Steve,
< have you ever seen so much telecom dereg focus on CNBC?>
This ruling could very well be the catalyst that forces some of the major issues with real competition. Public understanding and exposure will hopefully lead to additional pressure. I do not believe that public pressure will substantially speed up the process, just make the inevitable outcome (competition for the monopoly before the already open market) more sure.
<I know this is not a popular opinion here, but I don't think there IS really cable "competition". IMO, where 2way cable is, cable wins (in speed, reliability and price for high speed internet access). And I also think telco VOD will never really take off.>
Who cares if it is not a popular opinion. This is like the American Graffiti strip on friday night, we are all just flashing one another our opinions out the window as we go.
If I understand you correctly, you are saying that where 2way cable is, xDSL is not competative? I do not agree with you. Regardlesss of the in depth details, price and marketing make xDSL a worthy competitor. The US West offering is the best example of that. The $40 price point low end offering was directly because of cable and demand looks to be very strong. The other thing cable has against it is the bigger capital equipment costs.
The bottom line is that consumers (individuals and business) will only pay so much for higher bandwidth products. The cable companies can be price4 competative but can they really make any money? I don't care if they do make money,I want my 192kbs internet access for $40/month. First one there gets my business.
<I also think telco VOD will never really take off.>
I have to agree with you on this one. It hasn't happened so far and there is no evidence that it would make a viable separate product offering. Give us the bandwidth we will figure out what to do with it.
I ran across two very interesting articles (one W/Fujitsu and Orckit Bias) that has a really good XDSL business case presentation. Some of the charts did not come out with all the intended information though.
"Running the DSL numbers"
The business case for DSL deployment says you don't have to
cannibalize existing services just to get new revenue.
David Self and Jim Szeliga
The markets for high-speed Internet access and corporate local area
network (LAN) connectivity via digital subscriber line (xDSL) technologies offer opportunities for service providers, but only if the carriers can make the business case for them. The key ingredients: a clear definition of what a subscriber is willing to pay for a service, and matching market demand with the right technology.
What may be the most important early step is to think through the business case for providing an xDSL-based service. Getting the business planners involved as early as possible to form a model for the service puts them on par with the technical planners. That synchronization of the business and the technical foci can make the difference in whether a service succeeds or flops.
A well-thought-out xDSL business case, involving a higher-speed service offering that maximizes the Internet's available bandwidth without straining the provider's backbone, demonstrates that carriers do not have to cannibalize existing services in search of new sources of revenue. The technology offers appealing revenue opportunities in Internet and work-at-home services, without high risks.
Avoiding the HFC pitfalls
Network solutions and service offerings range from Internet protocol
(IP)-based schemes to "ATM to the home." Nearly all facilities-based
providers are in contention for this business, including the regional Bell operating companies (RBOCs) and incumbent local exchange carriers
(ILECs), competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs) and Internet service providers (ISPs).
Setting the stage for xDSL, Full Service Network (FSN) services-especially video-on-demand (VOD)-have been promoted by some as the near-term future. Promoted is the key word. After years of talk, there still is no significant deployment of FSN services by the LECs.
Hybrid fiber-coax (HFC) and fiber-to-the-curb (FTTC), once considered the dominant architectural candidates for FSN services, revealed major risks when these two approaches were scrutinized. On the revenue side, there were risks with customers' willingness to pay for a single, comprehensive set of advanced services for telephony, digital broadcast video, digital VOD and Internet access. On the cost side, there was even more risk, mainly due to the large capital investments required by carriers for new access technologies and backbone infrastructures. The combination of unsure market demand and large capital investments pushed this broadband paradigm shift too far into the future to be practical.
However, xDSL presents a business scenario that avoids the difficulties of the HFC experience. First, xDSL focuses on recognized markets-Internet access and remote corporate LAN access. Second, because xDSL is an overlay technology, it requires small, incremental investments that can be strategically deployed on-demand. This greatly reduces the risk associated with large capital investments. The xDSL business case, especially at moderate access speeds, illustrates a profitable service under today's LEC infrastructure-one that promises a migration path to the FSN of the future. The challenge is to satisfy today's practical applications while preparing for the next market environment.
The direct relationship between bandwidth and cost (as bandwidth increases, so does cost) is not likely to change in the near future. Most carriers and ISPs that lease bandwidth do so by contracting for the smallest bundle necessary to cover traffic and quality of service. So, how can affordable, multimegabit services be offered to residential or small office-home office (SOHO) customers?
ISPs need a certain number of subscribers to cover the recurring cost of leased-port connections that connect their networks to the Internet backbone. For example, at a leased cost of $2,000 per month for a T1 port connection, an ISP will require different revenues per subscriber if 10, 100 or 2,000 subscribers share the single T1. While fewer subscribers sharing bandwidth may increase bandwidth to individual subscribers, it also increases the revenue requirements per subscriber.
Internet access and remote corporate LAN access services can be provided with a real increase in bandwidth-such as 384 kbps-offering subscribers a significant boost in performance while simultaneously minimizing the ripple effect on access costs, computing resources and backbone costs. It boldly establishes a consumer-oriented price threshold at $60 or less per month, with a one-time cost at $225 for the initial cost of modems and installation.
The business case
Today's network topology has inherent limitations, due to the properties of transmission control protocol/Internet protocol (TCP/IP), delays through routers, packet congestion and packet loss, and use of servers and personal computers. Various tests have pegged the peak Internet throughput at 300 kbps to 400 kbps without any limitations from access links .
Users whose access is via 33.6 kbps modems would use only 10% of peak
available bandwidth. An integrated services digital network (ISDN)
connection (128 kbps) would use about a third of available peak bandwidth. Access at 384 kbps would use the full Internet throughput, while access at speeds beyond 400 kbps would have no significant added benefits.
Consider, also, a business office with a T1 interface serving 100 to 400 subscribers. These users are typically connected to a LAN at 10 Mbps. Compared with that scenario, a service offering of 384 kbps, concentrated at 100:1 into a T1, would provide a considerable improvement in perceived performance for xDSL subscribers.
Remainder of the article at :
americasnetwork.com
americasnetwork.com |
