[CAnet - news] Municipal fiber networks taking off in Europe

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[Some excerpts from Lightreading article -- BSA]

http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=8772



After several decades of false starts, FTTx is finally on its way in Europe
- with potentially momentous implications for Europe's incumbent telcos.


At the FTTH Council Europe 's annual convention in Vienna this week, there
was a palpable sense that the atmosphere had changed, generating more buzz
than any event I've attended in the past year.

But the agents of change in Europe are not the incumbents, but the public
utilities and municipal authorities, which have been busy creating an
alternative blueprint for Europe in which a fiber-based, open-access
next-generation network (NGN), equally available to all citizens and service
providers, replaces the current model of vertically integrated or
imperfectly unbundled networks and limited facilities-based competition.

The new players enjoy four key advantages over incumbents:

First, because they are built from the start as open-access networks in
which the builders and operators have no interest, they lead to a far
broader palette of services and more choice for consumers-

Second,  builders can take full advantage of the very low operating costs
that are now becoming possible. One of the most mature municipal networks in
Europe - in Vasteras, Sweden - currently serves 50,000 ports with just four
operations staff.

Third, utilities and municipalities are taking a long-term view of payback
and return on investment - something that most incumbents can no longer do.
Indeed, as noted by Richard Jones, a partner with Ventura Team LLP, there is
no shortage of investors lining up to take a share in these new fiber
initiatives: Money, he said, is not one of the problems for fiber network
builders.

Fourth, but not least, local politicians are waking up to the central
importance of high-bandwidth networks for their economies, 

Myles MacBean, international VP for technology and operations for Walt
Disney Internet Group, told FTTH Council delegates that Disney's
"imagineers" would be able to use whatever bandwidth they got. 


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These news items and comments are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect
those  of the CANARIE board or management.




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