Posts Tagged ‘Workshops & Conferences’

To conclude my report on AIT Workshop on “FTTx architectures, technologies, business and economic aspects” I have compiled a list of short & longer remarks I found intriguing from either speakers or attendants, and some personal conclusions:

• “GPON is chosen by most incumbents worldwide because it makes the unbundling process harder”, or as another speaker put it: “Home run fiber is not used by incumbents because it is easier to regulate”
• As described by the Cisco representative, fiber have some great advantages over copper since in fiber networks:
  • No major modifications are needed
  • Upgrades are made easy
  • Open Access principles can be more easily be applied
  • There are no bottle-necks in passive infrastructure
  • Trouble-shooting is much simpler
  • There is no need for encryption (this is particularly true for P2P Ethernet where the user’s fiber is shared by none other)
• I did some research in the news about the Verizon FiOS project. It’s quite interesting the fact that although Tellabs presented this case as a success story, a week ago it was announced that the GPON efforts at Verizon are discontinued (!) News provided by Light Reading.
• All major telecom providers in the country are deploying fiber in Athens and other prime markets. Presentations referred to 100+, 200+ and 400+ Km of entrenched ducts, by individual operators. It seems that the fiber race in the country is starting to take up, although, the unconditional deployment of fiber may have severe (negative) long-term implications in the market conditions (reduced market shares, price wars, decreased profitability, longer payback periods etc).
• A speaker from OTE stated that the organization needs a stable regulatory environment to evaluate and assess his investments options. In fact, they have a point here: When a firm is regulated (usually via an average incremental cost method), competitors that request the use of unbundled elements bare no risk of investment. Instead, regulated prices decrease investors’ Return-on-Investment (ROI) until a certain degree of network utilization is reached.
• Mr. Doukoglou, OTE indicated that although the incumbent is required to invest in infrastructure to provide user access to lucrative content services, they receive no monetary compensation from the content providers. His remark opens up an important business issue for broadband. Do the roles in the telecom industry need realignment? And if yes how this realignment will succeed? Network convergence, service integration and ubiquitous user experience may indeed be a starting point. However, maybe the path to salvation may be much longer! Think about revenue sharing schemes that extend through the entire telecommunications value chain, across network boundaries, based on Multi-domain SLAs, QoS monitoring & measurements, usage & quality data reconciliation etc.
• Mr. Tzerefos from Vodafone made also a good remark. Telecom operators must be a service facilitator not a bit-pipe provider. Caution is required when addressing the business models. A provider can’t play very easily in all three layers of the network value chain (Infrastructure, Access, Services). They are totally different markets, and the expectations for returns vary very!
• Finally Mr. Votsis from Forthnet indicated that “although local authorities have revenues (they require certain types of compensation for the civil disturbance) they do however have obligations such as to maintain the as-built maps and release them to future constructors when requested.”

On Friday the 11^th April I attended the International Workshop: “FTTx architectures, technologies, business and economic aspects” organized by Athens Information Technology (AIT). It was an overall satisfying, well organized event that aimed at presenting 1) FTTx strategies, 2) operational and technical issues and 3) business and economic challenges faced or anticipated in broadband development in Greece.

I felt that one thing was missing though; the social aspects of FTTx which I find imperative to break down the puzzle, successfully.

Below are some remarks and opinions, which I wish to point out.

1. Representing the Government, Dr. George Anastasopoulos, General Secretary of Communications, Ministry of Transport and Communications presented an outline of the National Strategy for Broadband Development that the ministry is preparing for 2008 – 2013. The ministry’s national strategy with a projected expenditure of 3Bn Euros is being crafted based on three distinctive endeavors:

1. Constructing broadband infrastructure for all citizens & making Greece an international telecommunications node.
2. Deploying new technologies & services based on open access principles & dark fiber provisioning
3. Designing and implementing a set of pilot applications/services to make the public aware of the benefits of broadband

The business case is under final evaluation and will soon be released for public consultation. A low bird told me this will happen possibly before this summer…

A pre-announcement was also made for the implementation of a pilot web service for monitoring and displaying the current electromagnetic radiation levels in the country (Would that mean the entire country?). Color Indications (e.g. green, yellow red) conditioned on the allowable electromagnetic radiation levels will be provided.

[A few years back, a colleague and I have thought of doing something similar. However, we have estimated that the cost for a) system operation, b) the provision of a minimum useful level of geographical accuracy and c) near real-time information update, in combination with the expected service demand, made the idea not worth the shot. Back then; Because today, I am impatient to get a glimpse of this new trick and its prospects!]

2. Representing NRA – EETT, Dr. Nikolaos Koulouris, Vice-President, Hellenic Telecommunications & Post Commission (EETT) presented the ERG Opinion/Common Position on Regulatory Principles for Next Generation Access – NGA. I really have not much to say on this. It is sound and nice! If someone wishes to read more on this he can download the document from the ERG web site.

3. Finally, Mr. Pantelis Papadopoulos, representative of the Greek Licensed Telecommunication Providers Association, SATPE made some remarks on 1) the unclear regulatory framework for FTTx investments, 2) the delaying game (according to SATPE) of OTE in the broadband development process in the country, and, being sincere enough, 3) the need for coordination of investment efforts among the members of SATPE (thus avoiding the construction of replicate infrastructures with no additional value to either the end-customer nor the telecommunications providers).

I believe that all sides understand from their own standpoint that FTTx is a whole new ball game. What is important is that it must be treated as such when deciding on national and corporate strategy, industry regulation and policy, and (let me add here) business models altogether. The potential of fiber to provide ever increasing download and (most importantly) upload speeds will revolutionize society the way telephony and software did, or more! End-users will stop being passive consumers of information and will create, distribute and share their own exclusive content.

FTTx infrastructure provides the foundations for a new business and social ecosystem where customer welfare will increase not only due to additional electronic services available (e.g. e-commerce, e-health e-*) but also from other social benefits (i.e. work from home and stay close to family, property value increase due to fiber connection etc.).

Eventually, telecom operators who will acknowledge the inevitable future changes in personal and social life in their business models might be able to survive the radical changes that are coming along. Replicating DSL business models into FTTx offerings will not be enough for the simple reason that figures do not add up! Content services will have to be integrated in network access offerings, and content is not just voice and video any more…