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Technology Stocks : The *NEW* Frank Coluccio Technology Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Charles Brown who wrote (35857)	9/24/2010 9:12:42 AM
From: axial	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 46821

Charles, as regards the telecosm in the US and Canada we will continue to see incrementalism: a step forward here, two steps back there. If one were to critique regulatory performance - which is merely a constant equivocation between status quo and newly-arisen forces - the terms unimaginative, vacillating, and directionless come to mind. But regulators such as CRTC and FCC are merely arms-length buffers, an arena beyond the political forum, where different interests including the government of the day play out their agendas. How can we blame them for their inadequacies? On a completely unrelated matter, Paul Volcker made what the WSJ called "... a blistering, off-the-cuff critique leveled at nearly every corner of the financial system." He hit the mark squarely, particularly with this comment, equally applicable to telecomms: On judgment — “Let me suggest to you that relying on judgment all the time makes for a very heavy burden whether you are regulating an individual institution or whether you are regulating the whole market or whether you are deciding what might be disturbing or what might not be disturbing. It's pretty tough and it's subject to all kinds of political and institutional blockages as well.” blogs.wsj.com Telecomms in North America is just one dreary never-ending game: much ado about very little, grist for incessant controversy about millimeter movement, increasing fragmentation, constantly-changing actors and technology, all without change in the underlying dynamics. Jim

To: Charles Brown who wrote (35857)	9/24/2010 1:12:07 PM
From: Frank A. Coluccio	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 46821

Charles, re: "Dormant fiber-optic lines already in place in many communities?" Anyone have a perspective on this wrt HFW? Assuming you are asking this in an e-Rate context, one would have to examine the prerequisites for eligibility at the application level. Thus far, I can almost assure you that, based on having arm-wrestled with this beast during the relatively recent past on behalf of one of your neighboring cities in California, nothing like we've been discussing here in this forum has even been broached for e-Rate, never mind placed on the approved application list to take down funding from USF-related funding. I don't think the providers who own the fiber could stand the shock, frankly. More generally, however, the amount of fiber that both sits fallow currently, and at the same time would be suitable for HFW, is location-specific, either manifesting as feast or famine, again dependent on "where". Often the availability of 'spare' fiber is an offshoot of serendipity rather than resulting from a course of pre-purposing or design. The Utilities have plenty of fiber on their own routes, some of it used for SCADA, but much of it reserve for future use. THe D.O.T. and other IVHS types of networks likewise have huge amounts of fiber sitting idle, as do many other govt-provisioned fiber builds (in particular, surveillance and some of the more recent DHS-types of applications) that use only a couple of strands out of sometimes 216 or 432 along a route. Many of these, however, are often not optimally placed for first mile HFW, or any other first mile purpose simply because of their to and from characteristics. Most of these would, however, make for excellent second and middle mile segments, or for branching into extreme rural areas, which would in turn make arriving at a first mile wireless paradigm more feasible. As for communities gaining access to first mile "broadband" as a result of this new impetus on the part of the government to aid in the e-Rate program? Don't hold your breath, unless even more has been, or will be, written into the changes than appears obvious at this time. FAC ------