FTTH Requires Culture Change, Carriers Say

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LAS VEGAS — Deploying fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) is as much a culture change as a technology change for carriers, according to leading players here at the FTTH Council Conference.

Companies that have tried to sell the new service in traditional ways haven’t always found success.

For example, Telefónica Brazil put its FTTH infrastructure into place before preparing its services, customer service, IT, and back-office operations, said Andre Kriger, the carrier’s FTTH director, in a keynote speech here. And that initial attempt at a massive new service rollout fell flat, he said.

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Fiber-Through-the-Sewer Hits US

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U.S. Sewer cover

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LAS VEGAS — The American arm of a British firm known for deploying local loop fiber through sewers has high expectations for its chances in the US market, based on the Google (Nasdaq: GOOG)-inspired boom in municipal fiber projects. (See Google Jumps Into Gigabit FTTH.)

The company is i3 America , and it has stepped up as a platinum sponsor of the FTTH Council Conference here only weeks after announcing the first US pilot — in Quincy, Ill. — of its Fibrecity open access network.

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Chattanooga to Offer 1 Gigabit Internet

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View over Chattanooga, Tennessee, from Lookout...
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Mid-size southern city will likely be the first in the country to break the one gigabit speed barrier here in the US.

Ed Oswald, Technologizer

When you’re thinking of ultra-high speed Internet and its expected rollout across the country, I’m sure the last place you’d probably name is Chattanooga, Tennessee. However if all goes right, the mid-sized southern city will likely be the first in the country to break the one gigabit speed barrier here in the US.

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Small companies doing big job of delivering broadband

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This map shows the incorporated and unincorpor...

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By Michael Pollick & Doug Sword
Staff Writers

Until recently, Internet providers like Myakka Technologies were the low men on the totem pole.

Based in the unincorporated eastern Manatee County community of Myakka City, which has no stoplight to its name, this little company has only been able to exist because the big players — Verizon, Comcast and Bright House — had no interest in providing high-speed Internet service to the low-density rural byway.

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Come on baby, light my fiber

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San Luis Obispo de Tolosa Mission, CA
Image by Michael D Martin via Flickr

A fiber-optic project could be the first step in connecting SLO County to ultra high-speed broadband

BY MATT FOUNTAIN

When Google announced in February 2010 that it was launching a competitive experiment to bring ultra high-speed broadband networks to a small number of trial locations throughout the United States via fiber-optic lines, its intention wasn’t to break into the service-provider business.

The Internet-search giant was attempting to promote awareness of high-speed fiber, test new ways to build fiber networks, and explore the creative potential ultra-high-speed Internet service carries for developers and consumers—the potential, for example, to create new bandwidth-intensive “killer apps” and services and other uses not yet imagined.

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An Internet mecca’s transformation

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Official seal of City of Bonita Springs

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It is always nice to hear former colleagues doing good in this industry.

By Michael Pollick & Doug Sword
Staff Writers

In four years flat, a veteran of the fiber-optic wars and his Bonita Springs company have transformed Lee and Collier counties into an Internet mecca for businesses and nonprofits.

Set up with checks from some rich Collier folks who wanted to give their children and grandchildren a reason to stay in the region, Frank Mambuca and his U.S. Metro network already are proving the economic development cliché that, “If you build it they will come.”

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Iowa: Study: A third of households lack broadband

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For some reason I seem to know many people in Iowa that are the 5% that do not have access to broadband.  I assume that satellite access was included in this study.  Penetration would be much less if satellite was not included.

95% have access to some form of high-speed Internet, but some don’t want it, say it’s too expensive or don’t have a computer.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

CEDAR RAPIDS — A new study prepared in cooperation with the Iowa Utilities Board found that one-third of Iowa households don’t have broadband service, but not entirely because of a lack of access.

The study, released Wednesday, found that 95 percent of households do have access to some form of high-speed Internet, The Gazette of Cedar Rapids reported.

Among households that don’t subscribe to broadband service, 45 percent didn’t want it, 31 percent didn’t own a computer and 21 percent said it was too expensive.

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