Some Thoughts on Google's Fiber To The Home (FTTH) Experiment

Last week, Google announced plans to test ultra-high speed broadband networks in one or more trial locations across the country. The company is saying these test networks will deliver Internet speeds more than 100 times faster than what most Americans have access to today, over 1 gigabit per second, fiber-to-the-home connections to at least 50,000 and potentially up to 500,000 people.

The company wants to experiment with new ways to help make Internet access better and faster for everyone. Here are some specific things that they have in mind:

• Next generation apps: Google wants to see what developers and users can do with ultra high-speeds, whether it's creating new bandwidth-intensive "killer apps" and services, or other uses we can't yet imagine.
• New deployment techniques: They will test new ways to build fiber networks, and to help inform and support deployments elsewhere, will share key lessons learned with the world.
• Openness and choice: Google will operate an "open access" network, giving users the choice of multiple service providers.

I like it, I like it a lot. Not because I think Google will single-handedly solve the broadband access and availability problems in our country but, because Google is trying to do things a little differently. High-bandwidth delivery efforts in the United States to this point have worked in some areas but not in others.

A few weeks ago I wrote as far as broadband goes - things have not got much better since 2007 in most of the rural communities in our country - in many places I would argue access today is worse than it was in September 2007. Things have been pretty dismal in many parts of our country. Now maybe we've got a glimmer - just a glimmer - of excitement and (dare I use the word) hope.

From now until March 26th, Google is asking interested municipalities to provide information about their communities through a Request for information (RFI), which the company will use to determine where to build their network. You can get more information on Google's experimental fiber network plans on the Official Google Blog.

Someone is going to figure out how to do this and so far I'm really liking Google's "experiment".

A Summary Of The Verizon - Frontier Deal

Yesterday, Verizon and Frontier Communications announced an agreement that would sell off a large chunk of Verizon's rural markets. Here's a quick summary taken from DSL Reports pieces on the deal:

• Frontier will give Verizon $5.3 billion in Frontier stock and take on an additional $3.3 billion in debt.
• Frontier will get Verizon landline networks in Arizona, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, South Carolina, Washington, West Virginia. Wisconsin and some rural areas of California.
• Frontier will grow to more than 7 million access lines in 27 states and will be the largest provider of voice, broadband and video services focused on rural to smaller city markets in the United States.
• Frontier will be picking up some FiOS - 41 local franchises and the state of Indiana will be transferred from Verizon.
• Approximately 11,000 Verizon employees will end up working for Frontier.
• Verizon Wireless and Verizon Business services in the listed states will not be transferred to Frontier.
• With this deal Verizon may eventually reach 80% FiOS coverage on their remaining footprint.
• It is doubtful Fiber to the Home (FTTH) services will be expanded in any of the transferred regions (by Frontier) in the near future.

According to DSL Reports, Frontier has struggled of late to deliver even 3Mbps worth of connectivity to many of its rural users according to posts in their forums, but Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg issued a statement saying Frontier would apply their "laser focus" on the needs of rural customers to ensure a smooth transition and quality service.

The deal is expected to take about a year to complete.

Fiber Deployment Status in the U.S.

The FTTH Council has released an interesting report detailing broadband and fiber to the home deployment in the U.S. Here's some key information points from the report:

Current Status of U.S. Internet Use:

22% No Internet
17% Dial-up Only
61% Broadband (based on the 200 Kbps FCC broadband definition)

Fiber to the Home is being used for services such as television, Internet, telephone, security, and meter reading. Here's March 2008 U.S. data from the report:

11,763,000 FTTH Homes Passed
10,082,065 FTTH Homes Marketed
2,912,500 Homes Connected

Even though coverage is expanding, it is not evenly distributed:

In the U.S. in areas covered by Verizon or Tier 3 ILECS (representing about 1/3 of homes) 5.8% of homes are directly connected with fiber.
In the U.S. in areas covered by AT&T, Qwest or Tier 2 ILECS (representing about 2/3 of homes) 0.6% of homes are directly connected with fiber.
In North America Outside of the U.S., only 0.1% of homes are connected with fiber.

Regarding television (March 2008 data):

8,061,620 homes have been offered television over fiber 1,641,000 homes are currently subscribed to television over fiber

Higher speed data service have yet to be offered widely by providers (March 2008 data):

Only 17,021 homes offered 100Mbps Internet

The FTTH Council has been a strong advocate for 100 Mbps services, urging legislators and regulators to adopt a “100 Megabit Nation” policy and reduce barriers to next-generation broadband deployment.

The overall customer take rates are increasing in areas where FTTH services are being offered and providers are offering a variety of delivery technologies.

The biggest concern of some, including myself, is uneven distribution and the potential creation of a "broadband divide" with broadband "haves" and "have nots" in the U.S.

There is an excellent 32 page presentation from the FTTH Council titled North American FTTH/FTTP Deployment Status in PDF format linked here.

U.S. Fiber to the Home (FTTH) Ranking = Eighth in World

Last week, the FTTH Council North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific released a world rankings document titled Fiber to the Home Deployment Spreads Globally As More Economies Show Market Growth.
The report lists 14 economies in the world that currently have more than 1 percent of households directly into fiber networks. According to the release:

The global ranking follows the unified definition of FTTH terms announced by the three councils last year, and which has formed the basis for recent market research by each council. For completeness and accuracy the ranking includes both FTTH and FTTB (fiber-to-the-building) figures, while copper-based broadband access technologies (DSL, FTT-Curb, FTT-Node) are not included.

The United States has doubled it's penetration rate to 2.3 percent over the past year, moving us up three places to eighth position. This doubling is no doubt based on the Verizon FiOS rollout in this country. [Click diagram to right for larger view]

Joe Savage, President of the FTTH Council North America, is quoted as follows:

“We’re delighted to see the U.S. moving up the global ranking, indicating a good beginning is underway. FTTH leadership, demonstrated by those leading countries, shows full national deployment is achievable. The future belongs to those countries that satisfy the broadband consumer’s need for speed. Our members – the FTTH equipment vendors and the service providers – are ready to help make it happen on a wide scale across North America.”

Here's a quote from Schoichi Hanatani, President of the FTTH Council Asia-Pacific:

"It is no accident that Asia-Pac continues to be the fastest growing region for FTTH in the world, with more subscribers connected on fiber than all other regions combined. The rollout of FTTH has been encouraged by forward-looking governments and regulators in the Asia-Pac region for several years now. They understand that FTTH is a key strategic national infrastructure."

Read the full release and get more information on the FTTH Council web site at www.ftthcouncil.org

Verizon FiOS Progress Update

Following my post a couple days ago on AT&T's Project Lightspeed progress update, let's take a look at what Verizon is doing with FiOS. FiOS is Verizon's Fiber to the Home (FTTH), also know as Fiber to the Premise (FTTP) product offerring. The service provides high-bandwdtih data, voice and video services. The company has posted some interesting data on their policy blog for the third quarter of 2007. Here's a summary:

Fiber Implementation: http://www.verizon.com/fiberoptics

FiOS is currently available in parts of 16 states: California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, Virginia and Washington.

At the end of September 2007, Verizon had passed about 8.5 million homes and businesses – installing more than 457 million feet of fiber in parts of 16 states.

Verizon expects to continue passing some 3 million premises annually through 2010,

when the company expects to have passed about 18 million homes, or over half the homes

it serves.

Verizon will begin boosting speeds and capabilities on its all-fiber network when it begins

deploying advanced G-PON electronics in 2007. This technology can increase

downstream broadband speeds by up to four times, and upstream speeds by eight times.

Verizon is investing nearly $23 billion in the FiOS project, between 2004 and 2010.

Broadband Products: http://www22.verizon.com/Content/ConsumerFiOS/

At the end of September 2007, Verizon was marketing its industry-leading, high-speed FiOS Internet service – with downstream speeds of up to 50 Mbps and upstream speeds of up to 20 Mbps – in over 2,000 communities in all 16 states where the company is building its fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) network.

As of September 30, 2007, Verizon has more than 1.3 million FiOS Internet customers, an

increase of 202,000 during the third quarter of 2007 – or about 3,600 new FiOS Internet

customers every business day.

Verizon expects to attract up to 7 million FiOS Internet customers by year-end 2010 – a

penetration rate of 35 percent to 40 percent.

Video: http://www.verizonfios.com/tv

At the end of September 2007, Verizon’s all-digital FiOS TV service was available to over

4.7 million premises in 12 of the states where the company is building FTTP: California,

Delaware, Florida, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas and Virginia.

As of September 30, 2007, Verizon has over 717,000 FiOS TV customers. During just the

third quarter of 2007, Verizon added a net of 202,000 new FiOS TV customers -- or about

3,200 new customers every business day.

Verizon's FiOS TV delivers hundreds of digital video and music channels, high-definition

programming, video-on-demand content, a robust interactive media guide and other

customer-friendly features.

Verizon expects to attract from 3 million to 4 million FiOS TV customers by 2010, which

would be a market penetration of 20 percent to 25 percent.

As of September 2007, Verizon had 862 local video franchises covering about 11.2 million households.

****
Read Show Notes and listen to Mike Q and my latest Podcast titled The Next Generation Cable Network: DOCSIS 3.0 linked here.
Listen directly in your web browser by clicking here.
Podcasts also free on iTunes.
****

Goodbye Copper?

There’s been some recent press about Verizon and their FIOS product installation. FIOS is a fiber optic network service that delivers voice, video and data services. You may also see it referred to as a Fiber to the Premises (FTTP) or Fiber to the Home (FTTH) service that Verizon is selling and installing in select markets in 16 different states.

Most who have the service installed are extremely happy with the bandwidth and cost when compared to lower bandwidth DSL and Cable Modem services. The product has become so popular that it is even being used as a selling point by real estate agents when marketing homes.

A few are complaining though. It appears Verizon, when installing the FIOS service, is cutting out the existing copper lines leaving the customer with only one option – fiber and FIOS. There are a couple of good reasons from a business perspective for Verizon to do this. The first is the existing copper wiring is old and requires a significant amount of maintenance – Verizon spends hundreds of millions of dollars a year just maintaining the existing “copper plant” and it makes sense to remove it when it is replaced. The second reason is the Telecommunications Act of 1996 which requires the telephone companies (like Verizon) share their existing copper lines with competitors. There is no current legal requirement for Verizon to share new fiber optic lines with anyone.

In fairness to Verizon, there is a three step notification process for people who sign up for the FIOS service. According to the International Herald Tribune, customers are told by the Verizon sales person, it is indicated in the sales contract and the customer is told by the technician that the copper will be cut out. Currently, Verizon is publicly stating they will replace removed copper if a FIOS customer wished to revert back to copper service.

Also according to the International Herald Tribune, Verizon has filed more than 100 notices with the Federal Communications Commission to retire portions of copper throughout its network.

I can understand the customer concerns about lack of choice and some technical issues like battery back-up and also Verizon’s concerns about having to maintain two separate networks.