Category: Internet Access And Service

Article – From the horse’s mouth

Google

Exploring New Cities For Google Fiber

My Comments

After its success with Kansas City, Provo and Austin, Google is planning to hit nine more US cities with their fibre-optic broadband service. Here, I see this as an attempt to bring competition to Internet service in these communities in a situation where competition is dwindling due to the pending merger between Comcast and Time Warner Cable.

Even though most of the city fathers representing these communities are behind these projects, usually to see their communities grow economically, there are issues with state and federal authorities who have frustrated competitive activity like municipal Wi-Fi deployments. This is typically to protect incumbent cable and telephony companies against competitive service, but it allows these companies to treat their customers as second-class citizens by redlining good services away from certain communities or simply providing poor-value service to their customers.

But something needs to be done to assure competition on the Internet-service front and this may involve the US Department Of Justice rather than the Federal Communications Commission. It may involve prohibition of uncompetitive mergers or overriding anti-competitive state requirements in order to make sure that third-party Internet service providers can operate in more communities. It may even require a repetition of the 1980s court action that took place to break up “Ma Bell” to assure competition. Once we see more of Google Fiber in action and other Silicon Valley Internet companies work towards providing end-to-end Internet service, it could open up the idea of competition to the US market.

Article – German Language

Drosselkom: Telekom-Tarife: Wo Sie Flatrates und wo eine Drosselung bekommen | 02.12.2013 | Technik | news.de

My Comments

Previously I had touched on the issue of government involvement with providing competitive telecoms and Internet service. This was more about assuring that incumbent operators aren’t being given an unfair advantage over competing operators and is a situation that is happening in the USA but also happening in Germany.

In the USA where cable-TV companies and incumbent telcos in areas where there isn’t much in the way of competitive Internet service, the customers are being given an increasingly raw deal and are starting to face volume-limited tariff charts in a similar vein to what is happening in Australia and New Zealand and also what happens with mobile-broadband services.

Germany is facing an Internet market where their telecommunications regulator, Bundesnetzagentur (BNetzA), is being too favourable with Deutsche Telekom who is the incumbent telecommunications provider in that country. But there are not as many competitors in the telecoms and Internet-service space and they aren’t operating on a level playing field to what Deutsche Telekom is operating on.

What has been happening there is that Deutsche Telekom who were previously offering “flat-rate” Internet packages are moving towards similar packages to what is offered in Australia where there is bandwidth throttling and volume-driven packages. This has caused Deutsche Telekom to end up being called “Throttle-Kom” (Drosselkom) and there is consumer-law-based litigation taking place in some of the states (Lander) concerning breach of contract in relation to the “flat-rate” services.

Personally, I would like to see this also looked at by the European Commission in relation to a required level of competition for telecommunications and Internet services in built-up areas especially if Germany is to seek EU aid for communications projects. Similarly, German government departments at both the federal and state (Lander) level who have responsibility concerning competition and consumer issues need to have the country’s telecommunications and Internet-service market looked at.

Over the last decade, France and the UK have taken steps to assure competitive telecom service including Ofcom (UK’s telecoms regulator) hauling British Telecom over the coals to have them provide competitive access to the local loop at reasonable prices. This has been because the telecommunications regulators and the competition / consumer regulators have had real teeth and didn’t curry favour with particular operators.

If a country needs a lively Internet and telecommunications market where everyone can have access to a quality service at affordable prices, the telecoms regulators in that country need to work the market on a level playing field. Here, they cannot let incumbent telecoms and cable-TV operators run amok or apply double standards between incumbent and competitive operators.

Article

4,7 millions de foyers français sont abonnés à une offre quadruple play | 01Net.com (France – French language)

My Comments

What is”quadruple-play”? This term describes a communications service contract where a single service provider or their business partner is providing a customer four services, typically, a fixed telephone service, “hot and cold running” broadband Internet, pay TV and a mobile telecommunications service.

According to the artilcle, at the third quarter of 2013, there was a strong likelihood of one in six French households acquiring one of these “quadruple-play” services which would simply be an “n-box” single-pipe triple-play service with the pay-TV, unlimited telephone use and unlimited broadband along with a mobile telecommunications deal. It was described as being commensurate with the number of display screens in use in that household and has been made possible with attractive deals being offered in that market.

The penetration of the “quadruple-play” service in France as described in this French-language may be reflected in some of the developed world where real competition does exist in the telecommunications and pay-TV sectors. This is although the US, Britain and Norway had the similar mix of services in most of their households.

A question that I often think of the argument that some people put forward about running a mobile-only telephony and broadband setup in their homes or not running a fixed telephony service or fixed broadband service in the face of the mobile telecommunications services.

These services would be engaged or retained by their customers if it is found that the price is right when it come to retaining them especially if they are part of a “many eggs in one basket” solution.  For example, a fixed broadband service used alongside a wireless router may offer better value for money when it comes to Internet service at home while a fixed telephony service may offer improved prices for outgoing calls, a reliable telephone service, alongside a “catch-all” phone number to contact the household at.

Personally, I encourage people to investigate the multiple-play telecommunications services when they are assessing their communications-service plans so they can look ay ways to “bundle” the services they use together with their favourite carriers.

Article

Google Fiber Installs In Provo | Broadband News & DSL Reports

My Comments

The work at the coalface has begin for Google Fiber’s deployment in Provo, Utah. In early October, the signing up has begun but yesterday (Tuesday 12 November 2013 (Western Hemisphere)), the work has started on connecting the very customers to this fibre-to-the-premises service.

What I see of this is that the incumbent telephone company and the cable company servicing this town will be squirming because the duopoly that they enjoyed in this town is being lost as a fibre-optic residential Internet service is being rolled out/ This is with a tariff chart being a symmetrical 1 Gbps for US$70 / month, a TV service with this 1 Gbps service for US$50 / month extra and a free 5/1 Mbps service for the installation cost of US$30. It also means that Provo could become a startup and “work-from-home” town due to the 1Gbps upload speeds offered by Google Fiber.

There have to be steps taken to keep the lively competition on foot so that the cost and quality of Internet service doesn’t deteriorate in the towns where competing Internet service exists.

Article – French language

Bientôt un débit de 100 Mbit/s à la Réunion – DegroupNews.com

My Comments

La Réunion has raised the bar for Internet-service value through that Département Outre Mer which is located near Madagascar. The cost of Internet was previously a sore point in that island with some pretty high prices in the order of €50-€60 for full triple-play as I previously touched on.

But Zeop have raised the bar by providing a 100 Megabit bandwidth fibre-optic service to all of their customers. But a good question to raise is how much are the residents and businesses going to fork out for this service. This is an attempt to raise the bandwidth at one of these DOM territories to what is expected at France’s mainland.

France could work harder to make all of the Départements Outre Mer be “axis points” for many international telecommunications services links, whether as “on-ramps” for submarine cables or as satellite uplinks. The local governments could work harder to improve local infrastructure as well as attract startup business in these territories making the whole of France the “switched-on” country.

Article – French language

La fibre optique de Google pourrait arriver en France – DegroupNews.com

My Comments

As regular readers of HomeNetworking01.info know, I have been keeping tabs on the highly-competitive Internet market in mainland France a.k.a. L’Héxagone where the call for a triple play service is €25-30 for at least 20Mbps ADSL Internet service, heaps of television channels and all-you-can-eat telephone calling anywhere in France. This also is the same country with Free offering a fibre-optic next-generation broadband service with dedicated 1Gb bandwidth for €30 in some of the major cities.

Now Google, who have set the cat amongst the pigeons in Kansas City and are about to do so in some other US cities like Provo, Utah by offering fibre-optic next-generation broadband Internet service, are pitching to this highly-competitive market as their first foray outside the USA.

They are setting up registered offices in both France and Ireland and are lodging paperwork with ARCEP (France’s telecommunications regulator) to become a legitimate operator in that market. Of course, there is still a fair bit of worry about American businesses encroaching on French territory as the country claws back its industrial self but this could raise the bar further when it comes to the provision of the next-generation broadband in this lively market.

For Google, it may also be the time for them to rattle other European markets that don’t have the same lively competition as France, such as Spain and Italy. As long as we see them light the fire for competitive next-generation broadband Internet in Europe, they could then be seen of value there.

Articles

Telstra Launches Shared Data Plans | Gizmodo Australia

Telstra expands shared data plans | ITNews

Telstra Mobile Data Sharing: Everything You Need To Know | Lifehacker Australia

From the horse’s mouth

Telstra

Product Sheet

My Comments

I have done some previous coverage about shared data plans popping up in other countries like the USA and France. These provide a common data-allowance pool amongst a group of devices you or, in some cases with “family plans”, your family owns.

Now Telstra has jumped on the bandwagon with a shared data option which costs AUD$20 per month for each device. At the moment they are offering 1Gb extra of data to plans operated by early adopters as an incentive to take up this service across the multiple devices.

This is available to people who are contracted with the “Every Day Connect” mobile-service plans whether these are on a “bring-your-own-device” basis or part of a subsidised-handset contract. Here, I would see these of value with the Every Day Connect 80 plan or plans above that plan and with more than 2 devices beyond the regular handset.

I find that the tariff chart for this service will need some work to make it more acceptable by most customers. For example, Telstra could offer more of the high-capacity plans with perhaps high-capacity voice and text service in conjunction with the data sharing as well as post a simple tariff per device per month. They could offer their “Mi-Fi” devices and USB modems or the tablets that they sell for a subsidised cost to customers who integrate them in to a data-share plan/

But as I have seen with Telstra, these kind of services are charged in a way to prop up their role as a universal telephony service provider. They could easily provide services like these at better prices if Australia adopted a universal-service-fund which all carriers had to put money to and this was used to fund the basic telephone service, the public payphones, the Triple-Zero emergency call service and similar essential services.