Axia's Next Generation Network Solution

Three regulatory challenges must be addressed when discussing OTT broadcasting

noreply@blogger.com (Art Price) — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 15:02:00 +0000

Recently the CRTC requested comments from industry on Over-The-Top broadcasting in Canada. Over-The-Top, or OTT broadcasting refers to content providers that do not directly control the transmission of their material. Services such as NetFlix that stream movies over the Internet are an example of OTT providers.

We believe that technology has revolutionized the media world and NGNs provide the fibre backbone that enable Smartphones, tablets, video streaming, etc. It is important to remember that the same fibre infrastructure that is used to support entertainment is also used for important economic drivers like ecommerce as well as delivering education and health services to Canadians.

It is our belief that the current debate around OTT really comes down to regulated content (broadcast) vs. unregulated content (Internet). Witness the fact that all the traditional broadcasters also provide OTT content on their respective websites.

The current challenges have arisen because the concept of OTT is a reflection of the traditional telecommunications/broadcasting model supported by an outdated regulatory framework.

We believe that there are three regulatory challenges that need to be pulled apart and addressed separately.

The Internet should not be regulated and the content running over it needs to be deregulated. The old model integrates the network with the content/media/web services. The new model that has emerged has the end user/consumer choosing the media/web services they want independent from the network service provider they use. It’s time to seriously consider moving to the new industry construct of NGNs that are focused on providing connectivity to end users, that is a separate industry sector from the new content/media/web services sector. Canada’s regulatory framework should then reflect this structural separation. As a recognized global player, we have worked with governments that have tackled this issue head on. In our experience structural separation of the network transport layer from the content/media/web services layer provides the end user with competitive choices for both service and content providers.
Regulate the network infrastructure to ensure cost and quality. The regulation of the cost and performance of network connectivity should be an entirely separate topic from the regulatory framework that the Government of Canada implements to maintain a public policy objective and cultural bias to support Canadian content. Additionally, regulations could be required to level the digital divide and ensure non metropolitan communities in Canada have access to broadband fibre infrastructure and connectivity. This would deal with network access prices recently raised by the Prime Minister.
If the Government of Canada is concerned about the concentration of media rights then it should deal with it using existing anti competition and antitrust laws rather than trying to regulate the Internet.

We would recommend that the CRTC segment the review of its policy framework into the Network, Media and Competition components as suggested above so that the issues can be looked at without the presumption that the incumbent cable and telcos are the vehicle through which each of these issues are tackled.

This approach would set the stage for the Government of Canada to develop policy to solve the rural urban digital connectivity divide.

Covage networks earn government high-speed designation

noreply@blogger.com (Art Price) — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 15:30:00 +0000

- written by Jean-Michel Soulier, President, Axia Networks France -

Three industrial areas served by Covage’s Next Generation Network have been given a digital “seal of approval” by the French government.

The ZA THD designation (Very High Speed Activity Zone) was established by the Ministry of Economy, Finance and Industry to show businesses where they can access reliable, high-speed, high-capacity broadband. The government actively promotes broadband access as a key economic development tool and Covage has responded with its own parallel marketing plan called THD-Zone.

Only 11 business parks in France have been granted the quality label, which places Covage in the first place amongst other operators.

The first three ZA THD-designated industrial areas served directly by Covage are:

Jean Monnet in Vert-Saint Denis, on the perimeter of Seine-et-Marne’s Sem@for77 network segment east of Paris;
Les Sauzes in Clermont-Ferrand, on the Clermont Community’s Public Initiative Network in south central France; and
The Montpellier Airport Park on the southern Mediterranean coast.

Our THD-Zone plan covers an area that includes more than 10,000 companies in 228 Activity Zones across France. Twelve areas served by Covage benefit from the targeted marketing and communication plan: Angoulême; Caen; Chalon/Saône; Clermont-Ferrand; Nîmes; Toulouse and the region southeast of Toulouse; Arras; Creusot-Montceau; Dunkerque; Seine-et-Marne and Hérault.

Many of these businesses are very aware that being able to connect to Covage’s NGN gives them a competitive edge, as well as access to many more value-added network services. The Government quality label will help to encourage companies to contact Retail Service Providers in their area, which they can do through a dedicated ZA THD website.

Initiatives like the ZA THD designation, and government-supported Fibre to the Home (FTTH) projects such as the Chevry-Cossigny pilot project in Seine-et-Marne, demonstrate how a government can offer simple, practical support when it believes broadband Internet access is critical national infrastructure.

Achieving the best outcome for Rural Canadians in the next spectrum auction

noreply@blogger.com (Art Price) — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 18:20:00 +0000

The Government of Canada, through Industry Canada, is currently engaged in a consultation process to determine how to release spectrum licences for up to 84 MHz of wireless spectrum in the 700 MHz frequency band. The spectrum has been made available by the decommissioning of analog UHF TV with the move across North America to digital TV.

The federal government has already decided that this spectrum should be made available for various mobile broadband applications. What it wants now is input on how the spectrum should be auctioned and regulated for such services.

Spectrum is limited and lucrative in High Density Markets

Anyone involved in the mobile broadband space will know that spectrum is a very limited commodity and in recent years has become extremely expensive to obtain. The last major auction of spectrum in Canada was the 105 MHz of Advanced Wireless Services (AWS) band in 2008, which netted the federal coffers $4.3 billion. The value is driven by its ability to create profits in metropolitan and high density markets.

The 700 MHz spectrum has unique characteristics that make it extremely desirable in rural broadband applications. Its comparatively low frequency allows for a longer range and is better than higher frequency spectrum at penetrating buildings, which gives end users a more reliable signal when they move indoors.

The trade-off is that these lower frequencies require larger antennas, which are harder to fit into handheld devices. All things being equal, a 700 MHz antenna needs to be about twice the size of a comparable AWS antenna. That means you either add a 700 MHz antenna which makes the handheld devices larger and less convenient, or you use their existing antennas which do not handle 700 MHz well, the end user loses calls, and you have almost entirely cancelled out 700 MHz’s benefits of increased range and penetration.

In rural low density markets the cost of the wireless tower and backhaul infrastructure makes any end user broadband service relatively expensive even if no purchase price is attributed to the 700 MHz spectrum.

Luckily it is feasible to split the licences into those that apply to high density markets and separate licences that target solely the rural low density markets.

Choosing the best answer

The Government of Canada has two choices here:

1) Throw the new 700 MHz spectrum into the pool of existing cellular mobile frequencies, adding slightly to the overall capacity while foregoing the unique range and penetration benefits of this spectrum; or

2) Split the 700 MHz spectrum into rural and urban licenses so that rural Canada is not lost yet again in the lucrative urban wireless pool.

The AWS auction held in 2008 took the first approach, setting aside 40% of the spectrum for acquisition by new entrants to the wireless space. The net effect of this approach in rural Canada has been insignificant. The new entrants have focused on cherry picking the metropolitan areas and have not had any material impact on rural broadband.

Auctioning off the 700 MHz spectrum gives us one shot at bringing next generation network connectivity and all its benefits to rural Canada, and rural Canadians cannot afford to miss this opportunity.

Rural is Different

With the exception of the mandatory telephone voice provision of the old Public Switched Telephone call network, telecom policy has failed rural Canada miserably. This is because the incremental revenue does not cover incremental infrastructure expenses and the incumbent telcos simply do not invest in rural Canada irrespective of their “promises”. The original copper telephone lines were built under a regulated monopoly framework through which the rural network costs were pooled with urban costs. This pooling approach has never applied to broadband, so rural residents and businesses have been left behind.

Now, with the smart phone reliance on data traffic more than voice traffic, rural mobility options are becoming limited to the mobility service provided by the telephone incumbent because competing mobility networks that can handle large data traffic only exist in the urban areas.

Absent regulation of the broadband service sector, rural residents are subordinated to an unregulated monopoly incumbent carrier charging whatever the market will bear on both its legacy copper network and its mobility wireless network unless there is an alternative supplier of broadband services.

The foundation of a lasting optimal rural broadband service solution must have the following characteristics:

· An independent broadband service sector that can compete with the incumbent on a sustained basis.

· Open Neutral Access to a fibre backhaul grid that is not controlled by the incumbent and is priced on the same basis as exists in metropolitan markets. (This eliminates the distance dislocation of the rural community.)

· Access to economics of shared towers that are not under the control of the incumbent. (Rural markets cannot support duplicated tower infrastructure or incumbent monopoly tower access pricing.)

· Access to the 700 MHz spectrum in rural markets without the burden of a licence purchase fee. (The licences should be awarded based on a competitive bid in respect of quality, cost and the coverage of the broadband service.)

This approach would maximize the rural coverage for broadband without depending on the government for grants and ongoing financial support.

The auction solution is simple

There is a remarkably simple solution.

First, structure the auction blocks into rural and urban regions, such that the urban licences do not interfere with rural areas, and allow all of the entrants to compete for all of the urban licences.

Second, set aside the rural areas for a new kind of auction. The significant cost of reaching Canada’s unserved rural regions – creating the infrastructure of fibre and towers – does not allow for any capital to be spent on acquiring spectrum. Instead, bidders should be required to bid three parameters for each geographical region and each frequency “block” of rural spectrum they want in that region:

· The percentage of rural customers in that block that will be reached.

· The service options including quality and quantity that will be offered to the rural customer.

· What fees that they will charge for their services.

Spectrum should then be awarded to those bidders with the best mix of these parameters and winning bidders should be given a finite time period in which to meet those obligations. Bidders could include any organization willing to make the commitments, and should explicitly include interested jurisdictional governments.

Alberta has a head start

The Government of Alberta has taken a leadership position on solving the rural broadband issue through its Rural Broadband Initiative and therefore may be best positioned to leverage the 700 MHz spectrum for the benefit of rural Albertans. Alberta already has an independent broadband service sector, a provincewide fibre backhaul grid and has made a start on the tower pool. Consequently, Alberta is uniquely positioned to leverage the 700 MHz spectrum for the benefit of rural Albertans.

I believe that in Alberta (or in any other province that shows such leadership), the provincial government or its agent should be given all of the rural 700 MHz spectrum under a rural set-aside, at no cost to government, provided that:

· The government in turn does not charge mobile broadband application providers for it.

· The government makes it available to its independent broadband service providers in an open access model similar to that which is the foundation for the Alberta SuperNet. It would be made available on an ongoing basis to allow for incremental growth in coverage, and to allow smaller providers equal opportunity at bidding for access.

· The government seeks the widest possible, economically practical rural coverage and agrees to return any spectrum to Industry Canada for any rural areas not eventually covered by some licensed service provider.

The incumbent would simply have to compete with the independent sector in the rural market

In Alberta there is a growing wireless service provider sector comprised of more than 70 independent WISPs that create an alternative to the incumbent. Key enablers for the Alberta independents are backhaul and tower access services provided by Axia. Axia’s services are enabled by a provincewide fibre grid that interconnects Alberta’s rural communities with the metro communities called the Alberta SuperNet. In addition, Alberta is implementing a provincewide emergency first responders’ wireless communication system that uses frequencies in the 700 MHz spectrum. This system will add substantially to the wireless tower infrastructure in rural Alberta.

This approach would also create the shared infrastructure economics for the licensed mobility sector that is intended to compete with Telus but otherwise would be relegated to roaming on the Telus network in rural Alberta.

How can the quality of your connection service be based on vague "up to" promises?

noreply@blogger.com (Art Price) — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 23:05:00 +0000

These Next Generation Networks (NGNs) have compelling performance characteristics in terms of flexible functionality, quality and quantity of service. The underlying costs are attractive when compared to the aggregate benefits that they can deliver. It is clear that the wireless sector, smart sensor-based technologies, Software as a Service and Cloud Computing all depend on ubiquitous fibre grids. The Internet has been a major commercial force for more than five years and is clearly the communications foundation for the future. The core services provided by these NGNs are various types of bandwidth services or as we call them – transport and connectivity services. In the provision of these critical services how can we still be having debates around “net neutrality”, “open access”, “do not compete with your customer”? How can the dominant description of the performance of your connection service be defined by vague theoretical maximums such as “up to 5Mbps” as opposed to the minimum service you will receive?

The answer is that the dominant provider of Internet service is still the incumbent and the incumbent still sees it as an “add on service” not a core service. Can you think of another purchase that you make that is defined as you get “up to xxx”? I can’t. If there was any competition in the Internet transport and connectivity sector there would be actual commitments made to the customers that would differentiate the product or service from the competitor.

The net neutrality debate exists because users of the network see the network owner as having an advantage in the delivery of their content or other services that is inappropriate and needs to be reined in by regulators. The evidence is clear as all one has to do is look at the way the transport and connectivity services are priced and described when they are not bundled with other services. No industry that depends solely on the success of these services would avoid making meaningful commitments in respect of the performance of the service sold. So, from the customer of transport connectivity services perspective it is critical that the owner of the effective monopoly network not be allowed to compete with its customers in the web services sector. This would ensure sustained functional competition would exist in the web services sector.

At this point, I feel compelled to make a couple of rather basic points about business because I am often confronted by leaders in public policy or leaders in the telecom industry saying in one way or another that “telecom is different.” For instance, they can conclude that two vertically integrated competitors is actually competition in telecom industry for backhaul, when they would never come to a comparable conclusion in any other industry.

My first point is that customers will only pay the lesser of what they can afford to pay and what they have to pay based on their choice of alternatives. The second business fundamental point is the strategic imperative for any business to maintain margins is to come up with a service or product that the customer needs but which the competition has barriers to match. Neither of these are new or groundbreaking concepts but legacy telcos have been making extraordinary profits by marrying these two fundamentals while stiff arming regulators and limiting competition at the transport and connectivity layer. Current telecommunications regulations are simply the wrong base from which to start the rate setting framework for NGNs that are focused on end user outcomes.

The regulator can only deliver in the interests of the NGN’s customers after eliminating the fundamental conflict of the network owner competing with its customers in the web services sector. This focuses the rate setting issue on the transport and connectivity rates. Competition will work for price setting for web services. So, what is the appropriate rate setting approach for transportation and connectivity services? Net neutrality and open access both come down to “who pays what price for which transport services.” We have been successfully providing neutral, open access pricing of transport/connectivity services in North America, Europe and Asia. In each case we develop prices within the context of public policy objectives. Sound public policy effectively links any rate setting approaches to desirable public policy outcomes while minimizing undesirable implications. Some of the rate principles that are lively debated are:

• Should costs be allocated to end users based on the specific network elements that they use?
This is the “distance from the global gateway spread over the size of the market” debate. Most governments are enlightened enough to decide that from a public policy point of view this basic communication infrastructure should not cost more to access in a small distant market than in a big market. The minimum is to accomplish this at the “community interconnect” level so that the differences are only related to local access costs within the community as opposed to where the community is relative to the global gateway.

• Should big retailers get wholesale volume discounts over small retailers?
Since big retailers do not cost any less to provide the same services to than small retailers, there should not be any volume discount because of size. From a competition point of view why would one make small niche or local retailers less competitive than the market muscle players? They should compete on a level playing field in respect of access costs to basic infrastructure.

• Should the NGN owners be able to choose to charge different rates based on who the customer is?
The opportunity to differentiate pricing to different Retail Service Providers (RSPs) based on who they are (as opposed to what they are purchasing) appears to be the essence of the net neutrality debate in the USA. Obviously if the owner of the network can choose to charge users more, directly or indirectly simply based on who they are, then the premium is like a royalty which would only be sustainable if that party and their customers had no alternative. This would not fit any effective market-based competitive theory which should be the foundation of regulation focused on creating a competitive market for the benefit of end users. On the other hand, government policy could determine that the public interest is delivered by having a special reduced access rate for targeting a low income group and have the shortfall made up by higher rates for all others. This would be workable if the special interest group was small relative to the others and the rates were still accretive.

• Should everyone pay the same price to have access to the Internet?
While it is often argued by net neutrality supporters that somehow everyone should have access to the World Wide Web on the same basis irrespective of the demands they put on the Internet, the use of the Internet has outgrown such simple concepts. End users have a wide divergence in the demands that they put on the network. These diverging demands drive markedly different costs. In thinking through rate structures, one must weigh the value of simplicity with the value of differentiation in both cases from the end users’ perspective. While no one is able to forecast the future in respect of how NGNs will be used, there are some trends that already demonstrate that different rates for different services are in the end users’ interests as long as everyone has equal access to choose which service they need. Appropriate service differentiators include:

Differentiation of the quality of service in the context of the reliability of real time network performance. The network delivery costs are much less if an end user does not care whether they face a 1 - 5 second delay instead of needing a 5 - 20 millisecond delay. Appropriate rate structuring would provide different rates to enable end users to choose their consumption approach and the network to optimize the effective use of capacity, thereby delivering more effective capacity for the same cost. This approach is differentiation by offering various levels of quality of bandwidth (i.e. standard, interactive, real time, etc.)
Differentiation of rates for throughput as between peak time demand vs. the “graveyard shift.” Network capacity is driven primarily by peak time demand but the engineering approach creates capacity that is essentially 24 hour in nature. The result is that some differentiation in rates between peak and off peak would result in fewer costs to customers that given some commercial incentive would shift their demand from peak to off peak. This grows the capacity of the network at peak time at no cost overall.
Differentiation of rates based on physical redundancy of network paths. Some services are seen as essential by end users such that they need smart switched redundant paths so that they are not exposed to a fibre cut on one path. Most customers are not interested in incurring the incremental cost for the marginal improvement in service reliability.
Differentiation of rates by functionality being used. The ICT sector has proven that where consumers are mass adopters the economies of scale of both software and hardware are powerful. These economies of scale only happen with standards based products and services. Video products and services standards will evolve for this reason. As they evolve, NGNs should offer video transport services that enable the delivery of standards based video services. Customers would then be able to purchase the video functionality that they need.

There are a number of other public policy rate questions. In my experience, they are all handled well when the party owning the fibre grid is a special purpose entity that is only involved in that business and its revenues are regulated on an approved eligible cost with efficiency incentives basis. Transparency combined with the single purpose gives the regulator the capacity to effectively determine the public interest. The shareholder interests are appropriately covered by the eligibility of recovering cost of investment and earning incentives. The structure focuses both the NGN owner and the regulator on the interests of the end users.

If rates derived from the recovery of efficiently incurred costs are too high to function in the market then the public policy choice can be to subsidize the NGN. In rural economies these subsidies can be focused on strategically targeted one time capital grant funds to interconnect small distant markets to global gateways after which the economies of scale offered by the NGN can fund ongoing operational costs. The regulatory framework ensures that the government and the end user get value for money on a lasting basis.

What is a justifiable cost to government and to the end user of a Next Generation fibre network?

noreply@blogger.com (Art Price) — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 18:15:00 +0000

As noted in my previous post, the underlying justification for a Next Generation Network is neither a phone call nor a TV service. While the value proposition for each of these functions is more compelling under a NGN, the old networks get the job done.

The true justification for Next Generation Networks is the unlimited evolution of new digital services. These services will deliver improved outcomes in critical social areas such as health care, education, “smart” energy management, and environmental performance. These services will also deliver economic productivity improvements and a plethora of services targeted at individual personal performance and entertainment.

If there was no legacy network, it would be obvious that a fibre grid integrated with mobility wireless would be necessary to underpin even the most basic economic development. This is apparent to developing economies, which are bypassing the copper to the premise approach.

Legacy copper simply cannot compete either in cost or performance. The cost justification challenge for economies that already have legacy networks is: do the “incremental” benefits justify the costs?

There is typically a lot of “noise” from incumbents on the cost equation. This is understandable when you consider it is in the incumbent’s commercial interest to add the cost of the fibre grid to the cost of the copper grid that they already own. If this cost-plus model was accepted, then the end user would effectively be paying for two networks while using only one.

This is, of course, a good gig for the incumbent if they can get it.

Most incumbents argue that their legacy copper network is not a monopoly, or alternatively that network access prices should not be set by regulators based on depreciated costs. These arguments have tended to work in the past because their original monopoly was on phone calls and the regulations they worked within applied to phone call rates, and it is hard to transition these regulations into “network access” regulations.

The end result is that typically, incumbents make too much money from their legacy copper networks and therefore go to great lengths to avoid transitioning from the old copper network to a Next Generation Fibre to the Premise network.

In my view the primary cost focus should be on cost to the end user because ultimately it is about end user adoption. The objective should be to replace the copper with the fibre / wireless NGN while delivering the end user more value at the same price.

In most markets this can be achieved if the fibre network achieves high penetration; it is worth noting that legacy copper networks needed the same high penetration when they were implemented under a monopoly structure many years ago.

It is quite pivotal to understand that, at high penetration, often fibre can replace legacy copper without increasing the price to the end user. This would be the case in New Zealand and Australia, for example. The challenge is not the cost of the fibre but rather the risk of not achieving high penetration in the near term if the fibre faces competition from legacy copper. With the right regulatory and industry structure (a topic for another day) end users will get more value for the same money because next generation electronics are actually less costly, more flexible and higher performing than legacy electronics.

Progressive governments, pursuing the critical collective benefits that arise from NGNs, typically provide some form of financial support for the private sector. Experts in the private sector use this financial support to offset the near term market adoption risk that arises from competition with the legacy copper network.

In France and Singapore, the financial support that the private sector competes for takes the form of grant funding, amounting to 30 to 40 percent of the underlying costs of the network.

The New Zealand rural initiative (RBI) is appropriately based on a competitive tender for grant funding because of the low market density and significant distances involved. The New Zealand urban initiative (UFB) is not a grant, but rather it is based on a government equity investment in partnership with the private sector.

Under this model, the government investment is purchased by the private sector as customers choose to use the fibre-based services. With high penetration, this approach works for New Zealand’s urban areas because of the increased market density and shorter fibre build distances.

So if end users can get more value and choice without having to pay more and the government can justify the financial support given the compelling outcomes, what is the problem? Why is this so complicated and often controversial?

In my experience, the material complications arise from the commercial interests of private sector participants whose profits rely on the legacy network and the legacy network industry structure.

The only way end users can get more value for money on a sustainable basis depends on the implementation of the Next Generation fibre / wireless technologies. Equally important is the transformation of the industry into two segments: an appropriately regulated transport / connectivity sector; and a “Web Services” sector that is based on open and free competition.

In this transformed industry vertically integrated legacy industry players are faced with many new and, for them, confronting concepts: open access, net neutrality, no competing with your customer, structural separation, and operational separation. These are just a few of the industry structure issues that arise because government bodies and end users have concluded that the legacy industry structure is not performing in the country’s best interest.

Why go to all the trouble to transform from the legacy copper telecom world to the Next Generation fibre and wireless communications world?

noreply@blogger.com (Art Price) — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 21:48:00 +0000

The adjective “ultra-fast” oversimplifies and understates the underlying purpose and reasoning for making the transformation from copper to fibre.

While fibre-based services certainly are many times faster than copper-based services, they also are much more versatile, can be fit for purpose, can make distance within any country disappear and the key underlying fundamentals are “future proof.”

The concept of “versatility and fit for purpose” means that anything that can be digitized can be transported to anywhere on the fibre grid with the speed, priority and quality fit for its particular purpose. Anything that you can see, hear, measure or calculate can already be digitized, yet we are still in the early phase of harnessing the power of digital technologies. This versatile capacity to carry any digital traffic in any direction for any purpose is why legacy copper networks are out of date. Telephone networks were designed for voice only, cable networks were for broadcast TV; and they did this job well but these services are no longer the driver for demand. Like any other out-of-date plant, it is time to be replaced.

The ICT sector is just now graduating to a more mature industry structure that is based on providing end users with a professionally managed service as opposed to expecting the end user to be the technology integrator in order to make their PC work. This evolution is irreversible because the end users are demanding. They want higher performing, easier to use digital services that cost less. All of these outcomes can be accomplished by using Cloud Computing and Software as a Service delivered over a fibre-based Next Generation Network by professionals.

What does this mean? It means that Google, iTunes, and smart phones are just the very first wave of customer-centric services that are easy to use and provide a totally transformed value proposition. Next are all the sensor-based technologies that can monitor assets, a person’s life information, security and so on, bringing about a revolution in the way such things as health and education can be delivered. The limited performance and the cost of the legacy network at even moderate speeds and quality is the main factor limiting an explosion of individual customer-focused, professionally managed services that will improve your productivity, help you keep your knowledge base current, keep you in touch with those close to you, and provide you with personalized entertainment.

Why not wireless instead of fibre? Actually, I see fibre and wireless as fully complementary. It is already clear that the customer preference for use of a mobile phone is moving to subordinate the phone call to all the other services available on a smart mobile device. The other services are more bandwidth intensive than voice. Therefore successful adoption drives much larger connectivity requirements from the tower back to the world. The best answer is Next Generation Network fibre connectivity to the tower; copper simply can’t handle that traffic. Local WiFi in a home attached to Fibre to the Premise enables all the devices in the home without paying the cost of mobility. Fibre to the Tower combined with Fibre to the Premise creates the ideal combination with no compromise performance when at home and full functionality when on the move.

Services over fibre make distance disappear for end users without compromising either their performance or selection of services available to them. This is particularly important for geographies like New Zealand and Alberta, where everyone’s prosperity depends to a material degree on the competitiveness of the non-metropolitan-based industries.

The underlying fundamentals of a fibre grid working in tandem with wireless are future proof. The fibre is inert, creates no significant emissions, has a very long useful life and is made from readily available materials. Nothing travels faster than light and there is no friction or wear and tear. Routing, switching and optics costs are reducing and their performance increasing. Global standards for Internet Protocol are here to stay because end users demand global connectivity.

The case for transforming from copper to fibre / wireless is compelling from performance and “fit for the future” perspectives. It enables the digital economy and the knowledge economy. It enfranchises everyone that has access to it. The only legitimate question is, “Is the cost for the end user too high or the cost for the country prohibitive for the benefit delivered?”