What you have stated is all true. They will most certainly overcome any and all of these obstacles with time. But the question isn't whether they can or not, rather, it is how long will it take them? More importantly, if the time frame for overcoming the bottlenecks is too long, will it even make a difference by the time they get it done, if they are doing so through the use of today's assumptions and attendant metrics?
The old telco model of just-in-time bandwidth provisioning had its place in the past, but it will not suffice in this space going forward.
If you see a need for five times more bandwidth today and straight line that into the ten times today's capacity 12 months from now, then you don't set out to provision five or even twenty times that amount for next year. Instead, you provision the potential for up to 100 or 500 times today's capacity, at least, if the potential for full bore photonic isn't available now.
Otherwise, you will find yourself in the same predicament two years from now as T finds itself today, following TCI's provisioning of the current capacity only a year or two ago. As we speak, in fact, the older model is still being put in, this, despite the cognizance of the foregoing by the powers that be.
The SLC trial is going to prove to be a vital one to T if the economics work out in their favor. In reality, it's not a matter of T being able to add capacity to individual users, or smaller groups of users, by resegmenting. Of course, they will be able to do this, if only from a purely physical possibility standpoint, but their decision criteria transcend that of purely physical considerations.
Instead, the issues will center (1) on the costs that they will incur, and how they are able to pass those costs along to users, and (2) whether or not they will be able to satisfy these conditions in sufficient time to avoid having to enforce additional restrictions (use policies) prior to getting the job done, say, anywhere from two to four or five years from now.
My guess is that the overwhelming number of areas which have demonstrated successful penetration rates one year from now (maybe a little longer) will have already suffered some deprivations, some more egregiously than others, before capacity is increased in those areas.
The MSOs are so head strong about the argument against installing fiber to the residence, purely from the standpoint of 1996-ish types of bandwidth economic analyses, that they are willing to do the HFC schtick many times over in the same neighborhoods, preserving the rudiments of the old model, simply to prove their point.
The digital economy stands ready to present major challenges to the MSOs, possibly passing some of them by entirely, and all the while they have been among the best suited of all venues for meeting these emerging opportunities, head on. What's wrong with this picture? |
