Here’s a few links that I spent time on during the last week. They worth the attention:

eGov versus We.Gov: who wins? EU decide: Features an interesting report on European Commission’s ePractice workshop on Web 2.0 entitled “Public Service 2.0″ that reflects how web2.0 services and concepts can enrich and enhance public administration process and efficiency.

Is Denmark a lead user of user driven innovation?: An excellent read on the plan of Denmark to promote innovation (in business, society and political administration) by enabling citizens and end-users engagement in it.

Workshop: Future Fiber Architectures and Local Deployment Choices: Thanx to a pointer provided by Fiberevolution here’s an all interesting workshop on the design and operational aspects of FTTx networks.

FCC outlines seven biggest barriers to broadband adoption: A nice compilation of obstacles for broadband development. Ok, I know you know but i like it when I get to read all in one A4.

Lessons from the land of cheap broadband: A brief coverage on CNN web site about City Telecom’s business strategy in Hong Kong; which comes down to one sentence: “We try to commoditize bandwidth” (i.e. sell cheaply to the masses)

An Offer They Can’t Refuse: Spectrum Reallocation That Can Benefit Consumers, Broadcasters & the Mobile Broadband Sector: A timely report on how the new spectrum policy (digital divident) is incubated in US. The report discusses the benefits and implications of facilitating the release of broadcaster’s spectrum and the re-use of it by wireless operators (Cash for TV-Spectrum).

I really enjoyed this year’s Greek ICT Forum. It was an interesting two-days forum with exceptional speakers and a few unique take-outs which I provide here for you. They really worth being noted and quoted:

Theodoros Karounos, Prime Minister’s Advisor:

- apps.gov.gr (reflections on apps.google.com)

- Let us dare to create new best practices and not only copy them

- If $10M that was the initial investment for the development of UBUNTU could help transform IT industry, imagine what we could do if we carefully invested a few hundrend of millions.

- In the future, projects should be funded only if they are financially self-sustainable (except in outstanding cases of education and culture).

Costas Doukas, President Information Society S.A.:

- Efficiency improvement and the experience and know-how gained during the last years can help the country in the next round of financing to further enhance results.

Panagioris Tsanakas, Professor, NTUA:

- When discussing VDSL vs. FTTH we must make sure that we don’t compare apples with oranges. A VDSL investment plan can only have an horizon of maximum 3 years before it is surpassed by the market demand while it can inflict  damages to the long-term national broadband plan. On the other hand, FTTH is a 30 years investment with clear committment expressed by the Government and significant socio-economic benefits.

Themis Papaioannou, Consultant:

- The low marginal cost of the next Mbit in high-speed access networks brings new opportunities for innovative business models (e.g. bandwidth on demand – being efficient to provide peak demand for a limited amount of time).

Ilias Koukouvinos, Vice President, Optronics S.A.:

- The cost of FTTH deployment in the city of Karditsa went eventually below the European average, and is much lower than the assumptions of the business plan for the national FTTH network.

Christos Bouras, Professor, University of Patras:

- We must build national, public infrastructures with long-term planning and not for addressing the immediate, contemporary socio-economic needs. This is precisely the reason why we still count bodies in our national highways.  (ed. implicating low safety and construction standards of highways for the number of fatal car accidents)

photo by infomaniac

Earlier this month FCC made available a draft “Next Generation Connectivity” (links to pdf) by the Berkman Center for Internet & Society on Next Generation Access Networks and the policies endorsed by various nations in respect to broadband connectivity.

What clearly stands out in the study is the acknowledgement of the significance of efficient open access practices for broadband development. Also, this work is yet another study that further underlines the importance of long-term commitment in central policy making for a nation’s broadband success. The report covers the international status of fixed and wireless next generation access networks while it devotes a separate (although I think limited) chapter specifically relating to policies and practices of public investments.

The study considers penetration, capacity and price as the three most interesting attributes that characterize broadband development and these attributes are used to assess each of the reported national economies. Here’s how Greece is ranked in each of these categories:

Price: 13^th – This comes as a natural consequence of the fierce price competition between market actors at the early stages of the market liberalization, which significantly reduced market revenues and thinned any chance for recouping investments. This lack of foresight in long-term planning resulted in high market consolidation in recent years with the “cheap” providers already bankrupt or bought-out.

Speed: 23^rd – I think this rank underestimates the efforts of the country especially in the recent years, as it does not factor in the fact that other economies have a variety of alternatives (i.e. cable) while in most of them FTTH access is being offered already. In rankings that account only (copper based) DSL speeds, Greece ranks much higher, at great extent due to the fact that the high quality of OTE network compared to the networks of other incumbents.

Penetration: 27^th – Penetration is low, especially for a country that is considered among the 30 wealthiest countries in the world. The reason for that is not speed and clearly not price (Greece is ranked 1^st in mobile penetration despite its very expensive mobile charges). The reason (and the solution) to this is much more complicated as it seems that it is the added value of broadband for the end-user that is substantially low (i.e. consumers do not see clear benefits by subscribing for a broadband connection).

I would highly recommend reading this study (be prepared, it’s long!). It has a lot of information and although the results are oriented towards US readers it is an excellent read for others as well.

A few days ago the Observatory for Information Society in Greece released its mid-2009 report on broadband. For those not familiar with this publication, it is a biannual report on broadband developments in the country.

According to the report, Greece had, the 1st of July, 15,63 % broadband penetration (connections/100 inhabitants), which in absolute figures means something less than 1.8M connections. Following the trend, the broadband take-up rates are estimated to reach EU27 average by late 2010. Not that bad after all, considering that Greece ranked at the bottom a few years ago.

A change worth noting is that the speed attributes of retail product categories (basic, average, high) have changed. Basic access includes offerings up to 2Mbps, and accordingly average and high access products include offerings up to 8Mbps and 24Mbps. Last year, the categorization separated products in 1,2 and 4Mbps speed levels. Well, for a country that plans a country-wide FTTH network, I guess that considering 24Mbps as a high access product makes definitely more sense!

The last important observation is that active wholesale offerings by the incumbent (i.e. bitstream) is decreasing rapidly (bitstream market share decreases by 5% on a monthly basis) with LLU increasing 5 fold compared to bitsteam connections.

Overall, the market is clearly matured with adequate electronic infrastructures in place to leverage on incumbent’s copper. I only hope it will not take that long to reach the same level of maturity when fiber comes along, and that all involved parties will learn from past experience.

Finally, the current 1.8M broadband connections makes the governmental FTTH plan of 2M homes passed absolutely reasonable (some could – maybe rightfully – argue that it should have gone even bolder) despite what has been said so far by many about the necessity of such an investment in terms of scale and scope.

Post Scriptum: It would be nice if the next report started reporting some quality metrics. The success of national markets is not only measured by the number of connections but also by the level of customer satisfaction.

You can get the full report here.

This Monday I came back to the office after my (rather) long holidays (the first true holidays I had in the last 4 years – I admit that I checked email only every 4-5 days, which feels as nice and “forbidden” as eating meat during the holly week!!).

As I am picking up pace, browsing through August’s 1800+ rss news (some, very very interesting) and while I prepare myself to get down with the 2 folders waiting impatiently on my top draw, I’d like to share with you a couple of additions in the broadband blogo/news-sphere which I find interesting and promising:

The first is John Bartell’s FTTxtra which focuses primarily on the vendor/equipment market. John picked the same theme I did for Broadband Prime which I think it’s cool!

The second is Pauline Rigby’s personal blog. Pauline was the editor of FibreSystems Europe until recently with an excellent insight to the market.

Part of my work involves keeping a detailed directory of all active FTTH projects worldwide. Germany was one the European countries I had little information registered in my detailed addendum. All that until recently, when I finished reading the “Fiber in Germany” study prepared by Seim & Partner.

The authors, Sabine Finke and Kai Seim, provide an overview of FTTH activity in Germany and enough details to keep you busy especially if you are not so familiar with the German market, like I was. The study is priced at less than 50 euros and you can get information on how to obtain it at  Seim & Partners website or at Kai’s blog.

The authors plan for a second edition of the report at the end of 2009 with updated information for existing and new projects. I do look forward to see this publication turning into a yearly report on the German FTTH market.

There are two topics I look forward to see reported in more detail in the upcoming edition of the report: a) business models and b) ownership structure. Yet, I understand this may be a little more to ask, especially with the market being so young. Overall I find the study a good money for value proposition and an excellent resource for understanding the current status and dynamics of the German FTTH market.

Yankee Group recently released a study prepared by my good friend Benoit Felten called “Open Access Makes Economic Sense“. The study puts the international debate surrounding the “Open Access” NGN business models on new grounds. Benoit challenges the traditional notion, embraced by most telcos, that foreclosing competitive access to their networks is a good business practice.

In my view two things clearly stand out in the study:

1. On the demand-side, payback is much more sensitive to take-up rates than it is to ARPU and
2. On the supply-side, payback is highly sensitive to the cost per homes connected

These two observations  clearly imply that:

1. Telcos rolling out FTTH must secure high take-up rates in the short-term, and opening the networks to competing service providers can ensure higher use of the infrastructure; thus shorter payback (ARPU is not as important as take-up rates are) and
2. Telcos rolling out FTTH need to explore all available options to reduce the cost of deployment. Although state subsidies may be one way for doing so, partnering with the public sector (utilities or municipalities) and synchronizing construction with public civil works (I wonder how possible this might be) is the safest, and socially optimal, way to ensure the lowest possible cost per home passed/connected.

Overall, the study is clearly a mind-opener and provides insight to the economics of Open Access models. As always, Benoit gives the right push for innovative thinking to all NGA stakeholders (especially those with the capacity to rollout FTTH networks, i.e. the incumbents and big telcos). I highly recommend reading it forward and backwards!

Broadband Prime’s Top Picks is a weekly digest that brings you the top articles that I’ve read the past week. The focus of the digest is not on news, unless ground-breaking rather on opinions, analysis and comments by individuals or organizations relevant to the blog’s favorite topics. Hopefully, this is going to be a list of good information that you might have missed. I am keeping the number of links strictly to maximum 5 to make the digest meaningful and effective.

Comments on the structural separation of Telstra: Dominic Hebert at BuddeComm discusses the prospects of a potential structural separation of Telstra’s business. It takes a different perspective from what usually the proponents of structural separation prefer: the corporation’s share value. A good read.

AT&T, Verizon offer national broadband policy suggestions: A short and to the point piece by Stephen Hardy of Lightwave summarizing AT&T’s and Verizon’s suggestions to FCC regarding US national broadband strategy.

Broadband and the Economy (pdf): This OECD report examines the way in which broadband networks interact with the economy, the role they play in creating the conditions for sustainable economic growth and prosperity, and the structural changes they enable. Emphasis is put on the economic impacts, in particular on growth, globalisation and employment. The report summarizes on the ministerial committee meeting held in Seoul last year.

Shaping Policies for the Future of the Internet Economy (pdf): This OECD report highlights ways to encourage the development of the Internet economy. It looks first at the infrastructure on which its development relies and the need to strengthen and extend broadband networks. It considers the ways in which the Internet already contributes to social and economic goals. It looks to how the Internet can act as a catalyst to further these goals through policies that facilitate convergence, stimulate creativity, strengthen confidence and expand the opportunities for global economic, social and cultural development. The report summarizes on the ministerial committee meeting held in Seoul last year.

Broadband Prime’s Top Picks is a weekly digest that brings you the top articles that I’ve read the past week. The focus of the digest is not on news, unless ground-breaking rather on opinions, analysis and comments by individuals or organizations relevant to the blog’s favorite topics. Hopefully, this is going to be a list of good information that you might have missed. I am keeping the number of links strictly to maximum 5 to make the digest meaningful and effective.

Future FTTH network should be buried, and shouldn’t be PON: Stuart Corner writes on ITWire and discusses the deployment options (burried vs. aerial) and architectural options (PON vs. Poiont-to-Point) of FTTH. The latter I think it’s pretty much covered by a significant body of literature and press. As far as the first point is concerned though, the article suggests that aerial deployment, although cheaper, exhibits significant operational costs related to increased ratio of failures due to open exposure of the infrastructure. For what is worth, I might add that aerial fiber also reduces quality of living in the area of deployment.

The Impacts of Policy and Regulation on FTTH deployments (pdf): Stephen points to an excellent presentation by Stefan Keller-Tuberg, Chair, Regulation and Policy Committee, FTTH Council Asia-Pacific. The presentation reports on input provided by Ovum and discusses the challenges of a goverment-led nationwide FTTH deployment. Yes, Australia is the point of reference.

FTTH Networks: No Sure Bet: I find the title as it is slightly misleading. The article briefly reports on the importance of planning and design and the need to considered idiosyncracies of different markets and cultures for FTTH success.

Roads vs. FTTH: When discussing FTTH investments it is good to see things in the appropriate perspective. Think for a minute how many Kms of road you have to spare to deploy FTTH to a certain area of choice. For relatively small countries, the dilemma is eventually whether we choose to build a bridge, upgrade a port or light up an entire country.

Broadband Stimulus as the “Next Telecom Boom”? …We Hope Not: The article discusses previous US experiences of markets booms and busts and attempts some guidelines to avoid another bust of the telecom sector following the stumulus dollars

Broadband Prime’s Top Picks is a weekly digest that brings you the top articles that I’ve read the past week. The focus of the digest is not on news, unless ground-breaking rather on opinions, analysis and comments by individuals or organizations relevant to the blog’s favorite topics. Hopefully, this is going to be a list of good information that you might have missed. I am keeping the number of links strictly to maximum 5 to make the digest meaningful and effective.

It has been a hectic fortnight and I did not manage to post on time the review for the 21st week, so I combined the 21st and 22nd together. Apologies beforehand and here we go:

The Role of Communication Infrastructure Investment in Economic Recovery: An excellent OECD paper on infrastructure investment. Quoting from the abstract: “…policy makers need to evaluate the costs and benefits of any public investment in telecommunication infrastructure and select projects which can deliver both strong immediate aggregate demand effects, such as through the employment created by rolling out the networks, and strong longerterm aggregate supply-side effects, which can improve the productive capacity of the entire economy as an improved foundation for commerce and communication.”

Nuevas fórmulas de acceso a la banda ancha: An excellent sum of municipal and public utilities initiatives on fiber access. It works best for those who speak Spanish or can handle the google translator. It’s a good source of information whatsoever (especially for Spanish projects).

Measuring the Effectiveness of the Broadband Stimulus Plan: Ashort informative article published at the Economists’ Voice. “The broadband stimulus plan provides not just an opportunity to connect the few regions of the country (ed. USA) that lack access to broadband, but also to learn what types of subsidies work and what do not. To realize both objectives, the agencies entrusted with distributing these subsidies should think carefully about how to evaluate their true effects and implement funding plans accordingly.”

The Need for Speed: An article by Nicholas Thomson arguing how can USA policy makers use past experiences of Government intervention in NGA from other parts of the world, e.g. massive subsidization (Asian model), creating competition (European model), customer-owned fiber (the Canada’s pilot), direct public investments (Australia, Greece)

Bringing Broadband to Rural America: A must read publication by FCC discussing the challenges of bringing broadband reality closer to all Americans. I haven’t had the time to read and digest, but it seems that few have already done so. You can find some initial reaction at DSL Reports, CNET and InternetNews.

OECD latest Broadband Statistics: Broadband pulse is monitored by OECD Portal at frequent intervals. Latest figures were published on the 20th of May. Based on these data, New York Times demonstrate that lowering price does not necessarily increase broadband penetration.

Canada needs an innovation agenda: A nice piece by Steve Anderson discussing open access and muni co-ops ISPs to improve broadband penetration ratings.

Open Government Dialogue: As I know that many enthousiasts of open government are following this site, this is an excellent resource of ideas on how to create open, participatory, collaborative government administrations.