Here's a new presentation he's worked up. The formal topic was how to deal with over the top apps.

As has been the case recently, Martin's thinking about access as a trading space figure prominently into the analysis of what's wrong, and how to fix it. 

What I also found significant was Martin's thinking about what others might call value-based pricing. And that means "network neutrality," such as policies that forbid offering consumers class of service or quality of service mechanisms, will doom access providers to an unprofitable future. 

Meeting the OTT challenge from Martin Geddes