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.