Jim,
We're talking past each other.
You say: Ultimately, yes. No doubt about it. But who among us, right now, uses that aspect of their broadband connection? I mean that in the same sense as they use their PSTN/cell connectivity.
What I'm tellin' ya is that today and for the foreseeable future, voice (cell, PCS, whatever) is the killer application for wireless technologies. Let me say it another way. People will pay to talk on wireless devices. They are far less inclined to pay for all the other folderol that the dreamers and visionaries have purported that 3G may someday, possibly, be capable of delivering. Oh, I know, I know, there's SMS and i-Mode, but that's not the bulk of the market by a long shot, and never will be.
Discussion of FTTH needs to be tempered with a big dose of cold water. The cost of this is not going to be borne by residential consumers in established neighborhoods for, again, the foreseeable future. The cost is simply obscene. Different story entirely in greenfield development, but that isn't a big market.
The question is, "How much of a demand?"
If only the PTTs had asked this question before the UMTS madness last fall, they'd be $100 Billion less in debt and the telecom industry would be way less of a wreck.
-Ray |
