AT&T Mocks Google Fiber

AT&T Senior VP mocks Google Fiber. Stop me if you've heard this joke before:

Does the unfulfilled promise of an Internet Service Provider leave you searching for another option?
If so, don't be surprised. Making you search is what they do best.

Ha ha - get it? Google? Making you search!

Eric Boyer from AT&T does make a good point (although slightly veiled). Google Fiber did underestimate how difficult the actual building of fiber networks is in the real world. It is one of those areas where there is truly no substitute for experience.

CenturyLink to Buy Level 3?

CenturyLink is rumored to be in talks to buy Level 3. Put me in the camp of those who like this deal for CenturyLink.

I believe that the future for residential services is a dumb pipe to the home with the subscriber deciding what to do with their bandwidth. Netflix, Amazon Prime, IP based security systems, smart utility services, etc, etc. If you own that dumb pipe to the customer's home - you own that subscriber.

The same will be true to a lesser degree for larger enterprise, municipal and other big bandwidth users. This deal will give CenturyLink more infrastructure to connect to these larger subscribers. A much better move than using funds to buy zombie brands like Yahoo! or content creators like Time Warner.

In fact - I wouldn't be surprised if Verizon backed out of the Yahoo! deal, using the undisclosed hack as justification, and instead used the funds that would have gone to that deal to also bid on Level 3.

Google Fiber Presses Pause

Google Fiber presses the pause button. Quite frankly I'm not surprised.

I think Google Fiber underestimated three things in regards to building fiber networks:

1. It is very difficult to make a business case for anyone to build a profitable network that is overbuilding an existing provider.

2. The price point of $70 for a Gig of bandwidth was not realistic. Doubly unrealistic when the existing cable company can drop pricing on a temporary basis while locking in subs to term contracts.

3. The utility company right of way and make-ready process are, to paraphrase Thomas Paine, the times that try men's souls.

An interesting fallout over this pause will be to watch how this affects Corning's stock price in the mid-term. Corning peaked about a year ago when incumbents were ordering glass left and right to fend off Google Fiber proposed builds.

Household Data Consumption

Interesting article on average US household data consumption:

Average monthly broadband usage in U.S. homes is 190 gigabytes per month, according to a new report from iGR Research. More than 95% of this traffic is video, researchers said.“TV has become a personal activity,” said Iain Gillott, president of iGR research, in an interview. “If you have four people in a household now, that means four times the data going in.”In the past all members of a four-person home might watch the same thing on the same TV set at the same time. But today, each family member may be watching his or her own Netflix or YouTube choice.

Google Fiber

AT&T took some not so subtle shots at Google Fiber recently. This happening among rumors of Google Fiber downsizing it's personnel and moving to a more wireless-centric solution. Everyone seems to be asking what's up with Google Fiber? An interesting observation from the AT&T post:

February 2010: Google announces its intent to build ultra-high-speed fiber-fed broadband networks with plans to serve around five million subscribers in five years; 1100 cities respond to Google’s Request for Information in an effort to become a Google Fiber City.
Today: Google Fiber has deployed a fiber network in parts of seven out of the 1100 interested cities, but otherwise hits the pause button as Google Fiber learns something we’ve known for over a hundred years – deploying communications networks is hard and takes an enormous amount of time, money and skilled labor.

Emphasis added. There are a lot of risks and hurdles in building a fiber network. An interesting take-away for many municipalities looking to build their own FTTH projects. Don't underestimate the risks and costs involved in such projects!

Could Drones Replace Tower Climbers?

Could drones replace tower climbers? Could one of the most dangerous and highest paying blue collar jobs in the cell and utility industries be going the way of typewriter repairmen? Drones and robots seem to be the future.

“We will take tower climbers off the towers. That’s our goal and we expect it to fully occur within five years,” said [Lee] Priest [CEO of ETAK]. He said some of ETAK’s drones already have robotic arms that can touch the towers. “We are also looking at remote robots that can climb towers,” he said. “They can use the safety climb as well as the pegs to get up towers.”

DOCSIS 3.1 vs. FTTH

Interesting look at the differences between DOCSIS 3.1 and FTTH.

To me this was the key take-away:

There is no debate that an entire network built with fiber-optic cable is the way to go if you are building a network from scratch or replacing a legacy copper wire network. 

Seems common sense to most but needs to be said for others.

FTTH Take-Rates

Fiber Maven (via Telecompetitor) reports approximately 28 million homes passed with FTTH with an average 50% penetration.

One must assume that "penetration" means the same as "take-rate". The unanswered question is how many of those 28 million homes passed were FiOS, U-Verse or cable overbuilds?

Verizon FiOS Strategy Going Forward

Verizon will look to other cities to replicate the "FiOS build-out" model the communications giant is implementing in Boston.

Make no mistake - this strategy is primarily based on Verizon increasing their 5G footprint and secondarily on increasing their broadband penetration. Verizon is just using the video services FiOS offers as the "shiny thing" to get public officials attention. And to get favorable pole attachment concessions.

TWC Misleading Customers on Internet Speeds

The NY State Attorney General is troubled by the way Time Warner Cable handles customer service and how their advertised Internet speed don't match up with reality.

Misleading Internet speeds are pretty common and you would almost expect that sort of flim-flam marketing from companies like TWC or Comcast. What concerns me is the almost willful suspension of reality when it comes to so-called Gigabit Cities.

I get about 16-18 Gbps from my Charter connection but my bill says I'm supposed to get 30 Mbps. I'm not too upset about that because I understand contention and my speeds are at least better than 50% of what I'm supposed to be getting. But what about subscribers in FTTH builds who are supposed to be getting "up to 1 Gbps" on their new fiber connection only to top out at 100 Mbps when doing a speed test in the middle of the night and much less when doing a speed test during normal hours?

What's worse and what's more misleading - Charter giving me 18 Mbps from my 30 Mbps connection or getting 100 Mbps or less on a supposed Gigabit connection? There's a pressure on many of these fiber builds to attach the name Gigabit to their build and at the same time set customer expectations that the engineers know are not realistic. I don't agree with the practice and it is becoming way too common.

Data Caps vs Speed Limits

"Should broadband data hogs pay more? ISP economics say 'no"."

I'm of the opinion that a broadband provider should either limit a subscriber by a data cap or a bandwidth speed but not both. If you are utilizing a service based upon time usage such as a cell or satellite based network then data caps can make sense. If you are using a wired network then fixed "up to" speeds make sense.

Most wired ISP costs are fixed. The ISP has to pay for those costs whether the network is being used or not. The price the subscriber pays for trying to use the network at busy times of the day is congestion. If your supposed 50 Mbps Internet only gets 10 Mbps when the kids get out of school or at night when everyone is downloading their Netflix choices for the evening - you don't expect a rebate from your provider do you? Likewise it would be equally unfair for providers to charge subscribers for exceeding "data caps" when no "data cap" actually exists.

The wired ISP speed is limited by their backhaul Internet connection. If that connection is say 10 Gbps then that's the theoretical  "data cap" for the ISP. If I'm paying for an "up to" 50 Mbps connection then the ISP is imposing a "speed limit" on my connection. If I want a higher speed - then I can pay a higher cost to get a faster tiered service. For the service provider to try and charge additional for exceeding randomly selected "data caps" is just plain gouging.

The problem is for many subscribers there is no choice. The first one with a wire to your house (fiber or coaxial) will probably be the only one with a wire to your house.

Stat of the Day

According to Cisco, by 2017 video will account for 69% of all consumer Internet traffic.

Verizon Strike Over

The Verizon strike by about 40,000 works is reportedly over. This is good news for both sides.

It is easy to forget but those 40,000 workers are individuals with bills to pay or with families to provide for. A strike of over 6 weeks was starting to cause real financial strain and harm. Imagine being the head of a household and having to pray that your wife or kids did not get hurt because Verizon cancelled your healthcare 4 weeks ago!

For Verizon - any additional contract gains would have come at the cost of some potentially purely horrible public relations risks.

Good news.

Speed Tests

Interesting. Netflix has a new speed test Fast.com (which consistently pegs my Charter broadband at 16 Mbps).

Compare to SpeedTest.net (which also tested my Charter connection fairly close to 15 Mbps).

Others have found wildly varying results comparing the two testing sites.

How do your results compare?

Comcast Cares

Comcast cares! Heh heh - good one Comcast!

As reported - Comcast's customer service is widely loathed; their executives are always promising to fix the problem but at least they've taken the first step of acknowledging that they have a problem.

Verizon's Fiber is the Only Fix Program

The Motley Fool looks into why Verizon is refusing to fix problems for some customers.

While the "Fiber is the Only Fix" program is fine for customers who live in areas that have fiber - what about all the rural customers whose only choice is decades old copper lines? Many of the customers who live in these areas have come to expect poor service on their old copper lines any time it rains. Many real estate agents trying to sell homes in these areas beg the sellers not to disconnect their existing DSL service because if they do then in many cases Verizon will not offer DSL to the new homeowner. These are real and major issues for people living in these areas.

Fiber truly is the only fix for those people living in such broadband deserts but not in the way that Verizon imagined.

Verizon and NG-PON2

Interesting development by Verizon.

If Verizon chooses NG-PON2 as their standard of choice then that could spell real problems for real-world adoption of XGS-PON.

Do You See a trend?

Cord Cutting more than doubled in 2015. Here's the year by year tally on reported video subscribers cutting the cord:

2015 - 385,000 subscribers
2014 - 150,000 subscribers
2013 - 100,000 subscribers

Do you see a trend?

Cable Bills Explained

The Consumerist has done a very good job breaking down various cable bills from the major providers. Here's their latest - breaking down the Charter cable bill.

Earlier they also broke down the bills from the other major cable companies;

- Comcast

- Time Warner

- DirecTV

RS Fiber - Calix Success Story

Interesting example of a Public/Private FTTH Partnership in Minnesota.

The Internet rates are very competitive.

Speeds and Feeds

Researchers achieve fastest ever data transfer at a speed of 1.125 Tbps. Wow!

Couple of things - the article shows fiber even though the data ran directly from the transmitter to the receiver. Fiber will be added in between at a later date. For an example of how fast 1.125 Tbps is the article stated that speed would allow the transfer of the entire HD collection of Game of Thrones in one second. Another real world example of how this speed may come in handy - consider that the fans in the stands at the recent Super Bowl in San Francisco used 91 Terabytes of data on their mobile devices just taking pictures and videos of the spectacle. Data transfer speeds of this magnitude are going to be needed in the near future.

Can Broadband Really Save a Home $10,000 a Year?

Interesting position that having access to high speed broadband can save an average household more than $10,000 a year.

It was based on the household paying $120 / month for broadband and did not take into account the increase in the value of the home that having broadband creates.

Interesting.