DSL Prime News Briefs

DSL news, and also a list of the (many!) stories DSL Prime is working on.

by Dave Burstein of DSL Prime and Future of TV [September 13, 2006]

Stories in the works:

• Malaysia's Blue Hyppo spirited DSL service. From the Koran to Brazilian waxing.
• Verizon Puerto Rico, Iowa Telecom begging the FCC for hundreds of millions in USF funding for "high costs" when they don't actually have high costs. This one should be laughed out of town, especially because the their capital spending is not scheduled to rise even if they do get the money.
• Rapid advances in chip manufacturing capacity should open out chip supply. Two chipmakers tell me VDSL demand is up, but still unproven.
• Verizon GPON—a real 250 down/125 up breakthrough. This is real, and has some unsung heroes. Also interesting BPON upgrade in the field available next year, with dynamic memory allocation moving the 6 million lines to 50 and 100 Mbps.
• Mega million dollar rip off of USDA: where are the auditors?
• The $250,000 "contribution" to meet and lobby Karl Rove plan
• And everything else amusing I find the time to write.

News to come:

• They try to get Missoula through with smoke and mirrors. It moves a billion dollars to the AT&T bottom line because they have so much on net traffic, adds $2 to $3 billion to consumer net costs. The way to get to the real numbers is to realize LD costs are not going down as the proposal suggests. This and the USF flat rate should be called "The Bush Tax," just as Republicans named the original USF "The Gore Tax."
  
  
• In the works: VDSL approval in France, another big Microsoft/Alcatel IPTV win or three, significant subscriber numbers for IPTV in China, new MPEG-4 encoders

Corrections (too many)

• Steven Cherry, whose reporting at IEEE Spectrum is often far more thoughtful than other telecom reporters, questions my comments about Carphone Warehouse. I had assumed, and even checked with them, that the customers over 70 they turned away were typically less profitable. Older people on average use far fewer minutes of wireless, and hence considered less profitable by most of the industry. Steven points out you can get their "free broadband" with a simple twenty pound per month flat rate service, where fewer minutes of use save the company money. While CW still may earn somewhat less on calls to (and from) mobile with low usage customers, that's not nearly as large a factor as I suggested. This is such a severe mistake I'd put it up top if I weren't writing on the weekend and hence unable to confirm with them.
  
  
• Neuf Cegetel, looking for an IPO in the billions, reports a first half profit of $136 million, but I was wrong to suggest that was after paying corporate taxes. They have prior losses that shelter their income. Separately, I noted their pending purchase of AOL Europe is at a price close to $1,000 per customer. That's a substantial acquisition cost for a service in a competitive market that drives down margins.
  
  
• Bill Barr is the Verizon lobbyist and ex-Attorney General. Bob Barr is a former Georgia Congressman.

Politics

• The best argument I've ever heard for deregulation in the U.S. is that it would reduce the need for telcos to pay "campaign contributions" to legislators, a terrible corruption.

Note

• For more predictions, and to see the job ads, visit the DSL Prime website.

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

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