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Brazil’s fixed-line teledensity is slightly higher than average for Latin America. The country has an extensive microwave radio relay system and a domestic satellite system with 64 earth stations. In fact, satellite communications have retained a major role in Brazil. The Amazon jungles of the north make satellites the major communication facility, as it is almost impossible to lay fibre optic cable in the thick vegetation. Star One was the first operator to provide satellite services in Brazil, and remains the market leader. It operates four satellites, of which two, Star One C1 and C2, were launched in 2007 and 2008 respectively. The number of VoIP subscribers in Brazil more than doubled in 2008; VoIP services are provided by a large number of companies led by Net Serviços de Comunicação and GVT.

The new BuddeComm report Latin American Telecommunications Infrastructure covers telecommunications infrastructure developments in Latin America and the Caribbean. The countries covered in this report include: Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Suriname, Uruguay, Venezuela, and the small Caribbean island nations. For more info see: Latin American Telecommunications Infrastructure

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Telefonica’s Movistar, America Movil’s Claro, and Telecom Argentina’s Telecom Personal run a close competition for market share. Previously, there were four mobile companies competing nationwide, but in 2005, Telefonica acquired Bellsouth’s operation, and the merged company was re-launched under the trading name Movistar. One of the merger conditions imposed by the government required Movistar to relinquish 42.5MHz of its spectrum. The government is expected to launch an auction in 2009 to award the returned spectrum to existing or new mobile operators. Nextel Argentina has a licence for trunking rather than mobile telephony, but the service it offers is similar to that of a standard mobile operator. Two associations of telecom cooperatives, Fecotel and Fecosur, have mobile licences but need spectrum to operate.

The countries covered in the new BuddeComm report Latin America Mobile Operators include: Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Suriname, Uruguay, Venezuela, and the small Caribbean island nations. For more information see: Latin American Mobile Operators

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An innovator in the mobile sector, Sweden was the first country in Europe to have UMTS networks across all major operators. Slower subscriber growth in recent years, due to market saturation, has been enervated by greater consumer take-up for mobile data services, made possible by significant investments in HSPDA networks. The analogue network was shut down in mid-2007, while the 450MHz frequency has been switched to digital use to provide a national mobile broadband service. Strong competition among network operators has led to falling call prices and ARPU, not yet compensated for by data use. The digital 450MHz network operated by Nordisk Mobiltelefon provides almost nationwide coverage.

The BuddeComm European mobile voice market report covers developments in the region’s mobile communications market and looks ahead to regulatory, economic and technological developments which will affect the market as well as operator and consumer behaviour in coming years.

For more information see:2008 European – Mobile Voice Market

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I believe we can look forward to years of high growth in the Latin American telecom market, particularly in Brazil, the South Cone countries, Peru, and a few smaller nations. Broadband still has a way to grow in order to match the national economic indicators in most Latin American countries, and in fact, this market has hardly faltered in 2008-09 despite the economic crisis.

While there has been a general consolidation tendency throughout the region, with America Movil/Telmex and Telefonica controlling the lion’s portion of the telecom market, most countries welcome competition from smaller players; therefore, there should be openings for start-up companies, especially in Brazil, which is preparing to overhaul its telecom regulations.

Although it was hit hard by the global financial crunch in 2008, since last May the Brazilian economy has been showing clear signs of recovery. The real has rallied against the dollar, business confidence is returning, and unemployment is beginning to ease. In May, Brazil posted a current account surplus for the first time in 19 months, following growing demand for the country’s commodities and rising foreign investment. In fact, the country is showing a remarkable resilience, due in part to sound governmental policies and in part to emerging market dynamics.

As a relative cash cow with low exposure to economic cycles, Brazil’s telecom market has continued to grow despite the downturn, although growth has slowed in the mobile market. The broadband market, on the other hand, has hardly faltered. The demand for broadband in Brazil is such that growth is unlikely to slow unless the economic situation deteriorates substantially, which seems unlikely at this stage. Thanks to government initiatives aimed at increasing the country’s poor fixed-line infrastructure, the growth of fixed lines in service has actually accelerated in 2008-2009.

Lucia Bibolini, BuddeComm – Senior Research Analyst

See also:

• Latin America – Telecoms, Mobile, & Broadband Overview & Analysis 2009
• Brazil – Telecom Market Trends, Key Statistics & Regulatory Overview
• Brazil – Fixed-Line Infrastructure – Overview, Statistics & Market Forecasts
• Brazil – Internet and Broadband Market – Overview, Statistics & Forecasts
• Brazil – Mobile Market – Overview, Statistics & Forecasts

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Mobile broadband services are finally beginning to grow as they become more accessible by the mobile phone. Competition and a saturated mobile voice market also means the operators are forced to offer very competitive capped data packages. Such affordability and certainty (no bill shock) is the key reason for growth. This development is complimented/supported by new technologies like HSPA which are bringing more efficiency to the network and allowing the operators to offer these products. Still, mass market penetration will be difficult because of a general lack of spectrum available to push all this traffic through (prices therefore will remain relatively high).

The economic downturn may also affect growth rates in the short-term, especially for more luxury-based services; however, mobile broadband services and content will continue to grow in the long term. While on-deck mobile data usage remains strong, off-deck usage to both mobile-specific Internet sites and regular sites is growing rapidly.

Mobile music services, including ringtones, continue to be the most popular mobile service beyond SMS and accessing emails while on the move. While ringtones have been popular for some time, consumers are also beginning to use mobile for downloading fulltracks and streaming music. As the business models evolve and handsets continue to improve, this market is expected to continue its growth.

Mobile social networking is also a key area of interest at the moment with millions of mobile users around the world now using such services. However, it will not be until proper 4G networks are in place that we will really see the possibilities of mobile social networking emerge as it becomes combined with other applications such as location-based services, mapping and presence. There are many start-ups vying for a space in the sector and industry leaders in fixed social networking services, such as MySpace and Facebook, have also turned their eye towards mobile social media.

Despite low consumer uptake of mobile TV and video services, the industry is hoping new developments will continue to facilitate growth. In particular it is hoped that the increasing use of mobile Internet will result in more mobile Internet video viewing. It is also envisioned that advertising spend will provide more subsidies for streaming mobile and the rollout of mobile digital TV will promote usage. In 2009 in the US, a coalition of broadcasters will launch a new service that will provide digital television direct to mobile devices using existing spectrum.

There are now over 400 million 3G subscribers worldwide and while 3G has facilitated growth for the mobile broadband sector, it is still really not suitable for mass market mobile broadband usage. We still need Next Generation Mobile Networks based on 4G for this. Over the last couple of years WiMAX and LTE emerged as the most likely candidates for such networks. In 2009 LTE is gaining even stronger support from many of the large of operators around the world. Some are developing long-term plans to evolve towards LTE and some are conducting trials. WiMAX is beginning to be seen more and more as a niche technology suitable for only some markets.

The new BuddeComm Global Mobile Broadband – Statistics and Trends report provides a valuable insight into the developments taking place in the mobile broadband/mobile data sector. It includes information on both mobile broadband services and content and also mobile broadband infrastructure. The report comprises a global overview of the progress of key mobile data services including mobile music, mobile social networking, mobile adult content services, mobile email/Internet, mobile messaging and mobile gambling and gaming. Statistics and information on mobile advertising, mobile commerce and m-payments are also incorporated. The report explores the issues surrounding mobile TV/mobile video and also covers developments and statistics for telemetry including RFID, LBS and GPS. Mobile broadband infrastructure developments are also included along with regional information for North America, Latin America, Europe, Middle East and Asia Pacific.

Key highlights:

• The next upgrade of technology to LTE is essential to really see the mobile broadband market developing into a mass market (2012-2015).
• Mobile data (including SMS) accounts for around 20% of total mobile revenues worldwide.
• Handsets are becoming more mature and easier to use for data and content, although they still have a long way to go. Trends from the US suggest that the 3G iPhone and other high end handsets may assist the rise in mobile data usage.
• As the uptake of mobile phones with GPS capabilities continues to grow, the possibilities for developing popular LBS also increases.
• There is evidence that smartphones are becoming popular for downloading and playing mobile games as they offer a better platform for such services. Mobile gaming is expected to continue to grow as it is both cheap and entertaining.

For more information see: Global – Key Telecoms, Mobile and Broadband Statistics

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The Australian Government’s health reform plan, launched in July 2009, is clearly aiming at technology to be used to address some of the long-standing problems in healthcare. The Government has indicated that if it doesn’t act now Australia will see a meltdown of its healthcare in the foreseeable future.

The government has not yet made firm commitments to any of the recommendations of the National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission but is starting a consultation program lasting six months; this would be opportune moment for the telecoms industry to become involved in this debate.

A huge investment in an e-health system over the next few years is a major recommendation of the commission, which called for a major shake-up of the nation’s health system, with the Commonwealth taking over the funding of most the state-based services.

The government has also flagged the National Broadband Network as one of the spearheads to be used in this overhaul.

The report suggests that by 2012 every Australian should have a personal electronic health record under a sweeping plan for an Australia-wide e-health program linked to the National Broadband Network.

It stresses that the e-health record would at all times be owned and controlled by the individual involved. The plan could see the introducing of a personal card that would carry information such as a patient’s vaccinations, medication, test results and past procedures.

The electronic record system has been discussed for over a decade and at previous occasions it has been indicated that it could save $30 billion over a ten year period and that it could lead to a drop in death of around 1300 people per annum.

Under the latest announcement it is expected that by July 1 2010 the government should introduce unique personal identifiers for individuals and for health professionals and organizations.

It also recommends a “national social marketing strategy” to inform consumers and health professionals about the benefits and safeguards of the e-health approach.

Payment of all public and private health benefits would depend on using data that could be incorporated into a personal e-health record; and GPs, specialists, pharmacists and other health and aged care providers must be able to transmit key data electronically by January 1 2013.

The Government should set an open technical standards framework for e-health by 2011-12, and should make “significant” funding available for e-health teaching and training, and encourage increased enrolments in health informatics tertiary courses.

The commission says ensuring access to the National Broadband Network (or alternative technology, such as satellite) for all Australians will be critical to the uptake of personally-controlled electronic health records as well as to realise potential access to electronic health information and medical advice.

See also:

• Australia – Digital Media – E-Health
• Australia – National Broadband Network – Overview & Analysis
• Australia – National Broadband Network – Critical Considerations

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The 3G business plan proposed by TOT in Thailand looks set to be endorsed by the State Enterprise Policy Office (SEPO) and submitted to the Finance Ministry for approval. The SEPO has announced that it had been studying TOT’s revised plan for 3G mobile services and that it appeared satisfactory. TOT had hired ABN Amro to improve the plan after the SEPO returned an earlier plan and asked for more details and a clearer direction. The SEPO has recommended (1) that the Finance Ministry not guarantee loans that TOT will be arranging to finance the project and (2) that the funds should be raised locally. TOT has said that a complete 3G network offering high-speed data and multimedia services will cost at least 20 billion Thai baht. Local media reports note that the state owned enterprise has been looking for new revenue sources in order to wean itself off a heavy dependence on revenue-sharing concession payments from private operators. TOT’s original 3G business plan was prepared by C&C International Ventures. It called for 5,220 base stations and forecast an internal rate of return at around 20%, with revenues increasing to 10 billion baht a year, and breaking even in 7.5 years. But TOT was forced to prepare a new plan after the Thai cabinet rejected the original one and ABN Amro was hired to manage this.

Also see:

• Thailand – Key Statistics, Telecommunications Market and Regulatory Overview
• Thailand – Mobile Communications – Market Overview
• Thailand – Mobile Communications – Major Operators

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China Telecom’s unit, Shanghai Telecom is to spend US$878 million on the rollout of FttH within three years. The service is set to pass 750,000 homes by the end of 2009, allowing access to fibre optic lines with speeds of up to 100Mb/s, compared to current speeds of only 1-2Mb/s. In 2010 about 1.5 million homes will have access to fibre optic lines over 3 million in 2011. Presently, 3.6 million families are broadband users in Shanghai. Shanghai Telecom will be capable of providing 1Gb/s bandwidth to buildings in 2012 and 4Tb/s connection to undersea cables by 2010.

The so called MONET plan, which involves Alcatel-Lucent Shanghai Bell, Huawei Technologies and ZTE Corp, is to attract total investment of about US$3.7-4 billion from related industries such as chip and network equipment sectors.

In addition, Shanghai Telecom plans to invest US$3.8 billion in Shanghai within the next two years and will improve broadband networks to the city’s industrial zones. Shanghai Telecom is to sign agreements with industry zones to upgrade their networks, provide digitised management systems, monitoring and security systems and expanded internet lines. Shanghai Telecom signed a deal in June 2009 to build a digitised industrial zone for Zhangjiang High-tech Park which included a two year strategic cooperation agreement signed by China Telecom and the Shanghai municipal government. Industrial parks contribute to over half of Shanghai’s GDP.

Telecommunications companies have a strong need for FttH despite the depressed economic environment. This is particularly true in markets where deployments are driven by the maturity of the broadband markets and a proliferation of IPTV and interactive applications. Also, with mobile operators now offering broadband speeds and process equivalent to entry-level DSL subscriptions, operators can’t afford to wait. After losing the voice game to mobile players in the early 2000s, fixed-line operators cannot allow the same to happen with the broadband business which kept them afloat when voice revenue declined.

Demand for high-speed Internet and telecom access, particularly from businesses, has led to a rise in the use of FttX by telecom operators to connect their users to optical fibre networks. China Unicom and China Telecom initially chose EPON (Ethernet PON) technology as it is cheaper. However, as it is developing, GPON is becoming more competitive, both in terms of cost and technology, and all three major Chinese operators are trialling GPON (Gigabit passive optical network) technology. GPON can also support both fixed-line and mobile services, which EPON cannot.

China Telecom began trials of Fttx using EPON in Wuhan in 2004, and began the large-scale rollout of FttX in 2007. In August 2007, the operator purchased its first batch of EPON equipment for commercial use, which was capable of supporting 40,000 users. In March 2008, it purchased EPON equipment capable of supporting 2 million users. By mid-2009, China Telecom had trialled GPON equipment in Beijing, Shanghai, Wuhan and Hangzhou.

China Unicom has conducted three rounds of GPON tests since 2007 and plans to adopt GPON on a large scale in 2010. This didn’t stop the company from launching the world’s biggest EPON equipment tender in June 2009, under which it aims to purchase 11 million sets of EPON equipment. The majority of the EPON equipment is to be used in FttB construction, while the remainder will be used in FttH. Participants in the tender included FiberHome and ZTE. China Unicom plans to elevate the nationwide broadband bandwidth to at least 2Mb/s with some areas set to receive bandwidth of 4Mb/s to 100Mb/s. China Unicom hopes to complete the project by the end of 2011.

China Mobile is using GPON in its FttH construction in over 20 provinces, aiming at high-value customers who need reliable and high-speed data transmission services. The company awarded a contract to Alcatel-Lucent for their GPON solution in 10 cities across the provinces of Anhui and Guangdong.

As part of the network upgrades by China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom, Ericsson was also awarded contracts by all three operators. Network upgrades are taking place in Anhui, Guangdong, Hebei, Heilongjiang, Hubei, Liaoning, Shandong, Shanghai and Sichuan provinces to enable services such as voice, high speed broadband and high-definition IPTV. Ericsson is to roll out FttH networks for each of the trio, using GPON technology and its patented air-blown fibre solution.

The use of FttX for connecting the ‘last mile’ between transmission networks and consumers in China will continue to grow rapidly in 2009. Currently, the most economic form of FttX is FttB with FttH accounting for only around 10% of FttX deployments by telecom operators due to its higher cost. The construction of FttH currently stands at around RMB2,000 (US$290) per household, while for FttB it costs around RMB1,000 (US$145) per household. As costs decline due to an improved value chain, the use of FttH will grow more substantially from 2011 to become the most commonly used form of FttX by 2015 in China.

See BuddeComm reports:-

China

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Around the world governments, regulators and the industry are struggling with the old regulatory legacy systems. These have become a major stumbling block in the transition to a new environment. Increasingly countries are beginning to understand the social and economic benefits a national broadband infrastructure can offer, but it is impossible to bring that about while the systems are based on the present regulatory regimes.

To take these broader benefits into account we will need to develop government policies to facilitate the digital economy. That will inevitably lead to open, wholesale-based national broadband infrastructure, and this will automatically make current regulatory issues such as access pricing less relevant – and, one would hope, eventually totally irrelevant.

Unfortunately, at present, since we are still working according to the principles of the old telco world, these issues are dominating the debate. By placing too much emphasis on them we might lose sight of the future and could be wasting valuable time and resources.

Others surrounding the telco industry are more than happy to let the telcos become mired in the past, while they build their business models for the new environment. In this way the telco industry would be left behind, with little to do but dig the holes for the pipes the others need for the delivery of their innovative new services.

Furthermore, if the telco industry remains stuck in the out-of-date regulatory system the IT industry will be ready, willing and able to concentrate on the wholesale business and deliver the intelligent infrastructure that can be linked to these pipes. Look at the leadership IBM is providing through their ‘smart’ advertising and their many white papers on a huge variety of smart developments. I haven’t seen anybody in the telco industry taking such a thought-leadership role.

The telco industry should concentrate on also providing that degree of thought-leadership – what this new environment should look like; what needs to be done to make it a commercial success for them – there are plenty of new opportunities up for grabs. The industry should be more involved in the policy debates around smart grid, e-health and education, which are currently being developed by the governments. Some of the incumbent telcos might have done something in this respect – albeit more or less in isolation, and certainly not in the role of national leader.

Many regulators admit that the old regulatory system is broken. So let’s not try to fix it – let’s start working on what is needed to move forward.

I am eager for the discussion to move away from these legacy regulation issues – issues that date back to an era that was different from the one we are now moving into. Instead I suggest we look at the much broader issues of national broadband infrastructure. This will hopefully see government policy moving away from its regulatory approach to one that gives a serious commitment to using the broadband infrastructure for e-health, education and other applications. Certainly, many governments are making all the right noises, but they need to establish clear policies before the industry can carry out the implementation. The government should provide the vision and high-level strategies but it is up to the industry to make it happen.

At the moment, in the absence of any government leadership the industry is confused and rather rudderless – not knowing what to do, calling for the government to come up with business plans, arguing about out-of-date regulations, navel-gazing at technologies to decide what is bigger and what is better. They are missing the point. The debate should be on what is needed to lift developments to the next stage and they need to lobby their governments for clear directions.

Both the government and the telco industry is not paying enough attention to this. They seem to be stuck in the past, with endless access pricing debates about TSLRIC and other issues that tend to complicate matters rather than clear the way ahead. By following that route we will only get ourselves deeper into a morass, and in the meantime we are losing sight of what would actually generate innovations and new growth opportunities for the industry. By all means manage the transition, but focus on the future.

If we were to achieve industry cooperation we could start moving away from a totally regulated market to one that is based on what makes business sense, and where we can increase the size of the pie rather than limiting the growth of the market through out-of-date regulations to protect vested interests.

If we could agree on that future direction then this would be a good incentive to get the interim period right too – preferably through industry negotiation, rather than through exhaustive regulation. I think regulators would be interested in ideas and suggestions that came out of a more united industry, at least at a high strategic level. In the foreseeable future issues that require the leadership of the regulators will continue to arise, but the end goal should be to make regulation increasingly unnecessary.

The National Broadband Network developments in Australia – based on an open, wholesale-based infrastructure approach – could provide some guidelines on how this process might work.

Paul Budde

See also:

• Australia – National Broadband Network – Overview & Analysis
• Australia – National Broadband Network – Critical Considerations

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The Australian Shadow Minister for Communications Nick Minchin – as published in CommsDay on 23 July – seized on the failure of a municipally-owned wholesale FttP network in the US as a warning that the proposed Australian NBN model could be commercially unviable. However his warnings need to be judged against his politically motivated press releases rather than as constructive criticism.

So I asked some of my US colleagues to look into this matter, and their responses are discussed below.

But first of all it is important to make the point that Minchin is comparing apples with oranges. Municipal broadband networks are vastly different from a national network. Even a casual observer will find it easy to understand that wholesale in a muni-network cannot be compared with wholesale on a national scale.

Furthermore, there is no national broadband policy in the USA. The market is dominated by a few extremely large incumbents, who behave very much like Telstra did under the regime of Sol Trujillo. The frustration caused by Telstra’s behaviour at that time was one of the triggers for the move to do things differently in Australia. The regulatory environment here will be changed for the specific purpose of preventing some of the issues that are hampering other countries (including the USA) from developing a more effective and efficient national broadband infrastructure.

But let’s hear from the experts on the ground in the USA. One of the key experts in muni-networks is Jim Baller (www.baller.com) and he has been involved in most of these networks. Many of the projects are listed on his website.

His bottom line is that municipal fibre projects that provide retail service and have been operating for at least four years are just doing fine, some spectacularly so.

At the same time, several wholesale-only fibre projects have struggled, such as Provo in Utah (the company mentioned by Minchin) and others in other states that effectively prohibit municipal retail services, thus forcing ‘munies’ into a business model under which success is extremely difficult, and in many cases impossible.

Jim has repeatedly argued over the years that wholesale-only municipal fibre projects that serve entire communities, as distinct from those that serve only smaller, targeted areas, cannot work under the conditions present in most jurisdictions in the United States today. These conditions typically include the following:

• small communities have insufficient profit potential for the retailers to be able to cover the public network owner’s costs as well as their own costs and profits (at levels comparable to the incumbents);
• the projects are required by law or political considerations to pay for themselves solely out of project revenues and cannot be subsidised by taxes, revenues from other utilities, etc, which deprives communities of the ability to realise the additional but hard to measure benefits of enhanced economic development, educational opportunity, public safety and homeland security, energy efficiency, environmental sustainability, improved government service, and the many others that contribute to a high quality of life;
• the incumbents are unwilling to use the public network and do everything they can to undermine it (for instance, charging predatory or discriminatory prices, blocking access to content, tying up multiple dwelling units in exclusive arrangements of various kinds, mounting campaigns of disinformation, bringing protracted litigation, etc);
• there are not yet enough must-have high-bandwidth applications on the market to cause consumers to abandon the incumbents’ networks in droves.

So those are the US ‘apples’. However, with the exception of the last condition in the above list, they are not applicable to Australian ‘oranges’, and so it is impossible to make a simple comparison.

Fred Goldstein’s (www.ionary.com) response was that the problem was not just that Provo in Utah (the company mentioned by Minchin) operates in the wholesale business. The problem is also that Provo and the other one mentioned in the article (in Burlington, Vermont) are overbuilders. They both tried to compete with the incumbent local exchange carrier (ILEC) and existing CATVs. That is hard to do in a capital-intensive business. The cost is mostly per-home-passed, not -served, so until you get market share close to that of the incumbent your cost/home is higher.

Fred Goldstein’s view is that the Australian plan has the scale needed to displace the incumbent, or to provide wholesale service to the incumbent. The incumbents in the USA never buy wholesale loops from third parties, which to date has also been the case with Telstra in Australia. If it turns out to be just an overbuild, the numbers won’t look good. But Telstra will have to evaluate whether or not it wants to have a mutual destruction pact with the NBN.

The ideal answer is a wholesale LoopCo that begins with the ILEC’s business and is prepared to take over the cableco’s outside plant business once it’s ready. The natural monopoly is real.

Gordon Cook (publisher of the Cook Report – www.cookreport.com) added: ‘Qwest for years has done everything they could to cripple Provo’.

Qwest, of course, is also well-known in Australia as the telco that was previously run by ex-Telstra boss Sol Trujillo.

According to Kevin Barron (Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, U. Cal Santa Barbara -www.kitp.ucsb.edu) iProvo was – from the beginning – set up for failure. Despite the success of, for example, Utopia (another muni-network), his understanding is that the wholesale aspect was not the business case they started on, but one they were – for the reasons mentioned above – straitjacketed into.

He indicated that he would be interested to see the ‘analysis’ conducted by Heartland Senior Fellow, StevenTitch (as mentioned in the CommsDay article) showing that 77% of muni-systems are not paying their way. The Heartland Institute is the same group that came out with the ‘Beware of Geeks Bearing Gifts’, a fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) campaign that was used to scare off mayors and others, at the time when muni-fibre was gaining momentum.

Furthermore, that analysis contained a hearty dose of technobabble. According to Kevin, the quote in CommsDay is merely a rehash of what has been said before (except for the ‘predatory pricing’ quip)?

Any infrastructure rollout is going to require a long-term financial plan, so it’s very easy to point out those systems that have not yet reached break-even. If the ROI was flooding in after a few years we would not have the cherry-picking that is currently happening all over the USA.

The same institute claims that climate change is a scientific hoax:

http://www.lakewalesnews.com/articles/2009/07/22/opinion/letters/doc4a6610733fcb9304891351.txt

The primary problem here is a confusion of realms. Is the road wholesale or retail? The net is infrastructure like roads, not services like Fedex. What we have now is trucking companies who build the roads and don’t want any ‘unfair’ competition from the taxpayers who granted the right-of-ways (ROW) in the first place.

The article on the failure of Provo in Telecommunications Online – also mentioned by Minchin – needs to be read in full to see that failure in the right context.

(http://www.telecommagazine.com/article.asp?HH_ID=AR_4192)

Paul Budde

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