They also don't talk about who's paying for this magical fiber they keep
spouting off about. The cost to install fiber in the ground or on a pole
far exceeds that mythical $10 rate. Maybe it's that cheap to a HUGE MTU
but
it won't be to most homes and businesses, at least not around this
country.
Just as a disclosure, I do a LOT of work with fiber network platforms, so
I'm a little biased :)
Still, fiber, for most markets, is the long term solution. Do people lose
lots of money on it? Sure...people lose lots of money on whatever they
screw up, whether it is fiber, wireless, stock trading, lemonade stands,
health care, real estate, whatever. If we're being honest about
profitability, a lot more people are making real money doing fiber than
are making real money with wireless Internet access (by real money, I mean
more than marginal returns, but profit margins that attract big investments
over a long-term basis), and by wireless Internet access I mean broad
installations of generic residential access (since the $40/month price point
was quoted). Wireless can be quite profitable in a lot of niche markets and
rural markets, but residential wireless does not do terribly well in
metropolitan areas
Anyone who is selling fiber (or really any connection) for $10/month as an
average ARPU is an idiot and will go broke. Tech support ($1-$2 a customer,
at best) + billing ($1.25 is the established standard for cost of billing)
will eat at least a quarter of that in costs alone, not even counting, well,
the actual infrastructure--which is expensive and requires expensive people
to do on any sort of scale that gets that cost down that low. $15 dollar
DSL, service, btw, is a loss-leader and is only profitable when one
considers the other revenue involved...(ie phone service, etc...)
For that matter, if the bread and butter of the county over is $40/month
Internet access on fiber, it's a miracle that they are only losing $6
million/year. Idiots.
Why is fiber so hyped? Because the average ARPU for a FTTH customer is
about $150/month, by the time you throw in Internet, voice, and data, and,
in the right market, can be much higher.
That translates into $18,000 over a ten year period, contrasted with ~$5,000
for wireless customer over the same period. That's $13,000 more on a ten
year basis, which makes the extra couple of grand up-front costs a little
more bearable :) Given much more frequent equipment upgrades and so forth
that is usually necessary with wireless, and fiber can be (if done right)
very attractive
Now, that does depend on a certain population density and scale...so, for
people in the rural and ultra rural market, wireless is the solution. For
metro markets, I don't think that wireless (as a residential offering) is
going to ever have broad market, but is very good in a lot of niche
markets (One Ring in Atlanta is a good example; correct me if I'm wrong,
Matt, but you pretty much target multi-tenant customers and use wireless
primarily as a backhaul as your business model?). Still, I do know of some
fairly rural fiber guys out there who make some pretty good money, so it is
doable.
-Clint Ricker
Kentnis Technologies
Every notice also, how they tend to whine about how there is no competition,
then brag about how we need one infrastructure in order to really do
broadband right?
They just don't get it. They are only following the pack mentality that's
lead to this broadband deficit myth.
We have $40 100 meg to the home fiber in the next county over. It's a
joke.
The PUBLIC has spent over $130 million and last I knew the program is
still
loosing $6 million per year! But here I am, selling $40 internet on that
network. All the while the propagandists are bragging about what a great
deal that's been for local economic development. Never a word about $.015
(not a typo)/kwh electric rates. Cheap power has always been why
businesses
moved to Grant Co. Think about this for a second. If you needed fiber
for
your data center, why in the world would you put it anywhere but Seattle
or
Portland? Cheap land and cheap power that's why. They spent a gazillion
dollars on those data centers, dragging fiber the few miles from I-90 to
Quincy would be the least of their worries.
Somedays my head just hurts.
Marlon
(509) 982-2181
(408) 907-6910 (Vonage)Consulting services
42846865 (icq)WISP Operator since
1999!
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
www.odessaoffice.com/wireless
www.odessaoffice.com/marlon/cam
- Original Message -
From: John Oram [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: Marlon Schafer [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Sunday, August 05, 2007 9:09 AM
Subject: How FCC screwed USA boradband
http://www.networkworld.com/columnists/2007/073007bradner.html
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_20070803_002641.html
