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PL: That's something that's a necessary differentiator in a tough real estate market. Last year, you predicted 15 million homes by 2012. Any change there? Your rationale was 30-35 million homes passed and an increase in take rate to 50%.
Savage: I'll stick with that number.
PL: A few weeks ago, at NXTcomm in Las Vegas, I was talking to a company that works with ethernet over copper. They mentioned that fiber's great, but when it isn't available, copper can deliver a viable substitute. What do you think of these other methods?
Savage: It's true. There are a number of viable alternative technologies, but this is the trump card. If I were a service provider, and I had an area that was going to be very high cost to serve by fiber, I might be considering how to extend my copper plant. What can I do if it's an extended rural area without much
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Fifty years from now, we'll all be on a fiber connection. It's just a question of whether it'll be two, five, fifteen, or thirty years out when it gets to the further and further extended locations. |
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that's still the case for all broadband. The reason that it's better to have a FTTH connection is that many people working from home have a more effective connection than they do on the corporate LAN in the office. If I'm a software code writer and I have a dedicated 20-30mbps down and 10mbps upstream, I'm smoking. If I'm on a corporate LAN, payroll might slow me down.
The other point is reliability. Since it's glass, you don't get as much noise in the signal or deal with lightning strikes. When the HAM radio operator fires up his gear, it doesn't cut
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broadband subscription right now, can I offer them 20-30mbps over copper? If somebody comes in with FTTH, I'll be in trouble, but if it's all I've got right now, I'll be ok. Those same markets are being looked at by broadband wireless folks and broadband over power line folks. Usually they're all good for a couple of megabits per second. Sooner or later, there'll be fiber out there. Fifty years from now, we'll all be on a fiber connection. It's just a question of whether it'll be two, five, fifteen, or thirty years out when it gets to the further and further extended locations.
PL: Here in the States, materials costs are up. Gas is over four dollars a gallon and rising. Has the changing economy had any impact on fiber rollout, either positive or negative?
Savage: Well, it's improving telecommuting numbers. We do surveys of FTTH subscribers, and what we've found is that when someone goes from cable modem or DSL to FTTH, they telecommute one more day per month. I haven't checked recently, but I assume
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back your throughput. The OPEX for FTTH networks, the SPs are finding, is something like 30% of what it was for the copper networks. Now, part of that is that they're replacing a fifty year old copper network with a brand new fiber network, but the other part is that there aren't as many mechanisms to go bad.
PL: True. And I don't know if people are ripping fiber out of the ground like they are copper.
Savage: We're unaware of anyone stealing copper, other than by mistake.
PL: What is planned for the upcoming FTTH conference?
Savage: September 22-25. In Nashville, TN at the Opryland Resort.
PL: So a change of venue from last year?
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