U.K. research firm Analysys Mason says in its latest report that network operators should put the brakes on fiber-to-the-home builds and reconsider the copper alternatives. The report argues that there has not been enough service and device innovation yet at the end of that FTTH connection to warrant the expense. Analysys Mason thinks we’ll start to see some FTTH projects scale back and that carriers should continue to test FTTH while rolling out more VDSL.
Analysys Mason’s report states:
“FTTH is often said to be ‘future-proof’, but the future appears to have veered off in a different direction,” says Rupert Wood, Principal Analyst at Analysys Mason and author of the report. “The vague promise of future services may appeal to some early FTTH adopters, but will become increasingly ineffective as a selling point unless the rate of innovation in devices and services that are uniquely suitable for FTTH gets some new impetus from vendors and service providers. The future cannot be simply plotted against increasing fixed-line bandwidth.”
Connected Planet’s take,
Dan O’Shea:
The report may be more timely for markets outside the U.S., where FTTH hasn’t gotten much of a foothold yet. But Verizon’s winding-down of its FTTH expansion may support the Analysys Mason argument, too. The report comes at an interesting time, when broadband growth is slowing and many carriers appear to be letting copper-based DSL die a slow death. Now that they have promised consumers a fiber future, can carriers reshape their future visions around copper? How can it be promoted? “Copper: It’s not as fast as fiber, but it’s good enough for you — and cheaper for us” does not have a nice ring to it.
That’s our take on this. Let us know what you think in the comments section below:
It is important that people realize just how fast copper can be. As long as the performance is there, the consumer will be happy, fiber or copper. xDSL chipset vendors are very aware of this trend, they certainly do not want xDSL to disappear and are implementing features like bonding and vectoring to keep xDSL aka copper relevant.
This spring, I presented a FOA (Fiber Optic Association, Inc.) seminar on “what’s new” to an audience of about 60 high level communications people in Istanbul. I also toured the country and was pleasantly surprised to find every small village we drove through seemed to be connected on the aerial fiber optic backbone that has recently been installed – next to the gates of the archaeological site of Troy was a pole where three fiber trunks converged!
Our audience in Istanbul confirmed our research done for the seminar – few homes in Turkey had ever been connected on landlines but practically everyone had a cell phone and laptops using WiFi. Istanbul, as part of its role as European city of the year, had WiFi available everywhere – check your email before going into the Blue Mosque or Topkapi Palace! (See the photos at http://www.thefoa.org/foanl-04-10.html )
Turkey, like India and much of Africa, has never been “wired” for phone service, so as they expand communications nationwide, it has gone to wireless with a fiber backbone. There are more than 5 times as many cellular phone users as landlines.
In Turkey, like much of the world outside Europe and urban US, the FTTH/DSL argument is moot – you can’t upgrade landlines that don’t exist. Furthermore, all the world has adopted a “mobile lifestyle” that requires more backhaul on fiber and more wireless spectrum. Copper? What’s copper?
So I suspect this report is focused on the densely urban UK/European markets.
And while doing research on the market, I found evidence that the US broadband market is saturating – practically everybody that is on the Internet already has broadband and practically everybody that wants a PC has one (if they can afford it.) Thus the growth is in the Smart Phone/Apps market.
Jim Hayes
FOA
http://www.thefoa.org/
If we wait till the applications are available for the high bandwidth needs the fiber can fulfill then we have missed the boat on being consumer responsive. This guy must have stock in copper company.
The question is not whether copper can deliver TODAY’s services but whether it will support FUTURE services. Only makes sense to leverage your copper network for economic reasons for as long as possible, but the argument of copper vs. fiber going forward seems decided in favor of fiber. If it’s not, why are all long-haul networks fiber? Why are all the large deployments announced fiber based? Why is fiber being taken to towers?
DSL and associated copper network is already dead in the USA. It’s just a very big tree taking some time to die. It still looks alive, but only because it is so big. I have 12 Meg service from AT&T U-verse and that is already too slow. Not to mention constant blips and outages becasue the local (already upgraded to the maximum) coax parts coming from the fiber-to-the-curb boxes here are pushed to the absolute limit (not my words – these are the words of the AT&T service guys that have visited my house). On-line gamers on Verizon’s Fios have a disticnt advantage now over even my 12 meg service.
Copper guys give it up. It’s over.