telecompetitor

On January 30, 2014, the Federal Communications Commission published an order for the creation of trial experiments meant to shape the way the nation’s communications networks provide services during this new era of technological transformation.

These experiments are a way to ensure that the traditional capabilities and values of the telecommunications industry continue after service providers transform their networks to an all-IP architecture. Some of the core guidelines are:

• All Americans must continue to have access to affordable communications services
• Public safety services must be made available regardless of the underlying technology
• Improved competition in the marketplace must provide choice for consumers and businesses
• Consumer protection against fraud is critical for privacy and safety
• While one could easily assume that trials are only of interest to larger carriers, there are plenty of good reasons why

involved, such as the opportunities to:

• Experiment with new services without committing to maintain them forever
• Influence future regulations
• Take advantage of funding available specifically for rural-focused broadband and voice trials

Rural telecommunications providers continue to see gains in broadband availability, average broadband speeds and take rates, according to a survey of rural telecommunications members of NTCA-The Rural Broadband Association.

The vast majority of the nation’s small rural telecommunications companies are NTCA members, and 27% of those members participated in the survey conducted in late 2013. Nearly two-thirds (65.5%) of respondents’ customers can receive broadband at speeds exceeding 10 Mbps, indicating that providers have made substantial progress in installing fiber to the home or to a neighborhood node to improve on the relatively slower rates that can be delivered over copper loops connecting the central office to the customer.

Currently only about 8.5% of customers subscribe to service at rates above 10 Mbps, and the most popular category -- chosen by 34% of subscribers -- is between 3 and 4 Mbps. But as the NTCA notes in the report, “This gap should shrink as customers begin to realize all that can be accomplished online, and as new applications are developed which will require increased bandwidth.”

One of the more impressive data points from NTCA’s survey is that respondents are seeing average broadband take rates of 72%, up from 69% in a similar survey conducted in 2013. Whenever one of the publicly held regional or Tier 2 telecommunications companies sees broadband take rates above 40% or so, some industry observers generally begin to question the remaining upside potential. But such concerns don’t seem to be merited yet in the rural telecom market, despite the high take rates.

Judging by three separate announcements recently, gigabit broadband certainly seems to be catching on in smaller markets. TDS Telecom said that it has made gigabit Internet service available in Hollis (NH). And Comporium, which earlier announced plans for gigabit service in Rock Hill (SC) released additional details about those plans.

Comporium said its gigabit service will be available in a re-development zone planned for the former textile town. And in a pre-briefing about the announcement, Comporium public relations director Paul Kutz told Telecompetitor that the company expects to turn up its first gigabit customers around June 1.

The TDS and Comporium small market gigabit announcements come on the heels of an announcement from Bolt Fiber Optic Services, which said it plans to offer gigabit Internet service in northeastern Oklahoma.

Until now gigabit broadband projects in metro markets have garnered the most attention. But Bolt Fiber Optic Services, a unit of Northeast Oklahoma Electric Cooperative, said it plans to offer gigabit broadband service in its rural Oklahoma serving area.

Bolt Fiber Optic Services plans to offer high-definition video services as well as high-speed Internet over the gigabit passive optical network (GPON) that it plans to build using equipment from Alcatel-Lucent. Customers also will be able to use third-party voice-over-Internet protocol offerings, the company noted in the announcement.

The company plans to begin offering service in the fourth quarter of 2014 and to complete the deployment by April 2017.

As a utility company, Northeast Oklahoma Electric Cooperative is not entitled to Universal Service funding. And some readers may be surprised that the company is able to make a business case for ultra-high-speed broadband deployment without that funding.

People in any part of the country covered by AT&T’s wireless network can now get a wireless-based home phone and Internet offering from the company, said an AT&T executive.

As the executive explained, customers signing on for the service, dubbed AT&T Wireless Home Phone & Internet, get a device that acts as a Wi-Fi hotspot using AT&T’s cellular network for connectivity to the Internet -- and customers also can plug a traditional landline phone into the same device, enabling the phone to also work over the cellular network.

The nationwide launch of AT&T Wireless Home Phone & Internet comes at a time when the company is gearing up for trials in which all landline voice customers in an area will have their service replaced with a cellular alternative or, where available, with a voice offering running over the company’s fiber-fed U-verse infrastructure.

The company’s ultimate goal is to phase out traditional landline voice service – and when it does that, it may want to also phase-out lower-speed DSL service, which runs over the same copper connection as the voice service. Eliminating DSL as well as landline voice in areas not targeted for U-verse upgrades would let AT&T abandon the copper connection between the customer and the central office, thereby eliminating the cost of maintaining that infrastructure.

Lincoln, Nebraska has joined the ranks of cities offering free Wi-Fi access. In an announcement the City of Lincoln said Wi-Fi is available in public areas in and around the Haymarket and Railyard areas of the city.

Longer term the city has considerably more ambitious plans.

“Our long-term goal is to make Lincoln one of the most connected cities in the nation,” said Lincoln mayor Chris Beutler in the announcement, which noted that the rollout will occur in multiple phases. Lincoln’s deployment uses a cloud-based approach that moves some of the infrastructure underlying the Wi-Fi network to a data center operated by Ruckus Wireless.

Cox Communications provided details about the plans for deploying gigabit broadband service that Cox CEO Pat Esser initially revealed in late April -- and although Cox isn’t the first cable operator to announce gigabit broadband plans, it is inarguably the most ambitious.

According to the announcement, Cox plans to roll out gigabit Internet speeds across all of its markets nationwide, beginning with new residential construction projects and new and existing neighborhoods in Phoenix, Las Vegas and Omaha. The announcement says Cox “will begin market-wide deployment of gigabit speeds by the end of 2016.”

Cox also said it plans to double the speeds on its most popular Internet tiers for all customers. This includes customers that currently receive 25 Mbps and 50 Mbps service -- and according to Cox, those two service tiers represent more than 70% of the company’s high-speed Internet customers.

Half of Verizon FiOS Internet customers have opted for a FiOS bandwidth upgrade, said Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam.

Verizon uses the brand name Quantum for its higher-speed data services, which offer data rates as high as 500 Mbps. Upgrades to Quantum are being driven by increased use of video and the proliferation of WiFi-capable devices within customers’ homes, McAdam said.

McAdam added that Verizon could easily raise FiOS data rates to a gigabit per second but has no near-term plans to do so. For residential users to need gigabit connectivity, the industry “has to come up with new apps besides video and more devices,” he said.

Previously FiOS data and FiOS video had similar take rates, but more recently the company has been signing up 20% to 40% more broadband customers. This shift may be driven, in part, by customers shifting toward over-the-top video options. But McAdam isn’t concerned about the possibility of more customers moving in that direction because margins are better on broadband.

“If they convert over, that’s fine,” he said. “The more traffic into the home, the better for us because we’ve got the technology that’s future-proof. We’re in the best position to capitalize on high-volume traffic going into the home.”

Frontier Communications plans to offer a landline phone service designed for emergency use only, said Frontier CEO Maggie Wilderotter. He said Frontier is planning a residential VoIP product to be launched in the second half of 2014.

Frontier’s planned emergency phone service targets rural areas, which represent a large portion of Frontier’s customer base.

Like all local phone companies, Frontier is seeing customers canceling landline service and moving to cellular or other alternatives. But as Wilderotter noted, rural areas experience frequent power outages. And because traditional phone service is powered from the phone company’s central office, it could provide a reliable communications method even during an extended outage.

Frontier believes there is a market for an emergency landline phone, which would be capable only of dialing Frontier or a 911 operator. The service will have “four nines” reliability, Wilderotter said, using telecom jargon for a service that is available 99.99% of the time.

We can text or email, but a phone call remains by far the preferred form of communication for Americans, especially when a special moment or event is the motivation, according to results of a new survey conducted for Vonage by ORC International.

Fifty-six percent of US adults said they prefer a phone call when asked what type of communication they use most. Texting, chosen by 25 percent, was a distant second. And despite the fact that millennials (18-34 year-olds) text more than they call, 67 percent “stop texting and start calling when it comes to sharing special moments,” Vonage highlights.