Posts tagged ‘Broadband’
Gimme the Speed, and I’ll Find the Services?
A new survey came out during a Broadband Policy conference here in DC. It was put on by Pike and Fischer, a subsidiary of BNA (http://www.bna.com/about/companies.htm) that looks at broadband from a policy perspective: http://www.broadbandpolicysummit.com/
The survey found that 40% of attendees ranked high speed as the most appealing advanced service, substantially more than services like HDTV or digital phone service. It’s a small sample of 280 people and it would be nice to see more details about the survey without having to buy the full $600 report (hint hint P&F), but Jacqui Cheng of Ars Technica uses it to lead a good post on broadband that weaves in other recent studies from Akamai and the Communications Workers of America. The conclusion is we need to do a better job in this country:
Despite this difference, it’s clear that the US has a lot of catching up to do when it comes to broadband speeds. Pike & Fischer points out the fairly obvious (to us geeks, anyway): without high broadband speeds, millions of other features being offered to us by cable companies and telcos will have a harder time getting off the ground. “This suggests to us that, while multichannel video providers may be spending a lot of their ad dollars promoting their high-def channels and their ‘triple-play’ bundles, they still rely on their broadband speeds to seal the deal with customers,” Pike & Fischer Broadband Advisory Services Scott Sleek said in a statement. “Every one wants to claim that they offer the fastest Internet access, and believe that will be more important to customers than how many HD channels they offer.”
Drew Clark of BroadbandCensus.com was in attendance, and here’s his take on the keynote address by FCC Commissioner Michael Copps: http://broadbandcensus.com/blog/?p=23
I know Drew, and will try to get in touch with him for some additional color on the event. Of course the rub is how to get more speed to millions of Americans. What’s the biggest gating item — lack of accurate information, infrastructure investment, government support, consumer adoption to justify the investment needed for fiber to the home?
Content providers, service providers and government all have their particular perspectives, but can’t the parties work together and craft a strategy that serves the national interest while at the same time making economic sense?
A Base Station in Every Home — the Coming Femtocell Wave
RCR Wireless broke a story last week about AT&T buying millions of femtocells from British company ip.access LTD. According to research and banking firm ThinkPanmure, AT&T plans to offer the devices for as little as $100.
http://www.rcrnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080424/FREE/895619934/1014/rss01
Why is this important? Because femtocells can solve two critical wireless problems — poor indoor cell coverage for users, and congestion on the Radio Access Network (RAN) for carriers.
A femtocell looks like a typical router or modem, and sends in-home wireless calls via the user’s broadband connection, rather than through the airwaves to the nearest cell tower. It’s very similar to the popular Hot Spot@Home service introduced by T-Mobile last year, which uses Wi-Fi to transmit calls made at home, and the cellular network elsewhere. But a special dual handset is required, and the Wi-Fi use drains battery life quickly.
Femtocells use the same spectrum licensed to the carriers for all calls. Since a dedicated broadband connection replaces the RAN portion of the signal transmission, call quality is greatly improved and (critically) traffic is off-loaded from the carrier network. So, it’s very much in their interest to get these devices in the hands of consumers. Here’s a good round-up piece by Business Week from last July (ignore the part about Google possibly using femtocells to offer phone service to consumers):
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jul2007/tc20070730_802787.htm?chan=search
The report doesn’t say if AT&T is subsidizing femtocells to offer them at sub-$100 prices. But even if the company is, it’s a good investment. That is a mass adoption price point. Look for there to be a lot of noise about these devices very soon.
Of course, you can add this service to the list of benefits households don’t get to enjoy if they don’t have broadband access, whether due to geographic or economic reasons.
UPDATE — September 8 WiMAX basestations comprable to cellular in cost, and Comcast looks to drive femtocell deployments:
U.S. Now Ranked Head of the Class for Internet?
European researchers this week issued a report that portrayed the U.S. Internet infrastructure in a positive light. The study was commissioned by the World Economic Forum, and conducted by Insead, a business school near Paris. It ranked the United States fourth, behind just Denmark, Sweden and Switzerland.
This struck me as strange. Turns out the study uses an index of 68 variables, pulling in things like political system and regulatory environment to reach the ranking. Here’s an article from John Markoff of the Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/09/technology/09internet.html?th&emc=th
I found this sentence revealing — “The Insead assessment offers a stark contrast to other appraisals based on single measures that have portrayed the United States, the nation that invented the global data network, as both lagging and declining in the broadband boom.” Some single measures seem very valid to me — like whether someone can get broadband or not, and if they can what do they have to pay?
You don’t have to go far outside of Washington DC to get a picture of the challenges. The Post did a story last December that looked at broadband access in Loudoun county, only about 30 miles from the capitol. Your access to broadband is very limited if you happen to live in the more rural western part of the county:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/01/AR2007120100109.html
I reached out to Drew Clark, founder of www.broadbandCensus.com, for his take. Caught him on the phone and he shared the following:
“First off all I know is what I read — I haven’t reviewed the report. But it sounds like they are incorporating a lot of soft variables in their rankings. Not to say these aren’t useful, and a country certainly needs a solid legal and regulatory frameworkto foster productivity. But you really need hard numbers to make relevant comparisons. That’s the reason I started BroadbandCensus.com, to provide like-to-like numbers straight from users, rather than filtering data through government organizations. Right now we’re focused on the U.S., but some day I’d love to extend it internationally.”
I’d love to believe the U.S. is number four in the world. But looking at the variables that really matter — percentage of population reached, average speed and average cost — there’s no way. Our Internet is #4 the same way our healthcare is #1 — only if you focus on the haves, and ignore the have nots.
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Telecom Industry Asks — Can We Get Real About Broadband?
Today Strategic client Tellabs released some interesting survey data. Tellabs used the subscription lists of leading trade publications to ask telecom professionals about broadband — what the definition of broadband should be, and the state of availability in the United States. Over 450 respondents shared some very strong opinions on this important issue.
There are 14 countries that get broadband to a higher percentage of their citizens than the U.S. I get the fact we’re a larger country, and its tougher for us than say a Korea or a Denmark. But can’t we do better? Some of the tools seem to be there already — for example, every American already pays a fee on their monthly bill (Universal Access Fund) to subsidize phones lines to rural areas. It’s 2008 — can’t we take that money and switch it from voice to broadband?
Nine out of ten telecom professionals think the FCC definition of broadband isn’t true. Industry pros are very concerned about the gap in broadband availability in this country, and they want something done about it. Some percentages from the survey:
Here’s a link to the release with full results: http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/080320/aqth501.html?.v=3
All this is especially topical in light of the FCC putting out its semi-annual broadband access numbers yesterday. According to the FCC, over 99% of zip codes have at least one broadband provider! And some zip codes have 8 or 9 different providers to choose from! I don’t know about you, but I’ve never lived in any of those zip codes.
So apparently, all is well when it comes to broadband in this country. This doesn’t seem to pass the smell test to me. Here’s a link to the FCC release yesterday: http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-280904A1.doc
Does anyone happen to live in one of these zip codes, and have another take? Check out Drew Clark’s site, www.broadbandcensus.com. Drew has started this organization precisely to get a more accurate picture of what broadband availability really is out there from actual end users.
Care to take the survey yourself? Here’s a link to the same survey taken by the industry folks. Please click HERE and add your voice to the debate. If there are enough respondents, I’ll be happy to post the results in a couple of weeks.
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