Technology Futures

Here is a short, two page paper that defines the characteristics of a modern community broadband infrastructure designed specifically to encourage economic development and jobs creation. The overall approach is focused on public/private partnerships that creates new business and market opportunities for services providers so that local government telecom investments are not seen as "competing" with the private sector.

An interview with the new head of Qwest, Edward Mueller, has some surprising (or not so surprising) comments from the CEO. When asked about fiber to the neighborhood and fiber to the home, Mueller responded, "It's too expensive. We don't see the return."

So if you live in Qwest territory, you now have a definitive statement from the head of the company, who has admitted they lack the imagination to do what is being done routinely in other places in the United States and all over the world. It's a little irritating to hear about the widespread availability of 100 megabit fiber in places like Paris while the major telecoms in the U.S. can't figure out how to get the job done.

Fiber is NOT "too expensive." Instead, the problem is that Qwest's old-fashioned business model for telecom services has not kept up, and they are unwilling to change it.

According to this report, the merger of XM and Sirius has stalled, a year after the deal was first announced. It is a perfect storm because you have a combination of FCC confusion, Congressional confusion, silly prices paid for on-air talent, and a bad business model.

It is a lesson for terrestrial broadband and communities as well, because most of the same problems and lessons apply in community telecom, where we also have the wrong business models, lack of clarity at the Federal level about what to do, and prices for services that are out of whack.

In the satellite market, it is hard to understand how Sirius would ink a $500 million dollar five year deal for foul-mouthed Howard Stern when the company is only getting about $35 million a year in ad revenue, along with anemic subscription sales.

What would make sense, as part of the merger, would be for XM and Sirius to go to an open content model, in which they become just the carrier, and let anyone with the money buy channel space on their satellites. Right now, the two companies are flogging the same old, tired business model used by the cable companies, which is to bundle hundreds of channels together, most of which no one listens to.

It would make more sense to charge $1 a month per channel and let subscribers pick which channels they want to listen to, with something like a ten or fifteen channel minimum.

The FCC and Congress could help out by promoting this as an option, just as they could help out communities by promoting open, multi-service networks like nDanville, which is the country's first municipal open, multi-service network. Service providers from all over the country are starting to call the City to find out how to put their services on the network.

Satellite radio has a bright future, but only if the old business models are tossed and a new, "open" model is adopted.

This article [link no longer available] from a rural update New York paper illustrates the power of fiber. The Adirondack region of upstate New York has a regional community fiber backbone that is pulling companies to the region--a region that would not give a second thought without the community fiber.

Fiber is basic economic development infrastructure. It is not a luxury for business anymore, it is a necessity. Communities that have competitive fiber today, or even have a plan for getting some in the next twelve to eighteen months, have a distinct competitive edge over communities that do not.