Mark Bregman, Neustar's Chief Technology Officer appointed to FCC's Technological Advisory Council

"I'm honored to have been selected to join the FCC's Technological Advisory Council and I look forward to contributing to the Council's work during this exciting time of unprecedented technological transition in the communications sector," Bregman said. "Neustar's expertise in numbering databases, network resiliency and cybersecurity will offer insights into the important issues that the TAC will be considering in the months ahead. I am excited to be part of these important discussions."

Prior to joining Neustar, Bregman was Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of Symantec. Previously, he served as Executive Vice President, Product Operations at Veritas Corporation, which merged with Symantec in 2005. Prior to Veritas, he was CEO of AirMedia, an early mobile content marketplace, and spent 16 years in a variety of roles at IBM. Bregman was awarded a Ph.D. in Physics from Columbia University in 1984. He is a graduate of Harvard College.

More information about the Technological Advisory Council and its membership can be found on the FCC's website.

National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) Cable Show Washington, DC – June 10-12, 2013 (Photo: NCTA)

In the U.S. capital, it's difficult to avoid the topic of politics and its effects on the telecommunications industry. This was especially true during The Cable Show in light of recent news around communication monitoring, wiretapping, and how far it's going. But while this was a hot topic on the minds of attendees, politics for the most part was left at the door when it came to the exhibition floor.

As expected, a wide variety of exhibitors brought their best efforts to The Cable Show, displaying tools, software, services, and content. From mega-sized displays showcasing the latest TV shows and series; to rubbing shoulders with famous actors, business celebrities, and reality TV cast members; to viewing the very precise equipment and software that allows all this to come true — this show had it all.

The number of companies in attendance and their technology categories are useful in identifying trends for where the cable industry is heading:

• Content was definitely at the core of the show, with 81 exhibitors involved in cable programming
• Multi-screen content and HDTV were also well represented, with more than 40 vendors each
• IPTV followed closely, with 37 exhibiting companies
• Mobile apps and cloud services also had a presence

This focus on content and new strategies indicates a disruption in traditional cable TV, the strengthening of over-the-top (OTT) services, and the adoption of IPTV. It also raises the question — how long before Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM), which is the format used by cable providers to transmit content, is replaced by IP?

Even with all this on site, two displays placed strategically side-by-side caught my attention. One was called the "Observatory" and celebrated the history and evolution of the cable industry and its technologies. The other, "Imagine Park," looked at the path ahead of us. What is the cable industry working on to stay relevant, when competition is continuously increasing?

Technology is all about evolution and creating solutions to problems. That said, one cannot simply focus on the future and ignore the past, which is why these displays were so effective. It's good to see that someone is thinking of that — celebrating how far the cable industry has come and how far it will continue to take us.

Written by Rick Oliva, Sales Support Engineering Manager at Incognito Software

AGNA COM Exhibition and Congress 4-6 June 2013, Cologne/Germany (Photo: AGNA COM)

This new focus was reflected in the many service-oriented sessions centered on broadband, video, and all forms of entertainment delivered to consumers via various modes of access technologies. The annual convention in Cologne, Germany, brought together broadband, cable, and satellite operators, as well as their vendor partners. For the first time, major telcos Deutsche Telekom and Vodafone were invited and took to the stage to discuss trends, technologies, and how broadband is working to deliver content.

Germany is a major player in the cable industry and holds the lion's share of cable homes in Europe, with 18 million households subscribed to cable. Digital transition has helped drive cable adoption, and today, about half of all German cable households use digital TV packages offered by broadband cable, especially HDTV, VOD, DVR, and TV sets with integrated digital receivers. The German cable industry is poised for further growth, with Europe's largest cable operator, UPC — which operates cable services in 13 European countries — citing Germany as its "growth engine" and the company's CEO stating that some 40% of the UPC's growth comes from this country.

Of course, cable faces fierce competition in Europe, as it does elsewhere in the world. Recent research from IHS Screen Digest shows that during the five-year period from 2007 to 2012, European cable operators lost 1.4 million subscribers. So where did the growth come from and why did convention attendees seem so upbeat about cable's future, as evidenced by the show's record number of 16,000 attendees and 450 exhibiting companies? The fact is, it's not all doom and gloom. The same IHS research shows that cable actually gained 17.8 million more revenue-generating units (RGU) during the same five year period that it lost subscribers. RGU drives total revenue growth and is a positive sign for an industry facing fierce competition from traditional telcos, satellite, and OTT players.

So, what's fueling this RGU growth? There are a few factors at play here:

• Digital transition
• "Triple-play" or bundling of data, voice, and video
• The multitude of new, value-added services

Value-added services have been made possible by the growing number of available consumer devices — tablets, laptops, PCs, and smartphones. These new services include home security and Wi-Fi, both in and around the house, as well as in public areas. Multi-screen services are also enabling cable operators to offer OTT-like, proprietary video services.

These offerings are becoming essential as consumers demand easy access to content as they move from room to room inside the home, as well as outside in public places such as stadiums, theaters, and shopping malls. It's not surprising, then, that multiscreen was a hot topic at ANGA COM, along with the usual topics of fiber expansion, IPTV, video on demand, smart TV, software solutions, and consumer electronics.

For an uninterrupted multi-screen experience, consumers need to be able to easily access content across devices, and device provisioning and service activation should occur seamlessly. This enables customers to enjoy the same quality of experience across multiple devices, both inside and outside the home. At the same time, service providers need to be aware of security concerns associated with the multi-device consumption of content — particularly security of content and consumer privacy.

Operators are also turning their attention to the monetization of services associated with multiple-device use. Clearly, the multi-screen experience is changing the dynamics of customer services and technical support. Consumers want ease of use and an uninterrupted experience, where they can simply order a service that is then provisioned so quickly that they don't even realized it's happened, and everything works without any issues. For operators, this type of experience requires network reliability and for customer service representatives (CSRs) to have all the necessary information and tools at their fingertips for fast issue resolution.

The demand for quality of experience puts pressure on service providers to understand subscriber usage behavior patterns. Solutions from vendors like Incognito offer operators ways to construct meaning out of the massive amount of bandwidth utilization data that they accumulate, and enable them to use that intelligence to improve the user experience.

ANGA COM provided an excellent opportunity for us to catch up with customers and partners, and strategize ways to take advantage of new technologies to provide a better service for customers and their subscribers. Bring on ANGA COM 2014!

Written by Will Yan, Senior VP, Worldwide Sales at Incognito Software

Vectoring is also specific to the DSL environment, being more appropriate to DSL LLU but becoming severely limited when applied with VDSL2 sub-loops unless all the lines are managed by the same system. Vectoring requires that all copper pairs of a cable binder are operated by the same DSLAM, and several DSLAMs need to work in combination in order to eliminate crosstalk. A customer's DSL modem also needs to support vectoring. Though the ITU has devised a Recommendation for vectoring (G.993.5), the technology is still under development and currently there remains a lack of standardisation across these various elements.

The quality of the copper network is also an issue, with better quality (newer) copper providing better results. Poorer quality copper cabling (e.g. having poorer isolation, less copper pair drilling) can also result in higher crosstalk, and thus a higher degree of pair-related interference. Nevertheless, these issues could be addressed within the vectoring process.

Vectoring is also incompatible with some current regulatory measures, though again future amendments could bring a resolution to these difficulties. While Telekom Deutschland has been engaged in vectoring since late 2012, the technology requires regulatory approval since it is based on DSL infrastructure, and some services which TD must provide to competitors is incompatible with vectoring. As such, TD must negotiate with the regulator the removal of those services from its service obligations. A partial solution may be achieved through the proposal that the regulator restricts total unbundling obligations for copper access lines to the frequency space below 2.2MHz.

Operators which have looked to deploy vectoring are being driven by cost considerations. The European Commission's target in its 'Digital Agenda 2020' is for all citizens in the region to have access to speeds of at least 30Mb/s by 2020, with at least half of all premises to receive broadband at over 100Mb/s. This presupposed fibre for most areas, with the possibility of LTE to furnish rural and remote areas. However, some cash-strapped incumbents are considering vectoring to enable them to meet these looming targets more cheaply, while still pursuing fibre (principally FttC, supplemented by FttH in some cities).

Belgium was an early adopter of vectoring: the incumbent Belgacom had been one of the first players to deploy VDSL1, which has since been phased out for the more widely used VDSL2, supplying up to 50Mb/s for its bundled services customers. The company's investment in vectoring will enable it to upgrade a portion of its urban customers more quickly and cheaply than would otherwise be possible with FttH. Yet it is perceived as a stop-gap measure to buy it time and to forestall customer churn to the cablecos which have already introduced /s and 120Mb/s services across their footprints and are looking to release 200Mb/s services or higher. The inherent limitations of copper, regardless of technological tweaking, will mean that Belgacom will have to follow Scandinavian operators and deploy 1Gb/s FttH services in order to keep pace with consumer demand for bandwidth for the next decade.

Vectoring technology has also been trialled by Telekom Austria as part of its FttC GigaNet initiative, as also b P&T;Luxembourg which in early 2013 contracted Alcatel-Lucent (one of the vendors leading vectoring R&D;) to develop one of the world's first trials of combined VDSL2 bonding and vectoring technologies. The Italian altnet Fastweb is also investing in vectoring, in conjunction with a programme to deliver FttC to about 20% of households by the end of 2014. Fastweb's parent company Swisscom has budgeted €400 million for the project (as part of a wider FttC co-investment with Telecom Italia), costing each connection at about €100 per home. The low figure is partly explained by Fastweb being able to utilise its existing fibre networks. Nevertheless, Fastweb in the long-term is aiming to have an FttH-based network across its footprint, having recently committed an additional €2 billion investment to 2016, contracting Huawei to upgrade its network from 100Mb/s to 1Gb/s.

Written by Paul Budde, Managing Director of Paul Budde Communication

The 11 projects funded in this round of grants will:

• Enable teachers and students in the Sultanate of Oman to produce and share video presentations that meet Omani curriculum standards and students' needs
• Facilitate access to the Internet via a wireless mesh network for students, parents, and others in rural Panama, enabling them to use their own equipment at home
• Provide research for an evidence-based ICT policy to help bridge the Internet divide in Ethiopia
• Develop online resources to help Internet Society chapters effectively create and implement cost-effective video streaming to its membership and the wider community
• Create a digital community of women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) in Kenya to serve as a virtual mentorship program
• Support the Koh Sirae School in Thailand by enhancing their wireless network, updating the learning center and classrooms with laptops and workstations, and providing furniture for 1,000 children and 53 teachers
• Empower and connect the women of Chuuk State in the Pacific Islands by establishing an Internet-connected computer lab at the Chuuk Women's Council (CWC) building and offering classes in ICT usage
• Promote child online safety in Uganda by educating children, teachers and parents at three urban schools; developing a user guide; and advocating for sound policies that ensure Internet safety
• Build a collaborative, independent, and transparent observatory that quantitatively assesses the Internet quality in Lebanon to help providers enhance their services and the Lebanese government accelerate the transition to broadband Internet
• Jump start the establishment of an Internet of Things (IoT) community-operated space in the University of the Philippines, where people with shared interests in computers, technology, science, digital art, or electronic art can meet and collaborate
• Initiate a movement that will encourage and facilitate university students majoring in ICT subjects to contribute their knowledge, skills, and time to teach ICT courses at Indonesia's rural high schools

The next application round opens in September. Additional information is available here on the Community Grants Programme and these winning projects.

"The 'home roaming' phenomenon, the concept of subscribers voluntarily offloading mobile traffic onto Wi-Fi networks, has continued. This combined with increased consumption of real-time entertainment on mobile networks globally, and the doubling of Netflix traffic on mobile networks in North America, suggests that users are getting comfortable with watching longer form videos on their handheld devices."

Other findings include:

• Apple devices (iPads, iPhones, iPods, AppleTVs, and Macs) represent 35% of all audio and video streaming on North American home networks

• YouTube accounts for over 20% of mobile downstream traffic in North America, Europe and Latin America

• Netflix mobile data usage share doubled in the last 12 months in North America

As opposed to the much maligned programs like CDM and other initiatives NAMA refers to a set of policies and actions that developed and developing countries undertake as part of a commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Also unlike CDM, NAMA recipients are not restricted to developing countries. The program recognizes that different countries may take different nationally appropriate action based on different capabilities and requirements. Most importantly any set of actions or policies undertaken by a nation under NAMA will be recorded in a registry along with relevant technology, finance and capacity building support and will be subject to international measurement, reporting and verification.

Already most industrialized countries have committed funding,or intend to commit funding to NAMA projects. It is expected that by 2020 over $100 billion will be committed to NAMA programs by various nation states.

As I have blogged ad nauseam, I believe Internet researcher and R&E networks can play a critical leadership role in developing zero carbon ICT and "Energy Internet" technologies and architectures. ICT is the fastest growing sector in terms of CO2 emissions and is rapidly become one of the largest GHG emission sectors on the planet. For example a recent Australian study pointed out that the demand for new wireless technologies alone will equal the CO2 emissions of 4 1/2 million cars!

Once you get past the mental block of energy efficiency solves all problems, and realize that energy consumption is not the problem, but the type of energy we use, then a whole world of research and innovation opportunities opens up. More significantly, whether you believe in climate change or not, it is expected that within a couple of years the cost of power from distributed roof top solar panels is going to be less than that from the grid. This is going to fundamentally change the dynamics of the power industry much like the Internet disrupted the old telecom world. Those countries and businesses that take advantage of these new power realities are going to have a huge advantage in the global marketplace.

I am pleased to see that Europe is at the forefront of these developments with Future Internet initiatives like FINSENY.EU that is actively working with NRENs and Internet researchers to develop the architectural principles of building an energy Internet built around distributed small scale renewable power. My only concern is that Europe may screw it up, like they did with the early Internet, when most of the research funding went to incumbent operators.

The global Internet started in the academic research community and R&E networks. It would be great to see these same organizations play a leadership role in deploying the global "Energy Internet". Universities, in many cases have the energy profile of small cities, of which 25-40% of their electrical consumption is directly attributable to ICT. Most campuses also operate large fleets of utility vehicles that could easily be converted to dynamic charging to "packetize" power and provide it where needed and when needed on campus, especially when there is no power from the solar panels.

I dream of the day when a university announces it is going zero carbon and off the grid.

Written by Bill St. Arnaud , Green IT Networking Consultant

Significant Development

Columbus Communications’ Submarine Cable Footprint (Click to Enlarge)
Source: Columbus CommunicationsThe two companies were already the most significant providers of wholesale bandwidth for the region. Barbados registered Columbus International, which operates in 27 markets in the greater Caribbean, Central American and Andean region, estimates that it currently manages 70% of the region's traffic. CWC Wholesale Solutions is a subsidiary of UK-based Cable & Wireless Communications, which manages a diverse set of telecommunications businesses in Central America and the Caribbean including the well-known LIME brand.

Their new arrangement is not a union of equals. CWC's assets, subject to the joint venture arrangement, had a gross asset value of US$108.2 million, and recorded a loss before tax of US$0.9 million in the year to 31 March 2013. In contrast, Columbus's assets, subject to the joint venture arrangement, had a gross asset value of US$304.6 million and recorded a profit before tax of US$29.3 million in the year to 31 December 2012. Their joint venture, called CNL-CWC Networks, will be managed by Columbus, whose share will be 72.5% to CWC Wholesale Solutions' 27.5%.

Columbus and CWC in a joint statement said, "The new joint venture company will serve as the sales agent of both Columbus Networks and CWC Wholesale Solutions for international wholesale capacity." It added, "Columbus Networks and CWC Wholesale Solutions will retain ownership and control of their respective existing networks in the region."

The companies expect that after completing necessary network interconnections, the joint venture will offer wholesale customers an expanded network platform that spans more than 42,000 kilometers and reaches more than 42 countries in the region.

Officials from both companies shared that they hope to offer customers greater IP traffic routing options, improved reliability and higher performance as the joint venture rolls out. However, for all their enthusiasm about the joint venture, the success of an enlarged Columbus/CWC is by no means guaranteed. Given the strong parent brands, there is the real possibility of potentially conflicting strategies from Columbus and CWC for development of the Caribbean market.

It remains to be seen how the enlarged entity will position itself in the market. For Columbus, the deal enables the supply of international wholesale capacity and IP services to markets the company does not currently reach, such as Grenada, Barbados, St Lucia, Antigua and St Vincent and the Grenadines. It also provides them with additional connectivity options for Dominican Republic and Jamaica. For Cable and Wireless, its current LIME territories will be able to benefit from enhanced bandwidth capacity, enabled by access to Columbus Networks sub-sea capacity.

However, both companies must await further regulatory approvals in Panama, Columbia, Cayman Islands, The Bahamas, Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, The British Virgin Islands, Montserrat and St Kitts and Nevis before they can begin rolling out services on behalf of the joint venture in those countries. It is anyone's guess as to how long this approval process will take.

Unanswered Questions

The promise of an expanded network that can offer greater resilience, redundancy and routing options for Caribbean and Latin American traffic is certainly laudable. So too is the possibility of improving the region's access to international capacity to better meet the increasing demand.

However, the benefits of this joint venture must be weighed against the possibility that this new entity can negatively influence pricing, competition and downstream market growth. Unhealthy collusion or price-fixing in this significant sector of the telecommunications market could deal a serious blow to already fragile economies in the region. This must not be allowed to happen.

But who is to be tasked with the responsibility of ensuring that things proceed in the interest of health market growth and economic development?

There is no official body with the means or mandate for providing oversight of the region's telecommunications sector. The small markets of the Caribbean are marked by under-resourced national regulators, more practiced in responding to local telecom wrangling than to strategically analyzing the international wheeling and dealing of trans-national players.

So the questions now are, who is going to act as watchdog to safeguard regional, national and public interests? And, who is going to ensure that the promised efficiencies and capacity increase, actually benefit the region? Hopefully, it will not be too long before the answers emerge.

Written by Bevil Wooding, Internet Strategist at Packet Clearing House

This however, turned out not to be the case. The telcos were late moving into broadband, while the cablecos embraced these new opportunities and rapidly obtained a 50%+ share in the broadband market. For a long time the market anticipated that the telcos would fight back and regain their share: this never happened and the cablecos were able to extend their lead further. With 90% cable penetration in the country they had a captive market.

Cablecos have also made considerable investments in network upgrades since 1996, including the rebuilding of around 1.6 million kilometres of cable plant. The vast majority of this infrastructure uses DOCSIS3.0 technology, which is far superior to the DSL products which telcos offer. The latest cable upgrade to DOCSIS3.1 promises a significant enhancement, which should be a great concern to telcos which, having failed to invest in FttH networks, are unable to compete with the technical ability of cable networks. Last year the telcos declared defeat and indicated that they would start closing down parts of the PSTN.

Interestingly, these developments align with the discussions I had over the last few years with the newly nominated FCC chairman Tom Wheeler. He is also on the public record on this issue, believing that the PSTN would end its life around 2018 and that the cable companies would become the key broadband providers. Of course, with his extensive background in the mobile industry he also sees a golden future for mobile communications, since these players would start taking over large parts of the PSTN, especially for telephony services.

One of the most serious problems that the telcos are facing is the escalating cost of maintaining copper plant — this is estimated to increase from $2.72 per line in 2007 to $17.50 by 2018. This rapid rise is a combination of real cost increases, because of the aging nature of the network, as also because telcos are actively reducing the number of users and so the cost has to be shared among fewer customers. Another reason for the rapid increase is that for decades past maintenance as been deferred.

Clearly the telcos are not closing down all of the PSTN willy-nilly. They do have good quality infrastructure that can deliver quality DSL services, and they will milk that infrastructure for as long as possible. This will specifically be targeted in areas where it is relatively cheaper to maintain the copper network. The main casualty here will be areas of rural America, where maintenance costs are higher and where there are relatively few competing cablecos operating. As a result, many of these telcos' customers will only have mobile networks to access both voice and data services.

Another, perhaps even more serious issue — and one that the new FCC chair will have to face — is the rapid monopolization of the fixed broadband sector, with one cableco being the sole provider. These companies operate within franchises, so there is no competition between them. Currently there are no policies in place that regulate this situation, and with the American plutocracy in full force it will be interesting to see if any action will (or can) be taken by the FCC to rein in this emerging monopoly.

In the meantime the telcos are also under attack from companies such as Google: Google alone has refigured the landscape, having invested in FttH networks with great success. These companies' high take-up rate is worrying both the telcos and the cable companies, who all charge exorbitantly high prices for services similar to the ones that Google now offers at close to half the price. They are increasingly working with municipalities around the country, many of whom either operate FttH networks or would like to do so but are blocked by court rulings forced upon them through the lobbying of vested telco and cable interests. Based on the strong American conviction that government (including local government) should not be involved in telecoms infrastructure, they get away with it. Increasingly however, citizens are asking why local councils can be involved in electricity infrastructure but not in telecoms infrastructure. There is a growing political groundswell that is providing municipalities with greater freedom to be involved in such infrastructure developments.

This could become a turning point in the American telecoms industry. Potentially it could also see the telcos returning to the market rather than retreating from it, this time starting from scratch by building new fibre infrastructure.

Written by Paul Budde, Managing Director of Paul Budde Communication

Tom Wheeler nominated by President Obama as the new chairman of the FCC.

I have known Tom since 1983. He is an enormously energetic person and has been involved in the ICT industry for most of his working life, holding very senior positions within the American industry.

Currently he is the managing director at the Washington DC venture capital firm, Core Capital Partners, and before that, from 1979 to 1984, he served as president of the National Cable Television Association (NCTA) and as CEO of mobile carrier trade group CTIA from 1992 to 2004.

During all those years we have remained in touch and this connection was further strengthened when Barack Obama became President in 2008. As long as I have known Tom he has played a very active role in the Democratic Party and on one occasion I was invited to attend one of their events, which was quite an experience.

After the Obama win Tom became part of the Transition Team, overseeing the broad scale of technology, science and media. Before the election I had already discussed with Tom the idea that, if Obama were to win, I would be interested in sharing my views on telecoms with him. He took me up on that and put me in contact with Professor Susan Crawford who became the President's advisor on telecommunications. Together with an elite group of telecoms experts from America and Europe we produced several reports on telecoms infrastructure, structural separation, digital innovation and productivity.

There was also great interest in America in the developments around the Australian NBN and in 2009 I was invited to do a presentation on my views on this at a meeting in the White House. And our reports were used by the people within the FCC who wrote the American National Broadband Plan in 2010. It is interesting to see that many of the suggestions we made appeared in their plan.

The fact that Tom was part of the Transition Team, and the fact that he has shown great interest in different approaches to telecommunications, gives me a positive feeling about his appointment. Obviously an appointment like this is eliciting very strong comment in the USA — there are some who don't like the fact that Tom has such close links with the industry, while others see that as an advantage.

It is obvious that America is America, and that the political situation and the attitude to private and government investments is rather different from those in Europe and Australia. There will not be an NBN along the lines that developed in Australia, not even the tuned down-version of the Coalition.

As an American Tom is also a very strong proponent of reduced government involvement and strong support for commercial investments. While I do not always agree with his views on telecoms issues I have always been able to have very open discussions with him. My views are sometimes slightly more radical than his, but I have learned that the American way of thinking is indeed different and I can understand and respect that.

Tom's involvement in the mobile industry also gave him insight into spectrum issues, currently a hot topic in America. In the past he has challenged the broadcasters to become more active in the digital media and more innovative in using their spectrum for, among other things, mobile TV. So we can expect some fireworks there.

Of course, the really big issue in telecoms in the USA, as elsewhere, is the dominance of the vested interests and, particularly in America, their enormous influence in government policies (plutocracy). It will be interesting to see how Tom will handle these tricky issues. He will need all his diplomatic and negotiation skills to navigate a straightforward course through them.

I would like to take this opportunity to wish Tom wisdom and success in his new role.

Written by Paul Budde, Managing Director of Paul Budde Communication

Here's a thought exercise… Imagine no Internet: no data on phones, no ethernet or wi-fi connections at home — or anywhere. No email, no Google, no Facebook, no Amazon, no Skype.

That's what we would have if designing the Internet had been left up to phone and cable companies, and not to geeks whose names most people don't know. What those geeks came up with was something no business or government would ever contemplate: a base infrastructure of protocols that nobody owns, everybody can use and anybody can improve. For all three of those reasons the Internet supports positive economic externalities beyond calculation.

The only reason we have the carriers in the Net's picture is that we needed their wires. They got into the Internet service business only because demand for Internet access was huge, and they couldn't avoid it. Yet, because we still rely on their wires, and we get billed for their services every month, we think and talk inside their conceptual boxes.

Remember that the telco and cableco business models are based on routing everything through billable checkpoints. Is this what we want for the rest of the Net's future?

We have to remember that the Internet isn't just a service. It's the platform for everything we connect. And the number of things we will connect over the next few years will rise to the trillions.

To understand how the Internet ought to grow, try this: cities are networks, and networks are cities.^† Every business, every person, every government agency and employee, every institution, is a node in a network whose value increases as a high multiple of all the opportunities there are for those nodes to connect — and to do anything. This is why every city should care about pure connectivity, and not just about billable phone and cable company services.

We should be building a network infrastructure that is as neutral to purpose as water, electricity, roads and sewage treatment — and that anybody, including ordinary citizens, can improve. We can't do that if we're wearing blinders supplied by AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner and Verizon.

† I came to the realization that networks are cities, and vice versa, via Geoffrey West — first in Jonah Lehrer's "A Physicist Solves The City," in the New York Times, and then in West's TED talk, "The Surprising Math of Cities and Corporations." West is the physicist in Lehrer's piece. Both are highly recommended.

Written by Doc Searls, Author

This investment is helping smart grids to become the norm across the country. A side benefit is that utilities are also developing their smart grids for telecoms over and above that used by meters to send data to network controllers.

As an example, earlier this year the utility serving Santa Clara began using its smart grid technology and infrastructure to deliver free citywide outdoor WiFi. While meters send data via an existing wireless network, a separate channel is used to provide outdoor internet access. The WiFi network is growing in scope and reach as more premises are equipped with smart meters.

The potential for expanding WiFi coverage is huge. There are about 120 municipalities with citywide WiFi networks accessible to the general public. In addition, there are about 60 cities with citywide or near citywide coverage though these networks are now limited to government applications, such as public safety. There are also about 80 or more cities with large outdoor WiFi areas, mostly located in parks and downtown zones.

A hindrance to cities aiming to develop comprehensive WiFi networks has come from the powerful telecoms industry, which employs its lobbying clout to push for laws blocking or preventing municipalities from offering WiFi or fixed broadband services.

The use of smart meters to provide WiFi using existing (and expanding) infrastructure presents a separate challenge, since the telcos would have to battle utilities rather than municipal governments.

Written by Henry Lancaster, Senior Analysts at Paul Budde Communication

Most discussions regarding the need for fibre optic infrastructure take place from the wrong perspective — based on how fast people need the internet to be when they download their emails, web information, games and movies. Fibre optic technology has very little to do with this — ultimately all of that 'residential' traffic will account for less than 50% of all the traffic that will eventually flow over fibre optic networks.

The real reason this type of network is needed relates to the social and economic needs of our societies, and there are many clear examples that indicate that we are running out of steam trying to solve some of our fundamental problems in traditional ways.

For instance, at this moment discussions are taking place in every single developed country in the world about the fact that the cost of healthcare is unsustainable. These costs will grow — over the next 20 years — to 40%-50% of total government budgets — clearly impossible. So we face a dilemma. Do we lower the standard of healthcare services, at the same time making them more costly for the end-user?

If we want to maintain our current lifestyle the only solution is to make the healthcare system more effective, efficient and productive. And this can only be done with the help of ICT. To make it more productive, health needs to be brought to the people rather than the other way around, as is the case at present. Similar examples apply to the education system, the energy systems and the management of cities and countries in general. We need to create smart cities, smart businesses and smart countries, with high-speed infrastructure, smart grids, intelligent buildings, etc.

In order to manage our societies and economies better we need to have much better information about what is happening within all of the individual ecosystems, and in particular information about how these different systems interact. Currently they all operate within silos and there is little or no cooperation or coordination between them. ICT can be the bridge to bring them together; to collect data from them and process it in real time. Information can then be fed back to those who are managing the systems, and those who operate within them, such as doctors, teachers, business people, bureaucrats, politicians — and, of course, to you and me.

Some of these data interactions are already happening around smartphones, social media, traffic and crowd control and weather information. This is only the start of what is known as the Internet of Things (IoT) or machine-to-machine communication (M2M).

ICT cannot solve world hunger, but without ICT world hunger cannot be solved, and this applies to all the important social and economic problems that societies around the world are now facing.

None of this can be done overnight; it requires massive transformations of industries and sectors. There is no instant business model available that will supply an immediate return on the investment that is needed to create these smart systems. All of these investments need to be looked at over a period of 10, 20 years and even longer. No private business will take such a business risk. To make it happen government leadership and government policies are needed.

This is also the message from the UN Broadband Commission for Digital Development, and it applies to countries all over the world. More than 120 countries worldwide have now developed broadband policies, recognising that such infrastructure is critical to their development. The challenge now is to put these policies into practice/implement these policies, and at a time when government leadership around the world as at an all-time low.

Ultimately all of these developments will require national fibre optic networks. There simply is no other technology that can handle the capacity of data and applications that will be needed to run the cities and countries from today onwards. This infrastructure needs to be robust. It has to have enormous capacity. It needs to be secure and to be able to protect privacy. There is simply no other infrastructure technology that is up to that job.

So those business and government leaders who are in charge of looking towards the future do have an obligation to ask themselves, based on the above, whether we can afford not to have a fibre optic network.

Written by Paul Budde, Managing Director of Paul Budde Communication

First of all, this is not an 'us or them' issue between fixed and mobile broadband. As a matter of fact, the companies that are rolling out LTE are increasingly dependent on deep fibre rollouts as they need to handle massive amounts of data, to which the mobile infrastructure technology is not well-suited. So the quicker they can offload their mobile traffic onto a fixed network the better. As I've said before, one of the key drivers of fibre deployment will be the growth in mobile broadband.

A similar situation will occur in the home. More and more, people are using their mobile devices rather than PCs and laptops; and more people within the home are using more and different mobile devices, so this will significantly increase the need for capacity within the home. The reality of mobile broadband is that 60%-80% of capacity usage of smartphone and tablet use is in the home, and these devices are all connected to the fixed network through the WiFi modem. People are becoming accustomed to the quality of the LTE network, so they will want a similar quality of service over the fixed network; and over the next 3-5 years the current network will start to run out of steam. And, with at least one-third of all fixed broadband connections being of such an inferior quality, these households are already facing these quality problems now.

So, while access to the internet and broadband is moving quickly towards smartphones and tablets as the preferred access devices, at the same time the majority of broadband capacity required through these devices will still need to be provided by the fixed network.

While the capacity of the mobile network is greatly improved by LTE — as well as by the upcoming extra capacity through new spectrum allocation — the physics of mobile technology is such that it will be impossible to handle all the traffic of these mobile devices over the mobile network.

Obviously the mobile operators are not sitting still. They are improving their network infrastructure in order to capture as much of the traffic as possible, and increasingly they are looking at WiFi technologies as another alternative to off-load traffic and/or add extra access points for users in high traffic areas such as shopping centres, entertainment venues, transport stations, etc. But again these WiFi access points need to be connected to the fixed network, and in the case of WiFi access points you virtually need fibre-to-the premise/business to be of any use.

So, while LTE will greatly increase the use of broadband and broadband applications, this will at the same time put increased pressure on the fixed network.

On the end-user side of the fixed broadband market — we don't have the same dynamics as in the mobile market. Few, if any, fixed network devices capture the users' attention in the way the new smartphones do. Also, there is a clear lack of exciting fixed broadband applications. Entertainment is largely captured by content providers who want to protect their existing business models, and applications in healthcare, education, energy, etc are going to take a long time to reach maturity and mass market penetration levels. So all attention is clearly on mobile and this is creating a skewed perspective on what is needed overall to ensure that these mobile developments can be used to their full potential.

The developments in mobile and LTE will generally stimulate the need for better fixed networks, but at the same time there will be a significant group of users who — at this point in time — do not have high capacity requirements, and for whom a $30 or $40 monthly mobile connection will cater for all their comms needs. This group will actually lead to stagnation, and even a decline, in fixed broadband connections. We already see this happening in the Hong Kong market. The situation will only be exacerbated if LTE becomes available in areas that have very poor fixed broadband coverage. BuddeComm estimates that up to 25% of users could simply abandon their unsatisfactory fixed broadband connection in favour of LTE. Most will eventually re-connect in 3-5 years' time, but only when important applications are becoming available over the fixed network.

These short-term developments could be interpreted by some who don't have a good understanding of the total picture as an indication that fixed broadband is not needed, and this could potentially undermine the build-out of the fixed broadband networks that are so desperately needed for the longer-term social and economic developments in the country.

If we look at the very latest smartphone devices (e.g. GalaxyS4) we see an increase in what is called machine-to-machine (M2M) or Internet of Things (IoT) applications, often linked to location-based services (LBS). What happens behind the scenes of these applications is that they gather data often from a variety of sources and process that information in real time, giving users interesting services in relation to healthcare, sport achievement, calorie intake, weather transport and traffic information and so on.

It is these M2M and IoT applications that are finally going to stimulate the sort of killer apps that are needed to drag some of the lagging sectors into the digital age — such as healthcare, education, utilities, government and business, who are at present trying to limit the impact of the digital economy, rather than embracing it. This, in turn, will start stimulating the sort of applications that require the capacity, robustness and security that can only be delivered by fibre optic networks.

All of this will come together in 5 to 10 years' time when the requirements from the mobile-based developments, the rapid growth of M2M applications, and the somewhat slower growth from the requirements following the industry and sector transformations, combined, make the need for a fibre-based infrastructure essential for the economic development and social wellbeing of any developed economy.

What is required from business leaders and politicians is that they recognise this need and start planning for it from the earliest possible opportunity. Doing this on the run is not the ideal way to make infrastructure investments that will have to last for 25-50 years.

Written by Paul Budde, Managing Director of Paul Budde Communication

Yet Vodafone is one of the key players in Spain's surging fibre market, where investment in networks is a precondition of customer growth and financial reward. In common with development elsewhere (not least in the mobile sector), Vodafone is not going it alone, but is sharing the cost with other parties. In Spain, it has partnered with Orange. Unlike many other European markets, where operators have tended to concentrate on high-density towns (Paris, Milan, Amsterdam), in Spain FttH is more widely available in smaller towns and rural areas, often guided by the policies of regional governments. In this market there is plenty of room for smaller players to co-exist with the incumbent.

Orange launched an FttH pilot in Madrid as early as 2010, and earlier this year teamed up with Vodafone to invest up to €1 billion on a joint fibre network covering 50 of the largest cities. With complementary footprints, the fibre is owned independently though the companies share technical specifications to ensure compatibility as a single network. Each operator provides access to its own footprint, making the entire network available to each other. Orange recently switched on its fibre for commercial services, initially in Madrid, and planned to have some 800,000 premises connected to the network by March 2014, rising to three million by September 2015 and six million by 2017. In Madrid alone, up to 40,000 homes could be connected to the network.

The Orange/Vodafone joint network is open to co-investing third parties to share, which could dramatically extend the availability of fibre to Catalonia and Asturias where there are already extensive deployments through existing projects.

These developments are encouraging, and show that telcos operating through long-term economic doldrums are reassured that sensible investment strategies will provide dividends down the track.

Written by Henry Lancaster, Senior Analysts at Paul Budde Communication