Robert, reply to << Singapore is providing fiber optic (HFC)access to every household and most Northern European nations are not too far behind Singapore>>. Hmm. I was in Singapore in 1995, and met with Singapore Telecom and took a look at their network.
First, Keep in mind that over 90% of the island's 3 or 4 million people live in big condominium buildings, often with hundreds of living units per building. The majority of these buildings are in a single large metropolitan area. This is a telecom engineer's dream. The most economical way to provide telephone service to these buildings is fiber to the building that feeds a traditional narrowband digital loop carrier telephone system...and that's exactly what most have. Copper wire telephone lines extend the last few hundred feet to the apartments from the main building terminals. Singapore Telecom was also doing a relatively small scale ADSL deployment with video on demand.
The cable television company serving the island leases fibers from Singapore Telecom, and has a traditional analog cable TV system, where fiber usually serves a cluster of buildings. Coaxial cable is used to distribute the cable services to the individual buildings and subscribers, just like a traditional HFC system. The channel lineup is very limited, because Singapore has a government agency that determines what programming is appropriate and what is not appropriate for viewing.
Nearly all the HFC technology and telephony / digital loop carrier technology in Singapore, and in most places in Asia and Latin America is off the shelf from North American manufacturers, and no different or better than what serves millions of U.S. households.
As far as HFC deployment or advanced telecommunications technology deployment Europe, I have been to most places and know people in many cable companies and telcos there, and I have never seen or heard of the great technology gap that you refer to. Sure, in the eastern states of Germany, that had next to zero telecom infrastructure in 1989, Deutsche Telekom has invested billions and pushed ahead with project OPAL, which is a narrowband fiber to the curb/ fiber to the building project that is also beginning to use fiber capacity for an HFC overlay. This was a good move for D.T, but remember that they had no stranded investment - that is why OPAL has not been deployed in any scale in the western portions of Germany where a good telecom infrastructure has been built up over the last 40 years. But the services received by the OPAL customers are no better than what services are for any average U.S. household. Remember, most of the telcos in continental Europe have been fully protected, 100% sole providers of services. Many have been government owned. Until recently, red ink and tight budgets were unknown worries.
Thank goodness there is not a "big push" inside the beltway to dictate how the last mile of telecommunications network technology should be built. That's when I would become really worried. Simply wipe out most of the FCC and let the market decide. Consumers and private enterprise will take care of the rest.
As far as your criticisms of cable TV content, you should really consider a visit to Singapore, where all of your content would be screened for you. The point is, if you don't like it, don't watch it. That's what the first amendment is all about.
I find it rather entertaining to read many last mile architecture discussions. So many people want that multi megabit pipe to the home, and they want it now. Of course, it better not cost the consumer who uses the new services much more than the services provided over a pair of copper wires which have been fully depreciated for a decade or so. This is a pretty tall order, and it may take a while.
Meantime, I often correspond with colleagues in parts of the world where less than 10 or 20 percent of homes have basic telephone service, and where there may or may not be electrical power from a grid. To me, these are really the big challenges and opportunities in the global telecommunications market - and not whether we can watch movies on demand or download images in milliseconds rather than multi minutes. |
