I haven’t been very active on Broadband Prime lately. This is mostly due to job issues, some having to do with the unprecedent recent events in Greece, that you probably are aware of (ie, my office is in the university campus which is closed for more than a week), some other stemming from the overall south turn of the economy. Anyways, to make it up with you, I’ve gathered some interesting stuff i read the last few days. Some are a bit old but were not found in the mainstream so you might have missed it.
NetCity, Bucharest’s proposed muni-fiber project causes great controversy while aiming to dig all aerial fiber cables presently deployed for access (Benoit, has also referred to the issue on a different occasion). Operators will be able to lease fiber or ducts from the underground network on open access rules. However, they are sceptical about the effect that municipal involvement of access will have on their business case and competitive advantage.
Utah is taking a last (?) attempt to rescue its 11 cities wholesale fiber network. This needs particular attention by Greece as UTOPIA has been appraised as a best practice in various occasions.
I came across two interesting and encouraging cases of individuals/citizens initiatives to bring broadband/internet connectivity to their rural isolated villages. Ulf Wolf reports on the McDermitt (population: 756) case in Nevada and how the vision of a few brought satellite broadband to the village. Read this if you want the full story. Bring Your Own Broadband is a blog about a small FTTH project in the Paris suburbs. The deployment cost of the network is shared by the citizens and is owned by the citizens (Does it remind you of Home with Tails, the Ottawa project?).
Agcom has approved Telecom Italia’s plans to “spin off” its fixed-line network to a separate business unit. The Telco decided on this strategy to avoid functional separation regulation rulings. EU however passes note to the italian regulator that this decision has to be approved by the EC.
Swisscom announced plans of $2.3 billions investment for an FTTx rollout. Driven by competition from cable (UPC Broadband) and utility companies (ewz-Zurich) and in order to sustain its newly marketed HDTV service the Telco is planning to start commercial operation of the network by March 2009. Most important, Swisscom is laying additional fiber to offer wholesale services to competitors (anticipating regulation pressures). Remeber that Swiss regulator has requested broadband Universal Service Obligation from Swisscom since 1/1/2008.
