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discussion: The future of broadband

B

Barnaby W. Füi

Elite Member
just wondering where you guys see broadband going in the years to come. currently cable is my best option, i get on average 2000Kbits down and 128 up (capped), DSL around here is more expensive for LESS bandwidth. I'd really like to host a website/ftp and actually share on file sharing apps, something which is not a good option for me because my 128/sec upload will get sucked dry and my surfing will be abysmal. hosting a website is feasable for me, considering it would not get much traffic, and i would keep it fairly simple, no big images or flash or any of that. ftp i can do just for remotely retrieving files (relatively small ones) of my own, but as far as sharing with other people, its just too slow. i know that in certain areas, new homes are coming pre wired with ethernet, and ISP's provide access through that.

so where do you guys see broadband going? how long before we can get a fairly fat pipe going both ways, for a decent price?
 
Well I see as the future of broadband is either fiber to the home or ethernet to the home. Due to cost and upgradability, it is likely that ethernet to the home will be the next big thing. Both of these technologies offer 10 megabit to 1 gigabit download rates both up and down and can be delievered to neighborhoods at really cheap cost. A company that I'm interested in is Wide Open West. They provide 3 meg up and down for like 50 bucks a month and you can upgrade to 10 megs for a little more. I'm really hoping that they become a really sucessful company so I can ditch this Comcrak @Crap for a 10 meg connection.
 


<< Well I see as the future of broadband is either fiber to the home or ethernet to the home. Due to cost and upgradability, it is likely that ethernet to the home will be the next big thing. Both of these technologies offer 10 megabit to 1 gigabit download rates both up and down and can be delievered to neighborhoods at really cheap cost. A company that I'm interested in is Wide Open West. They provide 3 meg up and down for like 50 bucks a month and you can upgrade to 10 megs for a little more. I'm really hoping that they become a really sucessful company so I can ditch this Comcrak @Crap for a 10 meg connection. >>



omg...3mbits up and down for 50 bucks....that would be NIIIICE 😀😀😀
 
The problem with broadband isn't the technology - its their cost of bandwidth..T1's and T3s are still really expensive, and DSL pipes can suck that real quickly..Also PC Magazine has been sorta bashing broadband lately, saying its reached saturation (nobody else wants it, because its too expesnive for what you get - no content). I sorta agree with them. Sure its great for fast mp3 downloads (about once a week) and file downloads (about once a week), but from site to site it isn't THAT much faster...
 
Fiber Optic should be coming down, but I don't know how fast. Many companies are selling fiber bandwidth to small and medium businesses at rates semi-competitive with DSL and cable. Also there have been projects in cities like Atlanta where entire communities were wired for fiber and asked to give feedback on cost, quality, connection speeds, wait times, etc... Plus many cable companies are laying fiber as backbones for their networks, so fiber as a next step only seems logical.
 
to think, one day a 'net connection will be like a telephone line, always on, almost never out, relatively cheap, and EVERYONE has it.

well, hopefully at least. 😛
 
there are many companies laying down fiber all around the US. Once the US has a fiber optic infrastructure i think that and wirless will be widely avaialable, since there is no theoritical limit to the thourghput of fiber its going to be really nice. We are talking several hundred MBps for every household up and down.


-Ameesh
 
Look for fiber metro networks with ethernet for last mile residential/commercial connections.

With eternet you can also have wireless/homeplug networking to your home.
 


<< there are many companies laying down fiber all around the US. Once the US has a fiber optic infrastructure i think that and wirless will be widely avaialable, since there is no theoritical limit to the thourghput of fiber its going to be really nice. We are talking several hundred MBps for every household up and down. >>



i'm pretty pessimistic on this. For most people, the net is entertainment...they dont want to spend more than $40 or so per month on it. Its very expensive to lay cable..wireless has a better chance, but that's very expensive as well. I think it will be 10-20 years before we see a major upgrade from the ~1-2 MBps that most people on broadband get now..the T1/T3 lines aren't becoming very cheap, which is the real problem...what does a T3 run a month (~45 MBps)? I think around ~$25K+, somebody prove me wrong...

 
T1 and T3 is run off of coax, and there are very real limits to its bandwidth. So, you can only fit so many customers on a cable, and that keeps the cost per customer up. With Fiber, you can get a LOT of people per pipe, and that brings the cost per customer down. Fiber is not as expensive any more as people think, especially when cable companies are wiring every city with it. I think 10-20 years is very unrealistic. Look at how cable and DSL exploded, when fiber networks are built people will upgrade with time... especially as demand grows and more people stream videos and download content.





<< i'm pretty pessimistic on this. For most people, the net is entertainment...they dont want to spend more than $40 or so per month on it. Its very expensive to lay cable..wireless has a better chance, but that's very expensive as well. I think it will be 10-20 years before we see a major upgrade from the ~1-2 MBps that most people on broadband get now..the T1/T3 lines aren't becoming very cheap, which is the real problem...what does a T3 run a month (~45 MBps)? I think around ~$25K+, somebody prove me wrong... >>

 
I doubt that the prices will rise that much. The major backbones will shell out the cash for laying down all the fiber so it can open up more channels of revenue.

By channels of revenue I don't mean more Fiber subscribers, I'm talking about new household technologies that utilize an internet connection. It will revolutionize the way we live today.
 
Most of the non-computer savvy people I also happen to use the internet for the same reasons that you see on the AOL commercials. They send email and the occasional picture of the kids to grandma, and look up recipes and do that kind of crap.

Broadband will significantly take off when people see a need for it. If people can be convinced that they want to use video conferencing to keep in touch instead of email and long distance, that could be a selling point. If you look at the futuristic movies, everything happens of some kind of net. TV, videoconferencing and news all come from some network. When the internet becomes a need and not something for fun, broadband will be pushed.

EDIT: On that note, however, what comes first the chicken or the egg. The infrastructure or the need for the infrastructure. I've been reading lots good stuff about fiber over the past few months, and it looks like that may be where the future may be.
 
I was talking with a Sprint rep the other day, and he indicated that they are testing cellular access PC cards in Asia that are capable of broadband speeds. They have them now but they only do 20K; the ones they are testing do 100K, about twice as fast as a modem (couldn't remember if it was a Kbps or KBps).
 
All I know is that they are putting a fiber optic system in Sacramento right now. They are installing the cable in my area now and as soon as is it is avaliable my SBC/PacBell DSL is out the window. They sucked me in at $39.95 and now they raised it to $49.95 and didn't give me anything more than I had before. I don't like AT&T on the TV/Cable side and the new system is supposed to have Phone, TV, and Internet in one package. It is up and working over in the area that my wife works in and it ROCKS!

Just my $.02

P.S. Maybe SBC/Pac Bell should get a clue and try to keep their customers instead of bending them over!

Sorry for that last rant, I must have gotten my shorts twisted......................
 


<< I was talking with a Sprint rep the other day, and he indicated that they are testing cellular access PC cards in Asia that are capable of broadband speeds. They have them now but they only do 20K; the ones they are testing do 100K, about twice as fast as a modem (couldn't remember if it was a Kbps or KBps). >>



its called 3G
 


<<
i'm pretty pessimistic on this. For most people, the net is entertainment...they dont want to spend more than $40 or so per month on it. Its very expensive to lay cable..wireless has a better chance, but that's very expensive as well. I think it will be 10-20 years before we see a major upgrade from the ~1-2 MBps that most people on broadband get now >>



A year ago I would've disagreed with you completely. But after dealing with my own broadband dillemma over the past 6 months I tend to agree with this statement. It will be a VERY long time before broadband achieves the market penetration necessary to make a profit off of things like video-on-demand and video conferencing. Only when about 60% of the broadband companies start making a profit will you see such services becoming common among entertainment companies. This will take a LONG LONG time.

The biggest problem is how long it takes to get through all the bureaucracy involved in getting broadband out to the customer. You gotta deal with building codes, county codes, city codes, etc. They generally say you're looking at about 2 years of planning, 3 years of waiting for civil approval, and at least 1 year of construction if you want to start laying fiber to the home. WideOpenWest has been really slow to lay their fiber and has been restricted to very small areas of Northwest Denver. Same with WinFirst in San Fransisco. These companies began their planning stages about 3-4 years ago and are only now getting the chance to deploy. Thats 3-4 years where you have to pay people's salaries without making money. Then you have construction and operations costs. Then it'll take 3 years before you even start making a profit. These things add up to not seeing a profit for a minimum of 7 years after the initial investment. Most venture capitalists aren't willing to wait so long. And now they're even more scared because of the current economy.

Wireless is a little better...the only government codes they have to worry about building codes. But there's always some old lady on the civil projects board who doesn't like antennas on public buildings and her vote will throw out someone's chances of getting broadband. The other problem is the technology is still too expensive. Customer Premise Equipment (CPE) still costs roughly $300-$500 for each customer. And there's no self-installs because its too easy to mess it up and not get a signal. So you gotta add the cost of sending a tech to every customer for the installs. It ends up costing the ISP nearly $1000 for every customer installation. This means at $50/month subscriber cost it takes about 2 years (assuming bandwidth costs) before the ISP sees a profit from the subscriber. If the subscriber jumps ship after a year, the ISP loses $500. It all adds up to too much risk right now.

I think broadband will remain a niche market for many years to come. This will mean that service will be just as difficult to find. It also means the prices will not decrease...which means the bandwidth will not increase.
 
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