Hi GST, just to jump in from lurking, being "deeply glutted" in dark fiber is not as relevant as it seems. It's counter-intuitive, but your regular phone service costs practically nothing, and yet you get a bill every month (or if you're me a big bill every month). You would think w. competition, it'd be 1/10th cent per minute, i.e., no pricing power.
In fact it costs more to send you the bill every month than it costs for your use of the network, as Bernie Ebbers recently said. And advertizing costs twice as much as billing. The network costs are a minor pricing issue. With data telcom there are issues for IP connectivity and customer support, which are orders of magnitude greater consideration than the fiber, and where IMO the major revenues will be made. The exception is where fiber is very hard to duplicate, such as GX, where the orders of magnitude increases in utilization alone will increase the value (if they can recap the debt and stay in business etc.).
Also, the value of broadband is so high that it will easily accomodate layers of value-added service and drive extensions into the remaining 80% of the homes and businesses that need it. Multiply that 4x number times another order of magnitude in bandwidth and latency reduction, and revenue projections get to "bubble" type levels, without the bubble.
Whether the fiber is "used up" or not there's tremendous oppty for revenue growth. |
