This is about CREATING demand!

It seems that the tired old argument of demand not justifying the deployment of a next generation network is rearing its ugly head. Again. I guess I am getting tired of saying the same things over and over, and I find them especially frustrating to hear from the likes of Ian Livingstone, BTs CEO.

According to The Register dated today, Ian Livingstone said at the Digital Britain summit that people didn't need the speeds offered by fiber to the home: not enough demand!

It's not like we haven't heard this argument again and again. I could even understand it if it came from people outside the industry. But people within the industry know that the telecom market is supply led, not demand led. It always has been.

Market studies in the early 90s showed that people were not willing to pay for mobile phone services. Market studies two years ago (before the iPhone hit the market) showed that people were not willing to pay for mobile data services. Market studies today show that people are not willing to pay for fiber to the home services. See the trend there?

Ultimately, I don't much care whether BT deploys fiber or not. If they don't, it will create market opportunities for companies like i3 to deploy inner-city fiber networks. Large cities in Britain will deploy their own infrastructures as Brimingham and Manchester seem keen on doing. The end result will be that whenever BT wakes up and smells the coffee, in between Vrigin's docsis 3.0 and the fiber networks elsewhere, all that will be left for BT to grab will be low density and/or low revenue areas. That's not going to make the business case any easier...

I think the issue is that BT is trying to find honorable reasons not to deploy fiber. There's political pressure to do so, but at the same time the company clearly cannot afford it and won't be able to at least for as long as this crisis will last (BT's pension liabilities is an issue as pressing as their market capitalisation is low...) And so slowly we see Britain join the likes of Ireland and Italy: countries where the incumbent can't afford to go and no other traditional telco wants to or is in a position to.

It's strange that after so many years of justifying so much of our economic failings (as a whole) on the presumed risk that businesses, industry leaders, etc. are taking, when it comes to assessing long-term risks these same industry leaders are so weak...

Also posted on www.fiberevolution.com