Convergence Conversation

Tim points out a tidbit of interesting news that I had missed: The FTTH Council North America and TIA came out vocally against open access for Fiber in filing to the FCC. As Tim points out, they oppose it mostly on principle and try to discredit the Berkman Study on telecom policy which quite convincingly shows how open access policies in European and Asian countries have spurred on competition and contributed to the development of telecom markets in these countries.

This is not a new discourse in the US and as such does not really surprise me. I've heard or read similar arguments (especially the attempts to poke holes in the Berkman Study) in the last few months. More...

Despite the fact that Japan is the world leader in fiber coverage (although not in fiber adoption, that's Korea) it's a market that is so dominated by incumbent NTT that it often seems not much happens there. Well this morning, something major happened! KDDI, the number two FTTH and broadband provider in Japan acquired a controlling stake in JCOM, the leading cable operator.

As mentioned in this article the consolidation makes a whole lot of sense for KDDI, even though it comes at a steep price. And while it reinforces KDDI's overall position in the wireline market, it still leaves them trailing behind NTT. More...

I will be in Boston the first week of February and would love to meet fiber minded individuals! I would suggest the evening of February 3rd, maybe around 7 PM. I'm suggesting the Parish Café as a good meeting place, but am open to alternative suggestions!

(For musical minded people, I will also most likely be checking out the Elastic Waste Band in Cambridge later that evening, you're welcome to join!)

As you will know, I have been skeptical about the potential of Fiber to the Cabinet, mostly due to what I perceive as a lack of future-proofness (yeah, I know such a word doesn't exist...) of the deployment. One aspect that I honestly haven't investigated much is the impact of having cabinets in the streets. After all, I thought, cable operators have had them forever...

I guess I should have looked more closely at some of the posts James put up on eurotelcoblog. The photo on the right is a photo of one of Numéricable's cabinets in Marseille. Last year, a group of people went through several districts of Marseille and tracked down cabinets to photograph them. More...

On Monday, French prime minister François was due to make a speech that would, some journalists thought, give a kick in the butt to FTTH deployment in France. The fact is that three years after the first FTTH deployment announcements, France as a whole doesn't have a lot to show for it. ARCEP recently announced 250k NGA subscribers, 200k of which are Numéricable's HFC.

Needless to say that Mr. Fillon's speech was eagerly expected... and did not fail to dissapoint. The Prime Minister reaffirmed that €2bn had been earmarked as public contributions to FTTH deployment in zones 2 and 3 (ie. More...