Well, FIOS is a fiber platform – it does not know what service runs over it.  Moreover, FIOS is a fiber termination directly into a home or business.

Why do I bring this up?  Let’s play connect the dots.

First, for disclosure purposes, I am a fiber bigot – dark, dim or lit – I am a fiber bigot. I guess one can say I have diversity towards and sensitivity to optical fiber.  Lit fiber provides a host of spectrum colors as well beyond dark and dim.  I am like part of a fiber Optic Rainbow Coalition – I like all the things fiber can do.

Today I happen to read that Motorola has sold off its Fiber-To-The-Pedestal (FTTP) business and is keeping its Fiber-to-The-Home (FTTH) business of products.  For those of you still relying on Ma Bell, “to the pedestal” results in the last point between the pedestal and the building/home are copper.  For those looking at the “H” in FTTH – once again, whether it’s a home or building – the fiber strands do not discriminate.

Question: Why did Motorola sell off FTTP business but not FTTH interests?

Another article I read from Infonetics Research states that video will triple in consumption by 2013.  For sake of connecting the dots, let’s say Infonetics Research is half-right with their forecast.

Cisco also announced a new product this week.  This product is geared to the television set to provide – get this — affordable video conferencing.  Sure there will be early adopters, but it is fairly important Cisco is making such a capability available targeted to households.

Connect the dots … what medium can handle this with scale, reliability, speed and lowest/cost per bit?  Copper?  Coax? EVDO? 3G? 4G? LTE? WiMax?  BPL? Fiber?

I’ll let you be the judge.

By the way — those televisions supporting high-definition video – its 30 megabits a channel.

Connect the dots my friends – unless you are moving, you want to have a direct fiber connection.

Motorola is making a move, Cisco is making a move, and Infonetics if half right…which tells me the legacy networks are incapable from a physics perspective.

Then again, this past week, our government issued a definition of Broadband for America as a measure: 768 kilobits.  Can someone give me the math on watching a high-definition video or real time program via IPTV over a 768 kilobit link?

This antitrust initiative, my dear readers, is going nowhere.  I give it a big yawn.

Isn’t it ironic though?  On one hand, the DOJ is clamoring anti-trust against the large wireless carriers for being too big (too big to fail???) while on the other hand, our Treasury and the Congress are working feverishly to nationalize (aka “make big”) our banking system (too big to fail??).  What sweet irony!  Pure Beltway magic – Walt Disney is blushing.

A new telecom super hero organization has popped up in the headlines seeking justice against those bad actors, the ILECs.  The NoChokePoints Coalition (www.nochokepoints.org) is leading the charge to have the government redress the inequities of special access service pricing from the ILECs.  Translated: we don’t want to actually spend capital on infrastructure of our own or alternative carriers, but we want the ILECs infrastructure for cheap – legacy infrastructure at that!

To call it straight, this is the same old tired arguments previously made before the FCC against the ILECs resulting in a lot of lawerying and lobbying only to eventually, once again, have a Federal Court rule in favor of the ILEC under the law.  In particular, the Communications Act of 1996.

Ever watch a dog chase its tail?  It’s sad.  The dog is really suffering from a psychosis.

I have written about this before and will summarize it again here:  It has been 13-years since CA 1996 was enacted, I am sorry that in, 13-years, certain CLECs have not figured out or invested into getting off Ma Bells teat.  What more do you want, another 13-years to figure things out?

I am glad, in the short term, that you played the arbitrage to grow a top line.  However, margin growth and profits do matter in the long run.  And you are not going to get margin growth riding on the back of Ma Bell … plain and simple.  The ILEC controls your costs if you rent from them … they are not your friend.

Banking on change in the Beltway due to the elections? Relying on the government?  Trusting the government to lower your costs after 13-years?  All I can say about trusting the government – go ask an American Indian.

There are transport options available beyond Ma Bell–you just need to pay the going rate.  Don’t be hypocritical, complaining on one side that special access prices are too high, while telling alternative providers unless you price below Ma Bell, you are not an option.  Instead of viewing short term interests, pay the going rate with a non-Ma Bell transport provider so they can build out even more facilities you can take advantage of.   Stop plowing cash for special access into Ma Bell who is taking your money and building out fiber optic transport and access that you legally have no access to directly which is also increasing the ILECs competitive advantage over you daily.

All due respect to the members and concept of our new super hero, NoChokePoints Coalition, but this is one big yawn.

Ultimately, the ILECs will see the FCC in court and history will repeat itself.  The dog is chasing its tail again.

The joke is on you America!

Just before the holiday weekend, the Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA) was issued by the Federal government to begin the process of building broadband infrastructure under the Broadband Technology Opportunity Program (BTOP).  The NOFA is over 120 pages long – before you get to the actual application form to be released on July 7th.

So what’s the joke?

We finally have a definition of Broadband in America by our Government.  Such high standards, goals and ambition – I am in awe! Let me quote from page 18 of the document:

“Broadband means providing two-way data transmission with advertised speeds of at least 768 kilobits (kbps) downstream and at least 200 kbps upstream to end users, or providing sufficient capacity in the middle mile project to support the provision of broadband services to end users.”  (Yes, that is not a typo it is kilobits, akin to a step above dial-up.  Not megabytes or gigabytes or petabytes or terabytes or exabytes… just kilobits.)

Those spineless, buggy whip wonders within the Beltway.  When you use this as a data point, technically speaking, if you have a telephone on copper or a cable TV service you can be readily served.  This places our penetration rates over 95%.  A feel good country at a feel good moment in time … politicians can now claim what they have done to you – I mean for you.

Let’s see…Australia – going to 1 gigabit nationally in 4 years.  South Korea ibid.  Japan ibid. Tasmania ibid …. Need I go on?

America is ranked 17th in the world for Broadband access speeds and I am sure this will move us up the dial … Not.

We need to resurrect JFK from the dead; he understood vision and prosperity for America.  We can gigabit America in less time than it took to put a man on the moon and at a fraction of the cost.

My favorite word selection in the above definition is; “advertised speeds.”  That’s a beauty!

Happy 233rd Birthday America!  At this rate, there is a comeback for the Telegraph and Pony Express —  that would create jobs also!

The ponies are green.

Bernie Madoff.  Remember him–the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time?

After first being alerted nine years ago about possible investment fraud behavior on the part of Mr. Madoff, the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) has taken action.

After already having started a 150-year sentence in the Federal slammer, the SEC has just informed Mr. Madoff that he is now barred from the securities business.

Take that Bernie!

Headline:  Michael Jackson is Dead

Dateline:  June 25, 2009

Headline:  The Web Collapses Under The Weight Of Michael Jackson’s Death

Wake up America … if something really big happens (Think Crazy Man with nukes in North Korea), you can’t count on the web.

The government infrastructure programs and future Policy need to require minimum bandwidth delivery of 100 megabits – the proof is in the pudding.  I think it should not  only be a global economic imperative for the US of A competitiveness for REAL broadband over fiber but also in the interests of Public Safety and National Security.

Fiber access … plain and simple.

Something big happens (Think Crazy man with nukes in Iran), only the rural folks will have connectivity as major centers crash.

I wrote about Forbearance Petitions extensively in the latter half of 2008–please visit the Telecom Straight Shooter Blog Archives for a refresher.

Today I read in the Wall Street Journal that–after being denied Forbearance Relief by the FCC in 2007–a federal appeals court has once again told the FCC that you were wrong in denying said Forbearance.  This is not the first or last time the FCC has lost in court versus an ILEC at the urging of CLECs, if I were keeping count there has been scores of losses.  The ILECs just might be undefeated.

This time Verizon won in court.  They want relief to raise wholesale prices to those carriers that rent (leach) off of them in Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Virginia Beach, Va. Take a look at the size of these markets – there is plenty of competition and that is what Verizon stated in their denied petition by the FCC in 2007.  A few years later,  lots of lawyer$, and what do we have?  Go look at it again, Mr. FCC–and this time apply the standards under the
Communications Act of 1996 and as amended! History just repeating itself!  Definition of insanity anyone?

Here is the bottom line since 1996:  CLECs why are you fighting to give money to your largest competitor to rent their legacy copper facilities or special access as they deploy fiber optics you can’t have access?

Why do you enjoy funding your largest competitor and all those back office costs to “bond” with them?  Why are you jacking up their IRR’s on legacy facilities to the benefit of the ILECs share owners and not yours?  What is this OCD in repeating over and over and over the same arguments with the FCC only to get taken out to the wood shed for another butt whipping by the Federal Court?

For god sakes, you have had 13 years to figure out how NOT to do business with your largest competitor but somehow the legacy crack cocaine they have you on is irresistible.

I would like a few CLECs to go add up all their ILEC rental fee’s paid since 1996, lawyer fee’s for arguing with the ILECs, lawyer regulatory filing fee’s, fee’s paid to lobbyists, political party contributions, ILEC related back office capital & expense, cost of churn, the loss of goodwill when Ma Bell did not perform and you got the black-eye plus 6% annual interest.  Now, look at this number and try to figure out how you could have spent the cash to compete differently with
Ma Bell and what your returns might have been using this cash as capital for hard, fixed assets that you own and hold on a balance sheet.  And, oh yes, this disciplined approach would have required planned growth, not just top line growth like the Real Smart Guys on Wall Street advocated.

I don’t know of any rehab for OCD-related CLEComania that can’t get off the ILEC’s legacy crack cocaine. As every day goes by, and we are witnessing bandwidth exploding for real (not like Wall Street said back in 1999-2000 — remember those Real Smart Guys?), the ILEC legacy
infrastructure is not and can not keep up.  Even crazy AT&T is rethinking U-Verse aka Fiber-To-The-Pedestal (FTTP) and Cable Companies remain in denial that coax is not robust enough to be competitive.  Wireless is not fiber, it has its access niche in more remote areas.

So, with Verizon’s latest win on behalf of ILECs everywhere, it’s just history repeating itself once again.

It’s time to get off the hamster wheel and out of the cage the ILECs watch you conduct business from as their personal economic experiment of legacy return rates continues only to be accelerated by future/additional Forbearance Petitions being approved.

The only people making money out of this legacy model are Ma Bell, the lawyer$ and lobbyists.

If you owned a restaurant, and the Chef burned it down once, would you hire that Chef again?

How about if the Chef burned your restaurant down twice?

I still wrestle with how CEO’s and/or CFO’s that have burned down multiple companies or the same company multiple times somehow keep showing up and getting yet another shot in the kitchen.  Doesn’t anyone do a background check?  Does anyone check to see if they went to Culinary School?

How about the financial people that continually back the Chef?  Maybe a little investment in a fire suppression system would be in order first.

I know…everyone in America is a victim. The Chef can’t be responsible.

Then there are the Chefs that run great restaurants and don’t burn them down.  But, they are too small of Cheftom to possibly handle a “too big to fail” restaurant.

And then there are the financial investor Chefs in the kitchen with the Chef “helping out” …

Life is funny.

And now I see a video clip from the Beltway–talk about saying and or knowing nothing. You just won’t believe what you are hearing in this clip. And it concerns trillions of our tax dollars which are not accounted for … yes, that’s trillions with a “T.”

If this doesn’t get your blood boiling, nothing will.

The Beltway: The Disneyland of the North.

This whole car thing…Ed’s appointment, including the Car Czar Rattner, is getting more and more bizarre.

Let’s start with America first, a habit I have of doing.  We have an unenjoyment (unemployment) rate over 9%.  Amongst the 9% of people not working in America, who want to work, we can’t find anyone else for these positions except Whitacre and Rattner.

Ed Whitacre was not nominated by the GM Management Committee.  Ed Whitacre is not being voted upon by the shareholders.  Ed Whitacre was appointed Chairman post-BK (chosen) by the Treasury Department!  The same Treasury Department headed up by a guy named Geitner, an ex-Goldman Sachs hash slinger.  The same Geitner socializing, I mean nationalizing, our banks to “save” them. Think TARP with strings attached and changing the rules, stress tests and other gimmicks.

President Obama just appointed his 16th Czar who is accountable to no one.  This is the Salary Czar.

Wouldn’t you think that a Salary Czar might be against hiring Whitacre on?  After all, Mr. Whitacre is living off of a $158 million AT&T pension … just like most other AT&T retirees.

Sure I know, he and other government-picked–I mean, independent–Board Directors will work for a dollar a year until things get better at GM.  However, Ed Whitacre openly admits he knows nothing about the auto industry and has no experience manufacturing anything.  So, at a dollar a year, I guess you get what you pay for.  Even unenjoyment pays more than a dollar a year.

(Please don’t tell me how a Chairman is focused on strategy because you would be wrong — a Chairman’s primary duty, I think it is called a Fiduciary Duty, is to make sure all shareholder interests are represented at the table … emphasis on the word “all.”  Many companies have separated the Chairman’s role from the CEO’s role for this exact reason – CEO focuses on strategy and execution; Chairman focuses on shareholder interests.)

Are we sure there is no other choice in the 9% unemployed that could use this job?  A $158 million pension package … how does Ed get by?  Really sorry to see a guy leave retirement to make ends meet. But social security being the mess it is in, can you blame him?

Now the Car Czar, Steve Rattner.  Stevie has a reported net worth of at least $188 million, some say over $600 million.  He is also building a small $18 million cottage on Martha’s Vineyard.  Like our buddy Ed, I just don’t know how he makes ends meet.

In his role as Car Czar he is not accountable to anyone in terms of our Constitution–not even Ed.  But if recent history is any indication of the future – if Ed and the Car Czar disagree — bye-bye Eddie!

Our Car Czar does have some history in the auto industry.  In the recent past he invested into Cerberus Holdings.  Yes– the Cerberus Holdings that took Chrysler private.  Yes–the Chrysler with TARP money, who is now owned by Fiat; and well, let’s say Cerberus did not do quite well in the deal.  Steven also owns $1000.00 in Ford Motor Company stock in a family trust. Seems qualified to me.

But Rattner’s specialty is really deal making and knowing how to invest in really good things! Yet another Real Smart Guy from Wall Street at the helm!  I am not quite sure but Stevie may have been involved in some of those credit default swap things that are way too sophisticated for people like you and I to understand.  I wonder how Stevie made out with his packaged paper?

Ed and Stevie probably crossed paths years ago.  As Ed was putting Humpty-Dumpty  (Ma Bell, aka: the ILECs) back together again by acquisitions which the government turned a blind-eye upon, I am fairly confident an investment banking firm that Mr. Rattner was with may have been involved in a few of those transactions … for a fee of course and independent judgment.

My point:  we should all feel good that Ed and Stevie share common history – the formation of a team nucleus for the new GM.

What about GM in all this?  Let’s see…  Senior secured bondholders were trashed (forget about contracts and that pesky Constitution).  Junior, unsecured debt became senior when converted into shares.  We have a monopolist as Chairman while the government under its Car Czar owns 62% of the new GM.

I really don’t see a happy ending to this story.  Do you?

That said, the sales process is a two way street and hopefully the end result creates a win-win, not only in a transaction, but also in building a forevermore relationship.  No one should walk away from the table feeling cheated, used or manipulated.  “No” is a very acceptable word to use reasonably in negotiations.

In previous lives, I have conducted business all over the globe.  I enjoyed conducting business in Japan the most.  Why?  It’s a cultural thing there – if a deal is not good for your Japanese counterpart they will say “no” and conversely you are expected to also do the same.  It’s a very honest way to conduct business with one party realizing that I can only get what I can afford or am willing to pay for, and the seller recognizing they can only negotiate to a certain point having a long term need to stay in business.  Also, by the way, Japanese customers prefer you stay in business if they buy from you.  It is definitely a different experience from other parts of the world.

Summarily, it’s all about The Golden Rule.

One of our sales folks at AFS whom is a professional, sent along a YouTube clip.  Though humorous, it speaks volumes of  how buyers sometimes try to conduct themselves which is frustrating to professional sales people. Though it is satire – it makes some good points.

Enjoy:

The softest pillow is a clear conscience.