The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) should go “back to school” to extend nationwide broadband in the U.S., working with the research and education (R&E) community on creative ways to roll out fiber-based Web services.
Many people think that government is going to invest billions of dollars in a national broadband deployment. But in this era of trillion-dollar deficits, I very much doubt that significant government investments will be made.
The business case for the private sector to deploy national broadband is also very weak, especially if we want multiple facilities-based competitors.
Sure, the competition generated by multiple facilities-based operators is the ideal solution for driving innovation, lowering prices, and providing more choices for the consumer. But for operators to build out multiple fiber-based facilities for residential broadband at this point is extremely tough, if not impossible.
For one thing, the business case for FTTH (fiber to the home) is very weak, predicated on a limited customer takeup and triple-play revenues of $130 per household monthly. Even Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) intends for its successful FiOS service to reach only about 40 percent of customers in its service area.
And, of course, revenues from triple-play service will continue to be undermined, as video and voice services migrate to the Internet in the coming years.
Given all this, we should experiment with new business models that would help to underwrite the cost of next-generation broadband. And in this regard, we must look to a specific element of the private sector -- the R&E community -- as the primary vehicle for deploying broadband.
As everyone knows, the Internet originated with the R&E community. Not many people realize, however, that the R&E community is also a major pioneer in new broadband architectures and business models. Schools and research facilities have long experience in operating networks, both national and local, and many university networks are equivalent to those that would be deployed in a small city.
New broadband concepts like condominium networks, customer-owned and -controlled networks, hybrid networking, etc., all started with the R&E community.
Internet 2, NLR, and Educause have also laid out national broadband strategies that leverage the investment universities have already made in deploying networks to connect up schools, libraries, hospitals, and campuses throughout the U.S.
These are the kinds of projects that typify facilities-based competition based on the already significant investment and knowledge base of the higher education-and-research community.
Here are a few good examples of other projects that could be promoted:
The "home with tails" concept, advocated by Google, which calls for customers to purchase their own last-mile fiber from among many providers.
The “Green Broadband” effort proposed by Canarie Inc. , the Canadian equivalent of Internet2, where the cost of broadband infrastructure and service is bundled with customers’ energy bills, and the customer is encouraged to reduce his or her energy consumption, while the service provider makes money from the energy bill rather than triple play. There are now several pilots around the world adopting this model.
“Condominium clouds,” wherein a cooperative effort is launched among utility and telecom service providers to promote a private fiber network to serve a campus or building. This model has been rolled out by KPN Telecom NV (NYSE: KPN) in the Netherlands and by Swisscom AG (NYSE: SCM) in Switzerland.
— Bill St. Arnaud, telecommunications analyst and frequent speaker on the future of the Internet and broadband
Ok, let's assume that one gets sufficient strength to cover a 20 mile radius or just under 1600 sq miles. How many Customers could be adequately served by that tower? Well, based on the speeds listed in the very link you yourself referenced no more than 70, if 1mpbs were the desired service speed...
So, now my friend the issue isn't distance it's capacity and the cost to locate signal boosters would likely add up very quickly to accomodate additional customers.
This solution isn't cheap or they'd be doing it in droves already...
Having been through two essentially non-working DSL providers, I can sympathize.
The problem with DSL is that its not guaranteed if you are more than 12,000 ft from the CO -- Central Office. Some providers will go beyond that, but with frustratingly bad results.
And, with Cable and wireless and the switch to cell phones, the likelyhood of a local phone company building a new switch? Yes, nil.
However, for a city with a population of 200,000 it could probably be served by a single Wimax tower.
It's absolutely true. We've lived just outside city limits, less than 10 miles, for ten years and it's taken that long to get DSL service from the local telco. The city we live near isn't super small either...population is over 200,000.
Within the last few we've seen expansion of fiber to the user and wireless broadband. The technology isn't lacking, it's cost to privide service that kept broadband just out of reach even for the slightly rual customer.
You're right in suggesting that wireless offers a potentially lower cost last-mile alternative to fibre, but at some point you still need to backhaul that traffic from the towers to aggregation routers, and that cost will still be substantial. It's for that reason that, unless the government steps in to subsidize the build-out, we're going to continue to see little to no growth in rural broadband serving areas. Let's face it - the technology to provide the service has been around for a long time now. If the business case was truly viable, rural communities would be well served by now.
If you meant 30 sq. miles and not 900 sq. miles (as in 30 miles in each direction) then you are making a case against WiFi...
Do you know how many hundreds of Cell towers you're talking about to cover the vast wilderness of the US West and Southwest??...
So, what're you claiming?? That Cell towers can go up for about $25 each and take just another $20 a month to maintain?? (Just throwing out numbers because you didn't...)
Don't make an "expert's" claim w/o substantial consideration of the numbers to support the claim...
There seem to be two types of people when it comes to discussions of "Public Broadband". Those who understand Wimax and those who ignore it. A single Wimax tower can provide "broadband" to 30 square miles. For valleys and other problems, mesh networks can make up the difference.
In addition, WiFi has been refurbished, as AT&T and others realize that its not that hard or expensive to build out these networks especially with all the netbooks scouring the air for true Internet service.
Rural communities like in texas already are putting up Wimax towers. Sometimes there are competitng services.
Government and bureacrats seem to think in 90s technology terms where broadband is running a wire to a building.
Bill, I enjoy reading your work. For 10 years, Minnesota has had legislation to do the condo cloud arrangement, but no one has taken it up yet - maybe it will yet happen.
I worry about homes with tails, it seems like the first step away from viewing broadband as an essential utility that should be available to everyone (as a social good, private markets will not sufficiently invest in it because they cannot monetize the all the benefits). Homes with tails makes future ubiquitous business models harder to realize by siphoning off the cream of people who will pay a lot for top tier services.
That said, I do think it a waste that fibers for many research institutions and schools pass so close to all of us and yet we are unable to connect to them.
PS - this post took forever to submit, it was hanging on a call to ad.doubleclick.net ... annoying.
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