In an interesting
NY Times article,
Verizon says it must quickly build its fiber network to fend off rivals such as
Comcast and Vonage, which offer inexpensive voice alternatives. With cable companies and single-play VoIP providers (Vonage, Packet8, Lingo, etc.) offering cheaper voice, Verizon is in a race to stop customer defections. According to the article, Time Warner Cable, Cablevision and others are taking about 1,000 Verizon phone customers per day.
Verizon will spend about $20 billion before the end of the decade to reach 16 million homes from Florida to California. However, it is New York City with its dense population and greatest potential for revenue that has caused Verizon to spend about $3 billion to reach the city’s 3.1 million homes and apartments. With fiber, Verzion will be able to offer voice, data, and video services.
According to the article, "To sell the television services that it believes will really help it win back customers, Verizon needs to win a franchise from the city similar to what Cablevision and Time Warner Cable now have." This may be inaccurate, since I thought Congress's
H.R. 5252 removed the requirement to pay local municipalities a franchise fee? H.R. 5252 would allow providers of cable service to apply to the
FCC for a national franchise in lieu of negotiating separate franchise agreements with states and localities for providing cable service to a local area. Ironically, the bill also required VoIP providers to connect users to emergency 911 telephone service, as I
explained in a recent entry. I'll have to look into franchising requirements some more, but I thought a nationwide franchising law was passed by Congress.
Eventually FTTH (fiber to the home) will be commonplace - the race has already begun. My question is where does this leave "one trick" ponies like
Vonage which only do voice? The phone/comment lines are open...
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Written by VoIP & Gadgets Blog on August 14th, 2006 with no comments.
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The phone companies have high-speed DSL, the cable companies have high-speed broadband cable, and both offer Triple Play solutions, but what about the electric company? Just about every home in any industrialized nation has three copper wires services coming into their home - electric, phone, and cable, yet for the most part only the phone and cable wires are being utilized, leaving the electric companies in the "dark" (there's a joke in there somewhere).
Sure, you can build a home Local Area Network (LAN) that transmits packets using your home electrical wiring (
HomePlug Powerline Alliance) but the packets can only travel a short distance. What good is a LAN without access to the Wide Area Network (WAN) - specifically the Internet.
Well, electric companies aren't going to stand idly by while the phone and cable companies make money hand over fist with these new Triple Play packages. There are now technology solutions that can transmit IP packets over electrical wiring over long-distances. In fact, a Danish power company, Tele Nordvest, will begin offering customers VoIP completely naked - as in no subscriber line or Internet connection necessary. They are setting themselves up as VoIP providers, with a backbone in their powerplant. According to their press release, this could have some interesting angles: theoretically, every power outlet in your house suddenly becomes a telephone plug. Here's a
link to the article - unfortunately, it's in Danish, so if you can't read Danish, you'll just have to take my word for it. Yep, reading Danish is yet another talent of mine. Actually, an avid reader of mine, Johan gave me the tip and the translation. Thanks Johan!
The electric companies can one-up both the cable companies and the phone companies - only they have the proper gauge wiring and infrastructure to offer electricity. Now add in voice (over IP), data, and even video, and you got yourself a
TRUE Quadruple Play! This could be a case of where the tortoise (electric companies) beats the hare (cable + phone companies). They're still late out of the gate, but certainly worth keeping an eye on.
Oh, I neglected to mention two other pieces of copper (or other metal) coming into many homes - your plumbing and your gas pipe. I know what you're thinking - "Surely, you cannot transmit IP packets over the plumbing or a metal gas pipe." Well,
you would be wrong.
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Written by VoIP & Gadgets Blog on May 1st, 2006 with no comments.
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