Fiber to the Home at an Inflection Point
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FiberFiber toto thethe HomeHome AtAt anan InflectionInflection PointPoint What happens when the first big fiber deployments are completed? Is this the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning? By Masha Zager ■ Broadband Properties t the FTTH Conference this month, the industry offerings suggest that the appeal of fiber is wider than ever. is contemplating life after FiOS. Of course, Veri- (There’s more, too – we didn’t have room in the print edition Azon isn’t done with FiOS – it still has another mil- for international news.) lion or more homes to pass with fiber, as well as 3 million Passing the baton to smaller providers may have benefits homes already passed (3.5 million for TV) that are waiting in terms of bridging the digital divide. Some of these orga- to be marketed – not to mention 9 million more potential nizations have the luxury of being able to consider the long- customers to woo in existing FiOS markets (or perhaps 8 term profits and the community benefits that fiber enables; million, after the spinoff to Frontier). Somewhere along the answering to a city council, a cooperative board or an own- line, it will probably also upgrade the network, or portions ing family is very different from having to meet analysts’ of it, to 10GPON and add new services. quarterly earnings targets. Municipalities, cooperatives and Still, the actual rollout of FiOS is largely complete, and privately owned companies can build fiber networks in areas nothing else on the horizon looks quite as big. Some other that Verizon and other public companies can’t touch. In still large fiber deployments, including SureWest’s, are also com- other areas, grants and subsidized loans are making it pos- ing to an end. The impressive charts that we’ve published sible to build out fiber. for the last several years showing the dramatic expansion of In addition, as new services are introduced, the econom- FTTH will now begin to flatten out. ics of FTTH will shift. Elsewhere in this issue, James Salter However, as Joe Savage, president of the Fiber-to-the- of Atlantic Engineering Group calls smart-grid applications Home Council, points out in this issue, the underlying a “revolutionary opportunity” for FTTH networks, and this drivers for FTTH haven’t gone away; if anything, they’re roundup includes several deployments in which the smart grid stronger than ever. As this very long deployment roundup was a primary instigator – including Opelika, Ala., which just demonstrates, many telcos, cable companies, municipali- held a successful referendum on community broadband. So ties, property owners and others are convinced that fiber is the key to meeting the bandwidth demands of consumers, there are many reasons to believe that the 2010 inflection businesses, cellular providers and utilities. All these reports point is only the end of the beginning. of new projects, expansions, upgrades and improved service – MZ New Broadband Stimulus Awards The Departments of Agriculture and allocated by the statutory deadline. On did not even appear to meet the weak Commerce must award the entire broad- the same date, the USDA Rural Utili- National Broadband Plan goals of 4 band stimulus appropriation (now down ties Service announced awards to 126 Mbps downstream/1 Mbps upstream. to $6.9 billion) by the end of September. last-mile projects totaling $1.2 billion However, nearly two-thirds of the Although both agencies have consis- in grant and loan funding. This batch $1.2 billion went to fund projects that tently been behind schedule, on August of awards included far more DSL and were based entirely or primarily on fiber- 4, they announced an ambitious time- wireless projects than previous batches to-the-home technology. These included line for getting all the remaining funds and included a few wireless projects that several very large awards: $124 million 22 | BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproperties.com | AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2010 to West Kentucky Rural Telephone Cooperative, $66 million Recipients are mainly independent telephone companies to Highland Telephone Cooperative and $64 million to Mon- but also include an electric co-op, a public utilities district and tana Opticom. In addition, VTel Wireless will deploy some tribal authorities. More than half had prior experience with FTTH in its primarily 4G wireless project. deploying FTTH. See the list below for details. RUS BROADbaND INITiaTIVES PROGraM AWarDS FOR FTTH PROJECTS Loans and Grants Announced August 4, 2010 Applicant State Award Amount Potential Subscribers Previous (Millions; may be FTTH? supplemented by non-RUS funds) Allband Communications Cooperative MI $8.6 3,800 people, 95 businesses, x www.allband.org 9 community institutions Allband Communications Cooperative MI $1.1 500 people, 20 businesses x www.allband.org Atlantic Telephone Membership Corporation NC $16 8,700 people, 270 businesses, x www.atmc.net 35 community institutions AtLink OK $8.5 4,000 people, 1,400 businesses, www.atlinkwifi.com 6 community institutions Baldwin Telecom WI $9.1 3,600 people, 30 businesses, x www.baldwin-telecom.net 2 community institutions Calaveras Telephone CA $4.1 1,000 people, several businesses x www.calaverastelephone.com Cascade Networks WA, OR $3.7 3,100 people, 200 businesses, x www.cascadenetworks.net 5 community institutions Castle Cable TV NY $7.2 5,500 people, 217 businesses, www.castlecabletv.com 12 community institutions Chequamegon Communications Cooperative WI $31.1 10,400 people, 959 businesses, www.cheqtel.com 35 community institutions Cimarron Telephone Company* OK $42.4 21,500 people, 933 local x www.cimtel.net businesses, 35 community institutions Clear Lake Independent Telephone IA $7.9 2000 people, 20 businesses x www.cltel.com Climax Telephone Company MI $3.2 1,800 people, 50 businesses, www.ctstelecom.com 9 community institutions Farmers Mutual Telephone Company MN $9.7 3,700 people, 165 businesses, x www.farmerstel.net 12 community institutions Farmers’ Mutual Telephone Company IA $8.6 3,700 people, 70 businesses, www.omnitel.biz 15 community institutions Federated Telephone Cooperative MN $3.0 950 people, 20 businesses x www.fedtel.net Foothills Rural Telephone Cooperative KY $21 6,000 people, 800 businesses, x www.foothills.net 8 community institutions Grand River Mutual Telephone MO $12.4 2,800 people, 750 businesses, x www.grm.net 20 community institutions Grand River Mutual Telephone MO $9.0 1,500 people, 350 businesses, x www.grm.net 8 community institutions Griggs County Telephone Company ND $22.1 4,000 people, 400 businesses, www.mlgc.com 15 community institutions Highland Telephone Cooperative TN, KY $66.5 52,000 people, 1,800 businesses, x www.highlandtel.net 100 community institutions Home Communications KS $2 500 people, 24 businesses, www.hometelco.net 10 community institutions Home Telephone Company SC $4 2,700 people, x www.hometelco.com 7 community institutions AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2010 | www.broadbandproperties.com | BROADBAND PROPERTIES | 23 Applicant State Award Amount Potential Subscribers Previous (Millions; may be FTTH? supplemented by non-RUS funds) Hospers Telephone Exchange IA $8.3 2,000 people, 150 businesses, www.hosperstel.com 10 community institutions Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska KS $.8 150 people, 12 businesses, http://ioway.nativeweb.org/iowayksne.htm 10 community institutions Litestream Holdings FL $5.1 1,300 people, 375 businesses, x www.litestream.net 15 community institutions Lumbee River Electric Membership Corp. NC $19.9 27,000 people, 1,600 businesses, www.lumbeeriver.com 100 community institutions Mid-Plains Rural Telephone Cooperative TX $2.8 670 people, 14 businesses x www.midplains.coop Monroe Telephone Company OR $5.7 2,300 people, 29 businesses, www.monroetel.com 7 community institutions Montana Opticom MT $64.1 18,500 people, 4,100 businesses, x www.mt-opticom.com 58 community institutions Myakka Communications FL $7.9 5,000 people, 2,000 businesses, www.myakka.com 15 community institutions Nemont Telephone Cooperative MT $26.0 7,250 people, 200 businesses, x www.nemont.net 40 community institutions Peoples Rural Telephone Cooperative KY $25 11,000 people, 100 businesses, x www.prtcnet.org 30 community institutions People’s Telecommunications KS $7.8 1,800 people, 50 businesses, www.peoplestelecom.net 7 community institutions Public Utility District 1 of Chelan County WA $25 16,000 people, 135 businesses, x www.chelanpud.org 15 community institutions Slic Network Solutions NY $27.8 14,000 people, 112 businesses, x www.slic.com 30 community institutions Socket Telecom MO $23.7 6,500 people, 260 businesses, www.socket.net 36 community institutions South Central Utah Telephone Association* UT $9.2 7,200 people, 212 businesses, x www.southcentralcommunications.com 47 community institutions Southeast Nebraska Communications NE $11.3 3,000 people, 50 businesses, x www.sentco.net 20 community institutions Sycamore Telephone Company OH $4.1 4,200 people, 450 businesses, www.sycamoretelephone.net 14 community institutions Tohono O’Odham Utility Authority* AZ $10.3 6,500 people, 1,300 businesses, x www.toua.net 60 community institutions VTel Wireless* – VT, NY, $116.8 130,000 people, 3,750 businesses, x www.vermontel.com NH 700 community institutions Warm Springs Telecommunications* OR $5.4 1,800 people, 18 businesses, 22 community institutions West Kentucky Rural Telephone Cooperative – KY, TN $123.8 41,000 people, 3,500 businesses, www.wktelecom.coop 100 community institutions Wikstrom Telephone Company* MN $7.4 12,000 people, 1,500 businesses,