DSL Prime: Telcos Succeed at the New, Fail at the Old

DSL is already old as the telcos begin their rollout of hobbled IPTV.

by Dave Burstein of DSL Prime and Future of TV [May 22, 2006]

3.6 million VDSL Q1, nearly a million in Europe and U.S.
Jeff Heynen, directing analyst at Infonetics Research, reports, "The first quarter of 2006 saw a huge jump in VDSL port shipments." His numbers show the VDSL DSLAM market is exploding, with 3,643,868 ports shipping on IP and ATM DSLAMs in the first quarter, a 200 percent increase from a year ago. Infonetics Research reports 483,004 ports in North America and 497,521 in Europe, more than ten times the figures of a year ago. The Infonetics numbers show the surge in the West began in the December quarter, while Asia continues to ramp as it has for two years.

My expectation is the European numbers will be even more impressive in Q2, as the German ramp follows Belgium and Switzerland. My guess is U.S. growth reflects several hundred thousand ports for Project Lightspeed.

AT&T IP TV live to a happy customer
No HD, can't TIVO while watching, only 6 Mbps data
Alan Weinkrantz, a PR guy who happens to live near SBC's San Antonio headquarters, discovered AT&T was ready to install in his neighborhood. Takeaway: on an analog set, very much like cable, with an interface Weinkrantz thought excellent.

Until now, AT&T surrounded the service in mystery; reporters from two of America's most prominent papers tell me they were refused when they asked to visit an installed home. The result was a swirl of rumors: some channels were missing, frequent screen glitches from data errors, and other speculation that at this level seems unfounded. Here's some of what Weinkrantz intends to blog:

"Three AT&T service techs arrived at 8:30 AM. … They were all very polite and called me 'Mr. Weinkrantz.' They also wore polo shirts with the AT&T U-Verse logo and had proper name tag IDs. … The coolest thing is that they wore those blue covers on their shoes. I think this keeps the dirt off the floor and kills static electricity. They always wiped their shoes when they entered the house.

When they had to drill into the back of the cabinets I had made for the home theatre system, they asked my permission to do so before they did anything. They also wore hard hats. I don't know why they really need them, other than when they are outside. …

The installation took about four hours." Weinkrantz also "called Time Warner San Antonio to see about disconnecting my cable service. When I got through to a customer service person named Robin, I told her that I was going to have AT&T come to my house and install their service and asked her if she would give me a better deal on my present cable service that currently runs about $145.00 per month. I was then put on hold for about three minutes because she needed to speak to a supervisor. When Robin came back on the line, she offered me a $40 discount for a period of one year to stay with Time Warner"

AT&T now has a customer so happy he intends to write the CEO: "Memo To Ed (or any senior ranking AT&T execs.:) If you don't have plans during Memorial Day weekend, I am inviting you and up to ten others to come to my house to hang out and see your U-verse service in action. We can watch TV, surf the web at blazing speeds, and with a few hours' advance notice, I'll even grill steaks from CentralMarket.

Just let me know. Mi IPTV es tu IPTV!" (Watch his blog, www.satechblog.com, where these and some other reports will soon be posted.)

Given all the problems SBC has had, I couldn't imagine a better result from an early customer.

The shame of the telcos
U.S. DSL coverage 76 percent
These FCC figures are for June 30, 2005. I believe Qwest has been expanding since, but Verizon and SBC have improved little. I'll withhold further comment until I get some responses from the telcos.

(Complete data http://www.dslprime.com/a/FCCbroadband2005.xls table 14)

Copyright 2006 Dave Burstein.
The DSL Prime Newsletter is reprinted with permission.

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