We’re on record calling into question the viability of delivering consistent HD streams through an ADSL pipe that is also serving voice and internet service. Judging from a post at DSL reports we were on the mark:

Why? AT&T has told us the goal was to create “a consistent user experience across the board.” This user in our U-Verse forum is one of those lucky (unlucky) FTTH customers in Oklahoma who decided to give the service a spin anyway, and ultimately decided it wasn’t quite ready for prime time:

Well, that was short lived. We canceled it. Over the last few days we experienced lots of freezing on the HD channels. A reboot of the STB and/or RG fixed it for a bit, and then it would come back. Also, the HD quality was very mediocre. To add to that, it was even worse when played back form the DVR. When AT&T gets their act together in terms of reliability and features, I’ll give it a try again. No bad blood here, just disappointment. I WANTED it to work out.

Downstream from home of the rich and spoiled in Aspen, Glenwood Springs is a moderately affluent burg that is lucky enough to have a fiber backbone in place - no thanks to the duopoly, they did it themselves. The city’s government is now getting serious about bringing fiber to the curb.

Mayor Bruce Christensen said Glenwood had no broadband services available until just months after the city installed the Community Broadband Network and service providers eagerly jumped in.

Wassom said by taking an increased role in providing voice, data and video with fiber-optic infrastructure, the city can better control its own destiny. He said it would allow Glenwood to do things traditional service providers never would: allowing free or discounted access for hospitals, schools or even households of certain incomes.

“It strikes me as odd when the telecommunications industry steps up and says you shouldn’t do this,” Wassom said.

Christensen said the difference he’s noticed between a wireless connection to the city’s network and a fiber-optic connection is phenomenal.

“All of these technologies discussed are not available to our citizens right now,” he said. “We do provide fiber to a number of businesses in town, but there’s really no affordable way for people to get that technology and that bandwidth to their homes. If we do that, as we’re seeing, there’s this huge variety of services that are available.” (from the Glenwood Springs Post Independent)

It’s a sad commentary when our national government and the FCC grants franchises to regional monopolies without also requiring that the provide minimum service levels to the population centers in the territory they monopolize. These are the same folks that are only too willing to dip into the universal service fund whenever it suits them while still underserving the customer base that has no other choice - except to trump them by building a municipal utility.

Qwests new CEO just may get it. Recently outlining his 5 point plan for the company’s future, he’s the only duopoly CEO so far who seems committed to investing in access for the quality of access. Consumers and businesses will like this.

His plan included five key areas:

- Continue to offer customers simplified, integrated solutions, such as its price-for-life high-speed Internet offering.

- Deepen current partnerships and forge new ones. Qwest has more than 600,000 video subscribers through reselling DirecTV satellite-TV service.

- Increase broadband capacity to residential and business customers. As previously announced, Qwest will spend $300 million next year on an Internet project that will give 1.5 million homes speeds of up to 20 megabits per second.

- Drive productivity and cost efficiency.

- Balance investment and profitable growth with return to shareholders. The company announced an 8 cent per share quarterly dividend last week, its first in six years.

As expected, the announcement didn’t include plans for a broad video rollout. (from the Denver Post)

Conventional Third Pipe wisdom says Qwest has the best strategy for long term profitability out of all of the duopoly players. Putting the capital into the pipes rather than trying to be in the cable TV business will make Wall Street happy, eventually.

With France in the lead, thanks to local loop unbundling, European broadband continues to blow past the US in terms of available speed and declining cost at an accelerating pace. While market penetration is low, most of those who have access have more than a single provider competing for their business.

Competition among European telecoms has led to significantly decreased consumer bandwidth cost. In the UK, headline speeds of 8 Mbps are available for less than $20 per month — or even for free if bundled — from some operators, compared with $80 in 2004. Over the past several years, service providers have maintained the same price level while providing much higher connection speed. (from Ecommerce Times)

With no accurate data on penetration, and low service levels at high cost, the US is far from being a leader in the connected world. The FCC is more fascinated with regulating competition in the dying broadcast media, subscription video and POTS services than they are in ensuring healthy competition in access. We’re in a new age where it’s not about access providers supplying services, it’s about access suppliers supplying access. You can’t get that without healthy competition in access. We need an FCC who gets it.

Is there a 100MBPS club in the making for some nations of the world? If there is, add Singapore to the list. Singapore’s governing body seems to grasp that not joining the club will put their at nation’s economic health at a disadvantage.

The government of Singapore has unveiled their plans to build a national fiber network that will offer minimum speeds of 100Mbps/50Mbps by the year 2015. The network, which will be scalable to symmetrical 1Gbps and provide open access to competitors, is currently in the Request-For-Proposal (RFP) phase, according to the project website. The network will be only partially government funded, to the tune of $750 million. (from Broadband Reports)

We reported last week that researchers had developed a new bendable plastic fiber to be available sometime. Corning has also been busy developing a new bendable glass fiber product that is available now:

Corning Cable Systems, part of Corning Inc.’s telecom segment, has sold its first ClearCurve product offering to date - to Connexion Technologies.

Connexion, which is deploying fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) networks across the U.S., is using ClearCurve Rugged Drop Cable in its multiple dwelling unit (MDU) deployments.(from CED)

Bendable fiber is an important development. It makes FTTH cheaper and easier to do, especially in existing construction and retrofits. No matter how many improvements are made in the transmission speed of copper, light moves faster than electrons. Fiber will always be the better choice for improving speeds.

The biggest problem with glass fiber is that it breaks in sharp bends, making installation tedious and costly in the last mile route to the end user. Korean researchers think have the problem licked with a new flexible plastic fiber. Worth noting: there is a huge bandwidth penalty in using the new fiber instead of glass.Still, I’ll gladly trade my connection for the 2.5GBPS the plastic fiber can deliver.(article on ARS Technica)

Qwest has an interesting history. Before merging with US West and all of the skullduggery worth of an Enron, the company was in the backbone and access business. Original chairman Phillip Anschutz creatively utilized his extensive railroad right of ways to build a long haul fiber optic network. The company usually resolved performance problems by trowing more bandwidth at them as opposed to looking for a way to constrain specific uses of bandwidth (if you own lots of fiber, it’s actually a cheaper way to solve performance problems). The company was also a pioneer in using VOIP for its long distance and business voice services. The US West deal was originally touted as a way to break through the deadlocked last mile to consumers. When the merger was complete, the company degenerated a Telco business with some extra fiber.

Judging from statements made by new CEO, Ed Mueller, the company may be returning to its roots.

The company is not looking to buy a cellphone company, even though the wireless business is generating plenty of cash for its much larger peers, AT&T and Verizon Communications. “We don’t have wireless assets, and we’re not going to go acquire wireless assets,” Mueller said.

Qwest is not going to pursue a broad video play, either. “We’re not committing to a Verizon or AT&T whole video rollout,” Mueller said. “We’re not becoming a TV provider.”

Qwest will detail its expected returns for the additional $200 million the company plans to spend next year to boost broadband speeds. Those details may include which markets will see the investments, with denser cities likely to be at the top of the list.

Down the road, Qwest may look to partner with third-party companies to offer high-bandwidth applications and content, such as video-on-demand, to leverage the faster speeds. (from the Denver Post)

Anyone possessing any common sense would not start a new company to provide premium content services and legacy wireless as the means to support an internet access utility. Bundled video and legacy wireless are businesses that may have already peaked, and are certain to be in decline as lower cost, more open internet based services displace them. Looking ahead 5 years, Qwest may be at the top of the heap in the telco race by building what the market actually wants: a big open pipe.

Business Week. The price of FIOS is going up. Those folks that signed up for FIOS at $39.95 will be billed at $42.99 beginning in 2008. My cut says there might be some contract squabbling by some. Date based price jumps conflict with contracted lede in loss seller pricing. We shall see.

Interesting observation –

“Verizon’s price increase suggests that the risk of a price war in the Pay TV market is likely lower than investors expect,” said Craig Moffett, an analyst at Sanford Bernstein who first wrote about the price increase, in a note. “High variable costs — not sunk-cost economics — appear to be driving pricing decisions.”

Rabe said FiOS TV service will offer more content next year, and that it remains competitively priced with its cable rivals.

Moffett noted that Verizon is spending a lot of money on advertising and promotional incentives to attract customers. He said he believes the high costs make the $18 billion investment in FiOS unattractive.

Other analysts, however, have noted that the large investment is necessary if Verizon is to keep pace with cable companies, which pilfered telephone customers with their own Web-based phone service.

Keep in mind folks, FIOS is just the TV portion of the package. Verizon really wants you to buy the whole bundle — FIOS, FTTP, VoIP. The difference between 20mo vs 48mo payback for Verizon hangs in the balance. But to be fair, Verizon stuck their neck out on FTTH. They deserve kudos for taking the gamble.

It seems that I under reported Verizons upgraded FIOS offerings yesterday. To quote Endgadget:

According to reports, the company is now offering a 30Mbps / 15 Mbps service at $89.95 a month, and the nerve-shattering 50 Mbps / 20 Mbps speed at $139.95. The telecom has also introduced symmetrical connections in all 16 states where it currently offers FiOS service, with a 20Mbps / 20Mbps on the up and down, starting at $64.99.

50 MBPS? Will FIOS availability become a selling feature for new housing developments?