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To: elmatador who wrote (5514)	10/10/1999 12:08:00 PM
From: elmatador	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12823

High On Ethernet In Sweden, residential Ethernet has taken off By Goete Andersson Maybe it's the long, dark Swedish winters. Or maybe it's the country's keen interest in innovative telecommunications services. Nobody's quite sure why Sweden, of all places, is experiencing unprecedented competition in the residential deployment of broadband Ethernet services. Nowhere in Europe--or possibly in the world--is high-speed Ethernet connectivity spreading to the home faster than it is here, where the Internet penetration rate is 45 percent, among the highest in Europe. Incumbent Telia AB (Stockholm) and new entrant Bredbandsbolaget AB (B2, Stockholm) plan to invest up to 6 billion Swedish krona (US$726 million) over the next two years to connect about 2 million households and deliver Ethernet-based broadband services at super-low prices. As part of their Ethernet assault, Telia and B2 are targeting households in large apartment complexes. Around 60 percent of Sweden's 4 million households are located in apartments. Both operators provide an e-mail account and unlimited Web surfing at a minimum connection speed of 500 kbit/s for a monthly flat rate of SKr200 (US$24). With the new service, Telia admits that it is creating in-house competition. It already offers residential and business customers high-speed connectivity over normal telephone lines via asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) technology and alternatively via cable modem. Telia, however, has agreed to European Union demands to divest majority ownership of its cable TV network--one of the country's largest, with more than 1.3 million households connected. So the move into a new service area is also wise from a regulatory viewpoint, say analysts. "To deploy Ethernet in densely populated areas makes economic sense, especially in large European cities with high population concentrations," says Neil Richard, telecom analyst in the London office of Gartner Group Inc. (Stamford, Conn.). "Ethernet is much cheaper [to deploy and maintain] than ADSL or cable modems for broadband." Telia and B2 have been signing up customers since early August. B2 has already signed up the country's largest tenant-owned housing organization, Hyresgaesternas Sparkasse-och Byggnadsfoerening (HSB, Stockholm), to connect 350,000 apartments. B2 chairman Jonas Birgersson estimates that his company will have contracts with 1 million households by next year. Telia, which joined the Ethernet fray after B2, has signed an agreement with a local HSB arm in Malmoe to connect 34,000 households. The low per-household fee for the service has prompted a quick response from other Internet access providers. The incumbent's cable subsidiary, Telia InfoMedia TeleVision AB (Stockholm), previously charged SKr395 (US$48) a month; Kabelvision, a unit within Tele2 AB (Stockholm) and the country's second-largest cable operator, charged SKr310 ($38), and StjaernTV AB (Stockholm), Sweden's third-biggest cable company, SKr295 ($36). Now each of the three charge SKr200 ($24). As for ADSL, prior to B2's arrival Telia charged as much as SKr350 ($42) per household for ADSL service to apartment buildings; now it charges SKr200. Even with these price cuts for competing broadband services, no one in Sweden expects the high demand for residential Ethernet service to come down anytime soon.