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have an all-fiber network sometime in the 21st century, whether it's 5 years, 10 years, 15 years or more away. I predict it's going to be sooner. That's why there are alternatives to FTTH. FTTH is the final product.
PL: So is that the main force behind resistance to FTTH?
JS: Resistance typically comes from investors. When the executives sit down and say “Okay. We're going to jack up capital expenditures by $3 billion a year to deploy FTTH in the hopes that our subscribers will pay us for delivering services we haven't previously delivered,” investors don't think that's such a |
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If you talk to CTOs, pretty much everyone says they are going to have an all-fiber network sometime in the 21st century, whether it's 5 years, 10 years, 15 years or more away. I predict it's going to be sooner. |
having the option to enter into broadband infrastructure based on their decisions rather than being restricted based on a state law that has questionable value for the citizens of the area. As I mentioned, Verizon is the largest provider of FTTH, but there are 340 other providers out there.
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good idea. However, as Verizon has proven in the US, it is a good idea. There are other large-scale proofs. NTT has nearly 8 million FTTH subscribers in Japan. There are enough operators who are on the positive side with this investment that investor concerns are starting to relax. What you're left with is that within the telephone companies, this is quite change. Everybody has their skill set finely honed to deliver high-quality voice service at low cost. Now they have to learn a lot of new things like how to be video content providers. How to negotiate a deal with ESPN or HBO. There are a lot of new things that have to be adopted within the telco environment, but people know they have to move forward one way or another.
PL: What are some other issues the FTTH Council is pushing?
JS: We have several issues that we are really behind at the moment. Of the ones I'll mention now, one is offense and one is defense. There is the issue of video franchise reform, which we are strongly in favor of. We have evidence that it accelerates FTTH deployments and it alleviates an obsolete, anti-competitive structure of regulation that has been around since CATV stood for 'community access' back in the 60s. We're making progress. 50% of the US population now lives in a state with franchise reform. Secondly, we are in favor of municipalities
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PL: Tell me about those SPs. What sorts of companies are those, generally?
JS: Guadalupe Valley Telephone Coop is one. Jackson Energy in Jackon, TN. Grant County Public Utility District in the state of Washington. SureWest Communications near Sacramento. I could go on and on. Those are examples of the kinds of communities that have deployed FTTH. Most of the resistance comes from incumbent carriers who don't want competition, but those communities that deploy FTTH do it when the incumbent SP declines to invest in the community. When the local service provider says “Sorry, you don't fit our business case profile”, some communities don't take that as the last statement. The reason they don't is that they look around and see that every year the graduating high school class disappears. They know that broadband is becoming the number 2 or 3 factor in business relocation. We have evidence from a number of FTTH providers showing employment increases and sales increases in areas with FTTH reach. If the citizens want to expand the network and pay for it, they should be allowed to do so. There's too much at stake. I always chuckle at the idea of “level playing field.” The common SP is focused on maximizing value for shareholders who tend to be further away, and the community folks are interested in
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