Uncategorized – Page 242 – Steve Blum's Blog

The problem with FTTH is there's no problem

17 December 2012 by Steve Blum
business, business model, capital cost, dark fiber, demand, feasibility study, fiber market study, ftth, fttp, funding, gigabit squared, municipal broadband, private capital, public private partnership, seattle

It’s not about finding a mass market solution. It’s about finding a sufficiently acute mass market problem.

The struggle to develop a general fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) or premises (FTTP) business model for city-wide deployments doesn’t result from a market failure. Quite the contrary. It’s evidence that the laws of supply and demand are in full effect.

Demand, meet supply.

People generally get the broadband service someone else – a business or government agency mostly – is willing to give them for the price they’re willing to pay.… More

Gigabit Seattle's financial vehicle is still a concept car

16 December 2012 by Steve Blum
business, business model, capital cost, dark fiber, demand, fiber market study, ftth, fttp, funding, gigabit squared, municipal broadband, private capital, public private partnership, seattle

Car of the Future as conceived by Studebaker's Director of Styling, Raymond Loewy, in the August 1950 issue of Science and Mechanics. Loewy wrote about the new styling for tomorrow's rocket age population. Via Wikimedia Commons.

Thanks for the down payment. Just need to find someone to co-sign the loan.

“Gigabit Squared is providing the capital, although details of the financing model aren’t clear,” wrote Stacey Higginbotham in a story for GigaOM following Gigabit Squared’s announcement last May that it had formed a partnership with Gig.U and was bringing $200 million to the table to fund fiber networks in as many as six cities.

The financing model was equally unclear last week when the City of Seattle and the University of Washington blessed a plan by Gigabit Squared to build a demonstration fiber-to-the-premises network in 12 Seattle neighborhoods.… More

Opportunity to leave consumers to their own devices

15 December 2012 by Steve Blum
business model, consumer electronics, mobile, mobile commerce, wireless opportunities

We’re in a world where it’s increasingly assumed that you’re carrying a screen all the time – tablet, smart phone or laptop. Maybe you’ll even have Apple’s long rumored iWatch on your wrist.

Westjet, a Canadian bargain airline, is thinking about ripping out the entertainment systems from its planes, saving 500 kg in weight and who knows how much in upkeep, and replacing it with a WiFi-based system that streams video to passengers’ BYOD of choice.… More

Seattle passes the fiber (50 mega) buck

14 December 2012 by Steve Blum
business, business model, capital cost, dark fiber, demand, feasibility study, fiber market study, ftth, fttp, funding, gigabit squared, municipal broadband, palo alto, private capital, public private partnership, seattle

The unveiling of Gigabit Seattle yesterday is just the first step on a long road to building a fiber to the premises (FTTP) service for residents. The City of Seattle and the University of Washington have endorsed a plan by a consulting firm – Gigabit Squared – to “begin raising the capital needed” for a demonstration project.

It’s not small change. The 200 miles of fiber needed to reach 50,000 homes and businesses in 12 neighborhoods will cost something like $50 million to install and light up.… More

Cellular sites have no impact on property values

13 December 2012 by Steve Blum
economic development administration, mobile, mobile broadband, regulation, wireless broadband

Noise level does not equate to economic impact. Cellular tower opponents talk a lot (including on their mobile phones – go figure) and can be extremely disruptive at public meetings. Not to mention the damage they do to broadband improvement efforts. But their bark has no bite in the Silicon Valley real estate market.

Joint Venture Silicon Valley has completed a study of the impact of cellular sites on property values in Palo Alto, Redwood City, Saratoga and San Jose.… More

Eastern California lights up in July

12 December 2012 by Steve Blum
ARRA, broadband stimulus, BTOP, business, casf, cetf, community networks, cpuc, dark fiber, economic development, escrbc, middle mile, regional consortia, rural broadband

“We have started and we will finish,” said Michael Ort, CEO of Praxis Associates, the company behind the Digital 395 project. “There have been people who have bet against us and that’s a great motivator. It’s going to happen.”

The ambitious, ARRA-funded network will connect Reno to Barstow, in the California desert east of Los Angeles, installing nearly 600 miles of fiber optic cable. Most of the path runs along U.S. 395, down the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada through towns like Carson City, Mammoth Lakes, Bishop and Ridgecrest.… More

Oh, you mean a Maxwell Smart home

11 December 2012 by Steve Blum
consumer electronics, geek stuff, home automation, mobile, mobile broadband, qualcomm, Snapdragon, WiFi, Wireless Communications Alliance, zigbee, zwave

“Chaos is an opportunity for people like me,” said Tom Kadlec, one of the founders of The Homeworks Group. They do the hard work of integrating and managing home automation systems for about a thousand subscribers. Both he and his partner have electrical engineering degrees, which is great for them but not so good for the home handyman who majored in, say, political science.

Come quick, 99. I’m surrounded by ARMed phones.

Protocol agnostic and easy to use: home automation needs heavy helpings of both if it’s to ever find its secret sauce.… More

Comments from 29 groups regarding CASF changes go into the official record

10 December 2012 by Steve Blum
casf, cetf, community networks, cpuc, municipal broadband, regional consortia

The dust has settled from the first round of comments regarding the California Public Utilities Commission’s (CPUC) consideration of new rules for California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) eligibility. Not everyone who filed made it through the screening process.

Last week, a total of 17 filings involving 35 organizations were submitted. Five [updated] were rejected by the CPUC’s legal department because of various mistakes. The CPUC has strict rules regarding who, when and how comments on proceeding are to be made.… More

Economic development top priority for Central Coast Broadband Consortium

9 December 2012 by Steve Blum
casf, ccbc, community networks, cpuc, economic development, municipal broadband, regional consortia

“Broadband connectivity is the new deepwater seaport,” said Mary Ann Leffel, chair of the Central Coast Broadband Consortium’s (CCBC) economic development expert group and president of the Monterey County Business Council (MCBC). But it’s more than just a visit by a cruise ship. It’s about attracting and keeping businesses and creating jobs.

Economic development is the primary goal of the CCBC, explained Nancy Martin, CCBC executive team member and executive director of MCBC as she opened the discussion at the CCBC’s Get Connected conference she organized in Seaside on 6 December 2012.… More

Congresswoman Eschoo pushes for more broadband spectrum

8 December 2012 by Steve Blum
eschoo, fcc, joint venture silicon valley, marvell, public policy, regulation, wireless, wireless Internet, WISP

Silicon Valley congresswoman Ann Eschoo wants to shake up the way that Washington manages and assigns spectrum. The goal is to free up a total of 500 MHz for wireless communications purposes. Much of that would come from turning over frequencies held by government agencies to public use. But some of it would come, willingly or not, from the private sector.

“We have to make freeing up spectrum a top priority,” she said at Joint Venture Silicon Valley's second annual wireless symposium, held on 2 November 2012 at Marvell Semiconductor Inc.… More