In the island of Santorini (what a view!) the water and sewage utility company has installed and operates a distributed management system to monitor and control water resources which are scarce and scattered throughout the island. The project dates back a couple of years however, it is a good reference for the use of broadband to handling natural resources.

The video turns a bit technical at some point but, it is very easy to follow. The narration is in Greek, yet English subtitles are embedded. If the embedded video does not work, visit youtube.

NetIndex of Ookla reported yesterday the household download index as it is calculated from SPEEDTEST.NET measurements.

What clearly stands out is the trend of speed increase the last 6 months (for whom the study reports).
There are a few things not truly I was surprised to see in the reported data, probably the biggest surprise came from Singapore having an average of 5.54Mbps download speed. A thorough look into the source data could reveal more. Luckily, the good guys at Ookla let you in, in case you feel like digging a little further.

A hilarious ad by HKBN about the Next-Generation Internet. It features Graham Bell speaking Cantonese!

The FTTH Council released a new video on FTTH uses and applications that simply rocks! Clink this link or watch it below in case you are still wondering what applications may justify an FTTH rollout!

A few weeks ago, Info, the journal of policy, regulation and strategy for telecommunications, information and media of Emerald Press published my article “A business model for municipal FTTH/B networks: the case of rural Greece” co-authored with colleague Vasilis Merekoulias and prof. Vasilis Maglaris.

The article proposes a business model for municipalities for the establishment and management of regional FTTH/B networks in rural areas where competition is unlikely to take any initiative soon. Here’s a short abstract:

Purpose – In recent years, many municipalities have made investments in fiber to the home/building (FTTH/B) infrastructures to enhance the digital future of their local communities. This paper aims to propose a business model for managing these municipal FTTH/B networks. The paper also seeks to form a part of the discussion on the business, social and policy implications of municipal involvement in physical broadband infrastructures.

Design/methodology/approach – The paper reviews the international experience in municipal FTTH projects and identifies the best practices. Greece is then used as a case study due to the country’s strategic plans to create efficient broadband infrastructures in the periphery of the country. Finally, the municipal business model is examined on three premises: the extent of horizontal integration; the degree of vertical integration; and the appropriate form of ownership.

Findings – The passive infrastructure model applied within the model presented has strong potentials to ensure fair and open competition. The proposed business model exhibits substantial benefits for the telecommunications industry, the local communities and the managing company. It could become an effective policy tool for future regulation, broadband universal service framework, socially optimal investments and social inclusion.

Originality/value – The paper contributes to the international debates regarding the adoption of the “highway” model (“open access”) versus “vertical integration” and the suitability of public-private partnership (PPP) as a method for developing and operating FTTH/B networks. It also contributes to the discussion about the implications of the public sector’s involvement in broadband infrastructure development.

You can access the article here.

I can’t write too much recently, work has been over my head, however, I still keep track of FTTH developments and I like spotting new blogs on FTTH. Once they were few, now they are so many; it seems.

So, if you speak French, feel free to check out on Fibre Optique France. They post often and talk about fiber in France.

In the following video from a recent TED conference, Margaret Stewart, YouTube’s head of user experience, talks about how the ubiquitous video site works with copyright holders and creators to foster (at the best of times) a creative ecosystem where everybody wins.

The speaker talks about a case with Sony Corporation where managing copyrights in a not so traditional way (i.e. foreclosing access and any permissions of reproduction) gave additional revenue streams to the company when least expected.

It is interesting and clearly makes you think out of the box.

A few days ago the competent authority for audiovisual content in Greece enforced the stoppage of operation (and effectively shut down the broadcasting equipment) of SBCTV. SBC is a niche broadcasting TV station focusing on economic and business news.

Well, as it seems, this didn’t bother much the channel’s executives. SBC broadcasts timely via their website, not only within Greece, but to the entire world. And they broadcast their standard TV format. When fiber broadband will eventually arrive, I wonder who will need a TV license then?

Check them below:

]]> http://www.broadbandprime.com/2010/06/who-needs-a-tv-license-after-all.html/feed 1 http://www.broadbandprime.com/2010/06/who-needs-a-tv-license-after-all.html http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/BroadbandPrime/~3/R9qcPJGP3LA/ftth-cost-of-deployment-case-sein-et-marne.html http://www.broadbandprime.com/2010/06/ftth-cost-of-deployment-case-sein-et-marne.html#comments Fri, 18 Jun 2010 11:10:50 +0000 Costas Troulos http://www.broadbandprime.com/?p=1582

Seine-et-Marne, outside Paris (in the area of Roissy) have finished deploying the first phase of its ambitious FTTH rollout (under the name sem@for77) last year.

Seine-et-Marne aim at 750M euros investment to serve in full the entire area with FTTH access (570k end subscribers) and have signed a 20 years contract with Covage for managing the network.

The reason why I bring that up now is that they recently released a few interesting statistics projections regarding the costs of deployment:

A. here’s the top 5% and the least 5% connections accumulated costs:

• 10 M€ for the 27.000 (5%) less expensive access points
• 100 M€ for the 27.000 prises (5%) more expensive access points

B. here’s how the FTTH connections are categorized based on deployment costs (with an average cost per connection at 1.300 euros):

• 250 à 700 €: 23%
• 701 à 1.000 €: 20%
• 1.001 à 1.500 €: 25%
• 1.501 € à 3.000 €: 26%
• > 3.000 €: 5%

Well, it looks pretty damn cheap!

A while ago KPN got a stake in Reggefiber and the municipal network of Amsterdam as well numerous other municipal and/or city networks of Reggefiber.

A few days before we farewelled 2009 and welcomed spreads, austerity measures, IMF and the likes, DongEnergy, the largest power distribution grid in Denmark sold 60% of its FTTH assets to the Danish incumbent TDC.

There’s probably more in it with incumbents getting increasingly interested in under performing (?), under stress (?) FTTH infrastructures. It’s not far fetched and I believe that we are in to an increasing trend of similar acquisitions of NGA networks by incumbents in the coming years. And possibly, the largest alternative operators will follow, maybe a little too late to make a significant difference.

I see (at least) two reasons for this:

First, it’s hard to run an FTTH network, point one. Despite the fact that Kai sees OPEX a minor issue in FTTH networks, the success is not only linked to low costs, it is also about marketing effectiveness and getting the customers on board.

The second reason relates with the growing maturity of the market. When conditions are improving why build an FTTH network from scratch when there are some available for sale. You may not buy a second-hand car, but how about a light-used FTTH access network?!

This is something I am working on these weeks, so stay tune as I plan to write more about it in the future.