Free UTOPIA!

In the mounting war of who can provide the most HD, Cablevision says it'll be rolling out capacity for up to 500 channels of high-def programming by the end of the year. Not to be outdone, Verizon is poised to offer it on-demand through its FIOS network. Verizon, however, actually has the capacity to deliver on its claims. The advanced fiber network offers a peak of 14400Gbps of bandwidth compared to just 4Gbps for coaxial cable, the kind that Cablevision is employing on the last mile. There's also a lack of HD programming that will be available to cable and satellite operators as broadcasters continue to drag their feet on switching away from old analog signals.

This isn't the only major payoff Verizon is seeing from sinking tons of money into next-generation infrastructure. The company also plans to drop fat sacks full of cash money on upgraded EVDO gear to provide the fastest wireless speeds possible, a move Sprint has already started. The new network that Verizon is building is going to make markets they serve competitive with offerings in Korea and Japan while crushing competitors that refuse to pony up to play the next-gen network game. (Hey AT&T? I'm talking about you.)

Of course, this brings up a disturbing picture. While Verizon is competing better than anyone else and delivering the kinds of products we were supposed to have had by last year, the pricing commands a hefty premium with the top-grade FIOS service running a whopping $180/mo while failing to deliver symmetrical speeds. With the massive consolidation in the telecommunications sector and the increasing cost of mounting competitive challenges, we might end up getting right back to where we were 25 years ago with the Bell monopoly. New competitors like OEN are offering speeds and prices about comparable with what Verizon offers (though largely in different markets), so I'm not optimistic that new entrants are going to bring prices in check.

(See full articles here, here, here, here and here.)

That's no misprint: as part of the conditions for buying out BellSouth, AT&T is offering up DSL for the price of dial-up. The service weighs in at a featherweight 768K down, 128K up and will be $5/mo more expensive in states not formerly served by BellSouth. AT&T will be chipping in a modem and will require a one-year commitment for service.

Naturally, AT&T hasn't exactly been shouting from the rooftops about this fire sale on broadband. Consumers have complained that they've had a hard time finding a link on their website to the plan which is limiting subscriptions. Not exactly complying in good faith, is it?

(See full articles here, here, here, here and here.) 

Palo Alto is reconsidering plans to build a FTTH network in its city after stalling for several years. Several years after the initial pilot project to a handful of homes, the council voted to continue negotiations with the winning bidder for the project. It's unclear if the network would be retail or wholesale, but my discussion with some residents seems to indicate they're in favor of a wholesale network. That said, some basic city services seem to be lacking adequate funding and there are numerous cost concerns, leading me to think this is not likely to happen for a few more years.

(See full article here.) 

Australia announced that they're sick and tired of lacking decent broadband and they aren't going to take it anymore. Prime Minister John Howard unveiled a $1.68B US plan to deploy fiber and wireless connections to 99% of Australians with a minimum speed of 12Mbps. The wireless portion, which would serve rural areas, is expected to be able to ramp up to 70Mbps while urban areas will be connected via fiber optics with an initial speed of 50Mbps. Some members of the opposing Labour Party want to do a full-on fiber network to everyone… at a cost nearly triple the current proposition on the table. Sounds like Australia gets it when it comes to broadband policy.

(See full articles here and here.) 

It's a bad time to be Sprint. The wireless carrier has been taking a beating on the stock market over the indigestion caused from swallowing Nextel, possibly threatening its deployment of WiMax networks. Despite predictions calling for WiMax to be more popular than WiFi by 2010 (are you listening, Philadelphia?), Sprint max consider partnering more closely with Clearwire, a major WiMax deployment.

Satellite providers have already beat Sprint to the punch. Both DirecTV and EchoSTAR (purveyors of DISH Network) are tapping Clearwire to beef up their broadband offerings. I'd imagine it's because they want to free up spectrum for more HD channels (not to mention the latency on their satellite-based Internet service is near unbearable). With how rapidly wireless networks are evolving, it seems that municipalities on board the SS WiFi are wishing they had life jackets about now.

(See full articles here, here and here.)

Look for your cable operator to think about getting into the WiFi market. A company called Tollgrade Communications is hawking a wireless access point that taps directly into the cable operator's fiber backbone, allowing them to turn each of their neighborhood nodes into a wireless transmitter. This could allow cable operators to offer wireless roaming for current subscribers in addition to expanding their reach into the traditional wireless market using existing infrastructure. What remains to be seen is if any cable operators will take the bait and give it a shot.

In a related story, a company called Meraki is offering a cheap wireless repeater powered by solar. The outdoor device runs about $100 and has an option for a solar panel with a battery to maintain power at all times without being on the grid. The range of several hundred feet is respectable and can be boosted up to 10-12km with after-market antennae. This would bring the cost of a grid-connected WiFi mesh to under $10K per square mile, something I imagine most cities looking into WiFi would be grateful for. Could this be what makes WiFi a contender? We'll see.

(See full articles here and here.)