Today's Top Stories Mason Capital, a New York-based hedge fund, on Thursday decided to cut its ownership stake in Canadian incumbent telco Telus (Toronto: T.TO). In a regulatory filing, Mason, which has been engaged in a battle with Telus since last spring over how many shares it should be able to own, said its common voting has fallen to 5.9 million shares. Now, the hedge fund has about 3.4 percent of the common shares, down from the approximately 19 percent it once held in the company. "This confirms Mason Capital has sold down its empty voting position in TELUS, selling off 26.9 million of the 32.8 million common shares they held when they last reported, while similarly reducing its short trading position," Telus Chief Corporate Officer Josh Blair said in a statement. At issue for Mason was that Telus had two share classes--common and non-voting. These classes were developed to follow Canada's ownership rules for incumbent telcos. While both the common and non-voting shareholders voted to approve the conversion, Mason did not. In December, the B.C. Supreme Court ruled against its protest to get a premium for voting shares. Mason, according to a Globe and Mail article, has appealed the ruling, but a hearing date has not been set. For more:
- The Globe and Mail has this article Related articles:
Telus lowers its broadband usage caps
IPTV seen cutting into cable, satellite in Canada
TELUS Q3 data and equipment sales drive up wireline revenues to $1.27B
Telus protests Bell Canada's Astral Media acquisition Read more about: Telus
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Southern Cross, a submarine cable operator offering service between Australia and the United States, on Monday said that it plans to deploy 100G transmission equipment and reduce service prices. The service provider said it has reduced network service prices by 44 percent for service providers that need connectivity between the two countries, following its upgrade to 40G with Ciena's (Nasdaq: CIEN) transmission equipment. This is the tenth price reduction Southern Cross has made since 2000. As the second stage of its capacity expansion program, which is due to be completed in February, the 40G network will bring total capacity on the Southern Cross network to 2 Tbps. But it appears that the company's 10G to 40G upgrade is going to be a short stop. A part of the third stage of its ongoing expansion program is a plan to deploy Ciena's 100G optical equipment by December. Since the company conducted a 100G trial in June 2011 with Ciena, stage three of the network expansion will offer 2.6 Tbps of lit capacity by June this year. "The implementation of 100 Gigabit equipment this year is some two years sooner than previously anticipated and it demonstrates how the potential size of our network grows in huge leaps," said Ross Pfeffer, Southern Cross sales and marketing director. Pfeffer added they have built a foundation "to go to at least 7 Terabits per second, about 30 times higher than our original design capability." Southern Cross' network has provided much needed backhaul connectivity for two major broadband network projects: Australia's National Broadband Network (NBN) and New Zealand's Ultra Fiber Network. For more:
- see the release Related articles:
Southern Cross Cables completes 100 Gbps trial
TeleGeography: 16 new submarine cables on tap Read more about: Australia, Southern Cross Cable
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Fiber to the Home (FTTH) may have the allure of greater bandwidth that a traditional cable or DSL connection can't match, but the analyst community does not agree on how fast it's going to grow. On one hand, there's RVA LLC. The analyst firm, an ardent fiber-based broadband cheerleader, reported in its new "North American Fiber To The Home and Advanced Broadband Review and Forecast to 2017" that FTTH deployment will grow $4.7 billion annually by 2017, or $18 billion cumulatively over the next five years. A big portion of the revenue growth, explains RVA, will come from high bandwidth capacity users of speeds of 50, 100 and 1 Gbps speeds. These higher-speed services are forecast to reach "$4 billion by 2017, or $9 billion cumulatively over the next five years." Two service providers that are gaining the most attention on the U.S. FTTH front are Verizon and Google Fiber. Verizon introduced its Quantum 300 Mbps data speed tier, while doubling a number of its existing FiOS speed tiers last May. Google Fiber, meanwhile, finally unveiled its $70 per month 1 Gbps service in Kansas City last July. Sixty percent of the qualified population in Kansas City is interested in taking the service despite its being available in only one city,says a new survey from Ideas & Solutions! Not to be outdone by the telcos, Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA) announced it will offer its own Ethernet-based FTTH service in select areas this year. However, other analysts are a bit more skeptical about the FTTH opportunity. Ovum, for one, notes AT&T's (NYSE: T) Fiber to the Node (FTTN) U-verse effort, which is preparing to deliver speeds of between 45 to 100 Mbps, and says this represents the near-term broadband subscriber speed reality. Although AT&T put its U-verse expansion on hold in 2011, its $14 billion Project VIP project includes $6 billion to pass an additional 33 million locations with the service. Ovum said service providers are facing two challenges in rolling out FTTH: sluggish demand and getting a sizeable return on investment.
"Customer demand for 50-100Mbps speed tiers has lagged worldwide, especially at a premium price, and instances of FTTH payback are hard to come by," Ovum said in an iTWire article. "In light of U-verse's growing revenue impact, network synergy savings, and DSL technology advancements such as vectoring, AT&T's less-ambitious but incremental FTTN/DSL approach to network upgrades seems reasonable and pragmatic." For more:
- see the release
- iTWire has this article Editor's Corner: Google's 1 Gbps will unchain the subscriber from bandwidth caps Editor's Corner: Riddle me this, readers. What do MVPD competition and the weather have in common? Related articles:
Verizon unveils FiOS 300 Mbps data speed tier, doubles existing tiers
Verizon's fiber replacement plan meets resistance from NYC landlords
Google's Schmidt: Kansas City is just one stop on FTTH journey Read more about: AT&T
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NTS, a competitive telco owned by Xfone, on Friday lit up its first customer in Iowa Park, Texas. When NTS completes its PRIDE FTTP network, it will reach 19 communities in Texas and Louisiana, passing a total of 50,000 homes and businesses. Similar to its rollout in Slaton, Texas and other areas in Texas, the Iowa Park expansion is partially funded by a portion of the $100 million in broadband stimulus grants the company won. Over the past two years, NTS has been building out its FTTP network in a number of Texas cities and towns. In Texas, the FTTP network is available in 14 locations including: Lubbock, Levelland, Smyer, Wolfforth, Littlefield, Burkburnett, Brownfield, Whitharral, Slaton, Meadow, Wilson, Lamesa, Ropesville and Plainview. It has also begun to build its fiber network in Hammond, La. Complementing its own organic network builds, NTS has acquired a number of other regional cable operators including cable operator Reach Broadband and 2,400 cable subscribers from CoBridge Telecom. For more:
- see the release Related articles:
Xfone lights up FTTP customers in Slaton, Texas
XFONE's Reach Broadband purchase adds more customers to its Western Texas roster
Xfone agrees to buy NTS Read more about: Fttp
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China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) on Friday issued a mandate that any new home built in areas where a fiber network is available will have a fiber-based broadband connection. Under the MIIT's new rules, which go into effect this April, the FTTH networks will be built in an open access fashion where residents will be able to choose what service provider and products they want to buy. The Chinese government has set a goal of connecting 40 million families to a FTTH network by 2015. These fiber broadband drives could also help grow the country's overall Internet user base to 800 million by 2015. Already the country's telcos, including China Telecom (NYSE: CHA) and China Unicom, are aggressively rolling out their own FTTH networks. China Unicom added 10 million families to its FTTH project in 2012, while China Telecom set a goal to bring FTTH services to 1 million subscribers by the end of 2012 to reach a total of 2.3 million subscribers. Besides the telcos, utilities could also play a part in China's FTTH drive. According to a recent Ovum report, utilities like State Grid Corporation of China (SGCC) could use the PON networks for two purposes: powering their smart grids and offering FTTH services to consumers and businesses. The research firm forecasts this trend will be a $1.5 to $2 billion opportunity for PON component and equipment vendors. For more:
- China Daily has this article
Related articles:
China's smart grid drive creates $1.5 billion opportunity for PON vendors, says Ovum
China's MIIT says country will have 800 million Internet users by 2015
China Telecom sets 1M FTTH subscriber goal for Shanghai
China Telecom selects Alcatel-Lucent for its OTN/WDM transition Read more about: China Telecom
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