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To: Peter Ecclesine who wrote (6984)	3/24/2004 12:47:54 PM
From: ftth	Respond to of 46821

re: State-of-the-are is measured in Return-On-Investment, so one must assess What People will Pay. OK, let's go with that thought: Cingular just paid $1850 per subscriber for ATT wireless, and they're even going to the bond market to cover part of that cost. Zillions of cable subscribers were acquired over the past 7 years at $3000-5000 per subscriber, and that was with significant antiquated cable plant assets that needed billions in upgrades. FTTH--ball park figure--is $2K per subscriber. Well within their tolerance. But FTTH, operated as an open-access peer-to-peer platform, potentially marginalizes vertically-integrated market power. A million other providers of content, serivces, and applications could provide better-faster-cheaper-smarter, with competitive and innovation pressures like we've never seen. Each of those provides a conduit to transfer wealth away from the currently-protected market power, by enabling a genuinely open, competitive marketplace with near-zero add-drop-change costs. Incumbents are devoting significant resources to killing off FTTH projects by anyone else. Even in areas of negligible financial significance to them. Obviously there is more at stake than what it would cost THEM to implement it themselves. So the cost issues with FTTH are just a convenient smokescreen for incumbents, and yes, for ROI: Return on Incumbency. By NOT investing in FTTH as an open-access peer-to-peer nwk they have a greater Return on Incumbency, sustained for a longer period of time. And oh yes, if RBOCs must give the impression of trying to move forward with FTTH, do it with TDMA-PON. That way they can use all the same arguments the cable guys use about "network fragility" and difficulty of enabling unburdened open access and symmetric peer connectivity, preserving the incumbency for even longer.

To: Peter Ecclesine who wrote (6984)	3/24/2004 2:21:51 PM
From: Peter Ecclesine	Respond to of 46821

Hi All, Another quote on Packet vs Circuit: "The car as we know it is on the way out. To a large extent, I deplore its passing, for as a basically old-fashioned machine, it enshrines a basically old-fashioned idea: freedom. In terms of pollution, noise and human life, the price of that freedom may be high, but perhaps the car, by the very muddle and confusion it causes, may be holding back the remorseless spread of the regimented, electronic society." -- J. G. Ballard PS, NYU still uses the 1989 ESCON fiber, but the conduits it occupy could be put to better use. The cost of surveying the conduits has to be factored in. Copper counting loops (circuits) in the highways are another example of the durability of Monopoly Rents (e.g. $2500 a subscriber to a Monopoly service offering)