So, what you're saying, then, is that the performance expectations of users when it comes to next gen wireless (as well as FTTH) are not synchronized with the reality of build out costs. Right?
I recall reading similar forecasts about the then-pending pcs services about five or six years ago, and how impending shakeouts and consolidations hung over the entire industry. Some of those predictions were accurate, and some continue to manifest themselves, to this day.
IMO, a great deal of this has to do with the residual effects of the bubble craze, and how the latter has affected users to anticipate lowered costs levied by the carriers, all around. The notion of freeness has been in the air ever since the banner ad idiom was sculpted by the air-heads and foo-foo sniffers (aided in no small way by journos/pundits/gurus) who dreamt on another plane, which was a veritable stratum all their own, and which VC's were waiting in line to pay for over in Silicon Alley.
This is not to suggest that the cost per bit shouldn't be going down, even radically, <at the platform level. Technological improvements in this respect have justified lowered costs by orders of magnitude, when assessing the cost for sending a bit.
But the costs of carrier administration go beyond the xAM/yFDM/zDM modulation and multiplexing schemes du jour. The xyz's are relatively easy to finance, compared with the other five-year flows that find their way into business plans. It's the logistics of getting those platforms up and operational, and the ongoing administration of those platforms, that can do you equal, or much greater, harm.
And some of the drag can also be attributed to the paranoia sorruonding quarterly reports and the short-sightedness of how "the system" we have in place measures what should be, in all actuality, a much longer-term investment proposition by all concerned. There is also something to be said, IMO, for residential end users making more of an investment contribution to the model, when establishing links to their homes.
For example, a one-timer, as in the case of homeowners paying a reasonable percentage of the costs to have fiber laid to their door, or the costs associated with creating an airlink from the tower, in order to cover the costs of the initial survey and alignment, which are very significant costs for a startup, and a veteran carrier, alike. Back to work. |
