Convergence Conversation

For those who feared (like I did) that the Dutch were loosing their pragmatism...
 
I have a story tomorrow morning in the Dutch daily Trouw that KPN and Reggefiber plan to invest 6 to 7 billion euros for the roll out of FTTH in The Netherlands. According to KPN they plan to do it in the next 5 to 7 years. Reggefiber says 5 years is really too optimistic. I guess Reggefiber is right...

We have some 7 million homes to pass. So it would be about 1000 euro per home passed. But homes in the countryside will be too expensive to do ftth and will get Wimax or another wireless alternative.
 
KPN and Reggefiber stated they want to cooperate exactly one year ago. And in May KPN said it would buy a 41 percent stake in Reggefiber. All this time the Dutch telecom authority OPTA could not make up it's mind about the regulatory framework for FTTH. And KPN and Reggefiber wanted to be sure that their investments would still bring them some returns 5 or 7 years from now. At the same time the Dutch competition authority (NMa) had to decide whether the joint venture of KPN and Reggefiber is in our best interest. It's not yet official, but this monday the NMa has given it's okay for the joint venture and coming friday the OPTA will publish it's long awaited regulatory framework for FTTH networks.

Of course KPN and Reggefiber stress that they first want to be sure that what OPTA proposes is what they need. But all my sources say that everybody concerned now understands that this investment should go forward.

Imagine: billions of investments, a lot of work for people who otherwise would be out of work because the financial crisis starts hitting the Dutch home and office building business, and at the end of the day a whole nation with FTTH that is once more in the top league of broadband. And all of this without a penny of state aid being asked.

I guess some politicians in The Hague felt this was an offer that cannot be refused in these harsh times.
 
We can't beat the Japanese anymore with the roll out of FTTH. But maybe we won't be far behind after all.

Vincent posts on his own blog about this here and the article he mentions is here.

This is momentous news. In recent weeks, I've talked with a lot of telcos, especially incumbents, about framing the regulatory debate, and that's one thing that KPN has done here with maestria. They truly are a disgrace to incumbents and that's the best compliment I can think of at this point.

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