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| D.C. squabbles won't affect broadband investment |
| Tuesday, 06 April 2010 15:40 |
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AT&T and Verizon are telling everyone in D.C. they will cut broadband spending heavily if they lose on NN and the Title I/Title II technicalities. There's one wall street guy who has this wrong, and they will make sure everyone in D.C. knows his comments. Carriers can't radically downsize because they have already cut broadband spending to the bone.
10 companies are over 85% of the market, with four - AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and Time Warner - about 70%. By looking at the plans of each, you can determine any large moves possible in U.S. broadband.
I'm checking with the companies and wall street analysts, but there just isn't enough left to cut. Most of D.C. gets things like this wrong because they are too lazy to look at "facts on the ground" - the actual buildouts of the large carriers.
Here's a recap, written quickly as the news breaks and hence sure to have an error or two. Do correct me, but I wanted to get the facts out before the errors spread too far. . Wireline: Fiber, cable, DSL Already deeply cut, the remainder unlikely to go for competitive reasons. The telcos are losing customers like mad where they haven't upgraded DSL, while DOCSIS 3.0 on the cable side is profitable and cheap. Verizon: No more FiOS except where required such as NYC. No other broadband upgrades planned anyway, although look for some DSL upgrades where tehy are losing customers.
AT&T: Not much more U-Verse in the pipeline All that's left they've committed to is a bit more U-Verse in 2011. Without U-Verse, they are so far behind cable they lose lines very rapidly. U-Verse is not that expensive to extend and they have no other investment planned. Other RLECs: Modest DSL upgrades is all they have planned Which, like AT&T, they feel they need to compete with cable. Cable: DOCSIS 3.0 is mostly done and cheap Comcast, Cablevision: Approaching 100% downstream. Upstream begun and cheap as well as strategic. Cox: Off the record, same Charter: Rapidly catching up now the finances are better, in order to fight telcos Time Warner: Publicly unknown, but it looks like the DOCSIS is pretty far along and unlikely to slow. Wireless: Strategic and competitive
Verizon wireless: 92% LTE coverage by 2013. Strategic for them to fill in the map, especially becaue until they do AT&T's upgraded 3G+ network will be much faster. They are far down the road to doing so, including tower leases, etc. So while the schedule mayVeri slip because it is very ambitious technically. they are not going to cut this, especially since it turns out to be not that expensive. AT&T wireless: Catchup on LTE starting in 2011 They need to do this to match VZ, but also because LTE is 70% cheaper by several measures. They will need the capacity. (See iPad, iPhone) Sprint, T-Mobile I don't see much room to cut unless they accept being non-competitive. What the heck can they still cut that's big? |
| Last Updated on Tuesday, 06 April 2010 16:37 |