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Deloitte: Invest $150B in Deep Fiber or Else If the US does not spend up to $150 billion on fiber infrastructure over the next five to seven years, it risks widening the digital divide, reducing customer choice and access to services, and limiting 5G's potential, a recent Deloitte report finds. The money for "deep fiber," estimated at between $130 billion and $150 billion, could come from a combination of service providers, public-private partnerships and financial investors, says the paper, "Communications Infrastructure Upgrade: The Need for Deep Fiber." But the investment should not fall primarily on the backs of wireline operators, according to Deloitte. Over-the-top providers, investors, wireless providers and government are among those that can share the financial burden -- and the benefit, the report said. Fiber as leased real estate could, for example, allow carriers to "maximize asset utilization," Deloitte said. Broadband providers spent $76 billion on capital network expenditures last year, according to USTelecom's most recent data. Since 1996, the industry has spent about $1.5 trillion, the organization said. Without additional investment from more sources, future 5G risks missing out on its potential within the US, cautioned Deloitte. In addition, enterprise and residential customers will have fewer choices and less access to the growing number of broadband-based services, the report said. "Despite the demand and potential economic benefits of fiber deployment, the United States lacks the fiber density in access networks to make the bandwidth advancements necessary to improve the pace of innovation and economic growth. Increased speed and capacity from 5G will rely on higher frequencies and network densification," cautioned Deloitte. Deploying more deep fiber would encourage more competition, lowering prices and increasing access to unserved and underserved regions of the country, the report said. That includes rural residents -- where only 61% of the population can access 25Mbit/s wireline broadband -- to urbanites. For example, almost 19% of New York City's residents are unconnected, according to a June report by the Wireless Broadband Alliance. Related posts:
— Alison Diana, Editor, UBB2020. Follow us on Twitter @UBB2020 or @alisoncdiana. |
In a flurry of activity throughout the week, Donald (DJ) LaVoy, Deputy Under Secretary for Rural Development at the US Department of Agriculture, and his team spent about $145.8 million in the non-urban or suburban areas of seven states.
Calix reported revenue of $120.19 million – up 4% – in Q4 2019, putting a bounce in the step of company president and CEO Carl Russo and a shine to Calix's ongoing transition from hardware vendor to a provider of platforms enabled by cloud, APIs and subscriber experience.
Looking to curtail e-waste and improve the bottom line, BT will require customers to return routers and set-top boxes, although subscribers will not have to pay a fee when they receive regular broadband equipment.
The industry standards organization is looking to ease operator pain from residential WiFi, while it also sees initiatives in connected home and other projects bear fruit.
Deploying DOCSIS 3.1 across its entire footprint gave Rogers Communications the ability to offer speeds of up to 1 Gbit/s,
contributing to a broadband segement that generated about 60% of the Canadian operator's $3.05 billion (US) in Q4 cable earnings.
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Wednesday, September 14, 2022
1:00 p.m. New York / 6:00 p.m. London When your broadband business adds new services and connected devices, do they also add complexity, slowing customer support teams as they navigate multiple data sources to uncover connectivity issues? We’ve worked with hundreds of support teams to help them implement a subscriber experience management platform that gives greater visibility into subscriber issues. They can proactively troubleshoot amid complexity—improving the subscriber experience and raising customer satisfaction ratings like Net Promoter Scores. Join this webinar with experts from Calix and global research leader Omdia who will share exclusive research about how you can:
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