Today's Top Stories Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) on Wednesday named Provo, Utah as the third market where it will deliver its 1 Gbps fiber to the home (FTTH) service where it will take on incumbent telco CenturyLink (NYSE: CTL). Unlike its network plans in Austin and Kansas City it is taking a different approach to the Provo, Utah deployment by purchasing the city's existing iProvo fiber network. Although the deal still needs city council approval, Google said that it would upgrade the existing network to 1 Gbps technology and complete network construction so all homes in the city can get access to the service. In addition to the 1 Gbps service, it would offer a free 5 Mbps service to the 115,000 residents on the existing Provo network who pay a $30 activation fee. City council members are scheduled to vote on the deal next Tuesday, April 23. Kevin Lo, general manager, Google Fiber, said in a blog post that they "intend to begin the network upgrades as soon as the closing conditions are satisfied and the deal is closed." Google said that if the deal closes, it hopes to have service up and running by late 2013, meaning Provo would be the second city besides Kansas City where it offers the service. Amidst great fanfare, Google Fiber announced earlier this month that it would bring its service to Austin, Texas where it would compete against AT&T (NYSE: T) and Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC). In Austin, Google won't begin offering services until 2014. Hours after Google made its Austin announcement, AT&T said that it too would build a 1 Gbps service, but it did not specify a timeline of when it would actually deliver it to the city. What's different about the latest proposal in Provo is that Google is purchasing another service provider, whereas in the other markets it's building its network from scratch. In Provo, Google Fiber will compete with area cable operator Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA) and incumbent telco CenturyLink, which currently don't provide speeds anywhere near 1 Gpbs. Comcast currently provides up to 105 Mbps speeds on its existing HFC-based DOCSIS cable systems, while CenturyLink offers a mix of ADSL2+ and VDSL2 services on its hybrid hybrid copper/fiber fiber to the node (FTTN) network. CenturyLink, which entered Provo, Utah in 2011 when it purchased Qwest, currently offers speeds from 1.5 Mbps to 40 Mbps depending on how far away a customer resides from the nearest remote terminal or central office. In addition to providing much lower speeds, CenturyLink caps its lower speed 1.5 Mbps users at 150 GB a month and 250 GB for its higher speed subscribers. What's significant about Google's presence in Provo for the incumbent players like CenturyLink, which along with Comcast have enjoyed a duopoly for decades, will soon face a competitor that has plenty of financial backing. For more:
- see this blog post
- and here's FierceCable's take Special Report: Comparing broadband pricing: where do AT&T, Verizon, Cincinnati Bell and others stand? Related articles:
AT&T responds to Google Fiber with its own 1 Gbps plan for Austin
Google Fiber comes to Austin, mayor announces
Report: Google Fiber to challenge AT&T and Time Warner Cable in Austin Read more about: AT&T, Time Warner Cable
back to top
| This week's sponsor is Oracle. |  | eBook: Knowledge Management: 5 Steps to Getting it Right the First Time
This eBook sets out 5 simple steps for optimizing customer service and support with an effective, best-practice-led knowledge management initiative. Download today!
|
Verizon's (NYSE: VZ) wireline results in Q1 2013 were once again dominated by the growth of its FiOS Internet and TV offerings, which helped to drive up overall wireline consumer revenues 4.3 percent to $3.6 billion.  | | Click here for selected slides from Verizon's investor presentation. | While buying higher broadband speed FiOS data was a priority, a key trend during the quarter was that more consumers were purchasing multiple services. These factors drove up FiOS ARPU to over $150 and consumer ARPU up 9.5 percent year over year to $107.15. FiOS Internet penetration was 38.2 percent at the end of first-quarter 2013, compared with 36.4 percent at the end of first-quarter 2012. Likewise, FiOS video penetration was 34.1 percent, compared with 32.3 percent. "In an increasingly saturated market, the company is accelerating subscriber, revenue and profit growth," said Roger Entner, lead analyst and founder of Recon Analytics. "FiOS continues to make inroads in the internet and video markets taking away share from the cable companies." Here's a breakdown of Verizon's key operating metrics: - Landline losses: As expected, Verizon reported ongoing declines in its traditional landline voice business. During the quarter it lost 312 landline voice customers, ending the quarter with a total of 22,191 connections.
- Broadband and video: FiOS was the star in Verizon's broadband and video portfolio. Verizon added 188,000 FiOS Internet and 169,000 FiOS Video net additions, respectively. In Q4, FiOS revenues rose 15.1 percent year over year, to $2.6 billion. As of the end of quarter, Verizon had a total of 5.6 million FiOS and 4.9 million FiOS video connections, representing year-over-year increases of 12.0 percent and 12.5 percent, respectively. Overall, Verizon added 99,000 new broadband subscribers, ending the quarter with a total of 8.9 million total broadband connections quarter. The telco said that FiOS growth offset the decline in DSL subscribers. It had a total of 3.28 million DSL subscribers, down from 3.37 million in Q4 2012.
In an effort to reduce wireline repair costs, Verizon continued to replace high-maintenance, or what it calls "chronic" customers in Q1. During the quarter, it transferred over 83,000 homes from copper to fiber, pushing it closer to its FiOS 300,000 goal.
"Aside from the obvious expense benefits and improvements in customer satisfaction, the conversion to fiber also provides customers the opportunity to purchase FiOS services, which could result in additional ARPU over time," said Fran Shammo, EVP & CFO, of Verizon, during the Q1 earnings call.
Shammo would not break out specifically how many customers took multiple FiOS services when they were converted, but said that many of them were purchasing higher speed Quantum FiOS data tiers.
"What's happening as we move people over to fiber they are coming over to our Quantum product; 27 percent of our base is on Quantum," Shammo said. "What we are seeing is they are buying up in the tiers because once they get that 15 and 30 Mbps tier, they are buying up to the 50 Mbps tier and that's what's helping to drive the stellar revenue performance in the consumer market of 4.3 percent."
- Business and Wholesale: Verizon's business revenues declined 2.6 percent year-over-year to $3.8 billion due to expected declines in legacy voice and data service transport, in addition to CPE sales. However, it reported that global strategic enterprise services such as cloud, managed services, and Ethernet grew 6 percent. Despite the decline, it did sign a number of high profile enterprise service contracts with various private businesses and local government agencies, including Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Ocean Exploration Trust, Quest Diagnostics and Synchronoss Technologies.
Similar to Q4 2012, Shammo said the enterprise segment is operating in a tough environment that has not shown any specific signs of improvement yet from businesses that are right now in the cost cutting mode.
"In the enterprise market we continue to work through economic challenges," Shammo said. "We still see cautious behavior on the part of many enterprise customers in terms of new contracts and investment decisions."
Likewise, the telco's global wholesale service revenues declined $134 million, or 7.2 percent, due to ongoing declines in transport services.
"I think if I had to predict what was going to happen during the rest of the year, I think we're going to be around this 8-9 percent decline in wholesale, and it is mainly around the drive of volumes of voice and data," Shammo said. "It points back to everything I talked about in enterprise because most of the volumes we get on wholesale are people that resell that to enterprise customers and other customers for voice and data." From an overall financial standpoint, Verizon reported 68 cents in EPS in first-quarter 2013, a 15.3 percent increase compared with first-quarter 2012 earnings of 59 cents per share. The company's Q1 2013 total operating revenues were $29.4 billion, up 4.2 percent from Q1 2012, while operating income Verizon's shares on Thursday were listed at $51.12, up $1.58, or 3.19 percent, in morning trading on the Nasdaq stock exchange. For more:
- see the earnings release
- here's FierceCable's take Earnings roundup: Wireline telecom earnings in the first quarter of 2013 Related articles:
Report: Verizon's FiOS, wireless will drive up Q1 EPS by 11.8 percent
Report: AT&T, Verizon retain dominant spots in cloud market
Verizon FiOS lifts wireline consumer revenues to $14 billion in 2012 Read more about: Verizon
back to top
AT&T (NYSE: T) and Knology are now going to face a new competitor in Lawrence, Kan., from Wicked Broadband, the latest service provider to follow the spirit of Google Fiber (Nasdaq: GOOG) with its own 1 Gbps fiber to the home service. Like Google Fiber in Kansas City, Wicked Broadband will hold a content to see which Lawrence neighborhood will be the first to get the FTTH service installed. Joshua Montgomery, Wicked Broadband's co-owner, said in a Lawrence Journal World article that "the neighborhood with the highest percentage of homes preregistering and paying the $10 registration fee will be chosen as the test neighborhood." He added that they plan to announce the winner on June 16, with installation set to be begin later this year. Similar to Google Fiber and Chattanooga, Tenn.-based EPB Fiber, Wicked is offering competitive pricing for its service. It plans to offer three speed tiers: 1 Gbps for $99.98 per month; 100 mbps service for $69.98 per month and 20 mbps service for $49.98 per month. Another feature is that none of the plans will incorporate usage caps. This is unlike AT&T, which implemented caps on its standard DSL users. Chris Lester, a spokesman for AT&T, told the Lawrence Journal World that they "welcomed the competition," adding that they have invested about $725 million in its Kansas area networks between 2009 and 2012. The 1 Gbps FTTH race has picked up recently in both Kansas and Austin, Texas. After Google Fiber announced it would bring service to Austin, AT&T said it has begun putting together plans to offer a similar 1 Gbps service in the market, but gave no timeline when it would actually build out the network infrastructure or deliver service. Google Fiber, meanwhile will start connecting homes in Austin in mid-2014. For more:
- Lawrence Journal World has this article Special report: The Contenders: Municipal fiber providers meeting or beating the incumbent competition Related articles:
Google Fiber to buy iProvo network, upgrade Utah city to 1 Gbps
AT&T responds to Google Fiber with its own 1 Gbps plan for Austin
Google Fiber comes to Austin, mayor announces
Report: Google Fiber to challenge AT&T and Time Warner Cable in Austin Read more about: AT&T, Google Fiber
back to top
Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU) continues to make a name for itself in the growing VDSL2 and vectoring space, reporting that it has shipped its one millionth VDSL2 vectoring line, a technology that enables traditional telcos to get higher speeds out of their existing copper networks. Vectoring enables higher theoretical rates of up to 100 Mbps over existing copper connections of up to 440 meters by coordinating all VDSL2 pairs in the cable in an effort to cancel noise. To date, Alcatel-Lucent has racked up 11 customers using VDSL2 and vectoring, particularly in Europe, including Belgacom and Telekom Austria A1. In addition it is involved in over 40 trials with TDC Denmark, China Telecom, and, with P&T Luxembourg it is using a combining VDSL2 vectoring with bonding. Analysts are taking notice of the VDSL2 and vectoring trend. Broadbandtrends, an independent analyst firm, wrote in their VDSL2 Vectoring Report that they predict that all VDLS2 lines shipped from 2014 onwards will be vector-capable, reaching a total installed base of 59 million vectoring lines by 2017. While still early in the game, hybrid copper/fiber-based Fiber to the Node (FTTN) according to a recent Point Topic report, was a major contributor to worldwide broadband growth in 2012. In 2012, VDSL and VDSL2 grew 27 percent overall, while FTTH grew 3 percent. Overall, FTTx technologies grew 21 percent, beating out cable and DSL, which reported 7.2 and 3.6 percent, respectively. For more:
- see the release Special report: Bonding telcos' love affair with copper through VDSL2 Related articles:
VDSL2 drives broadband market growth to 643 million subs in 2012, says Point Topic
Deutsche Telekom's VDSL2 vectoring plans get conditional regulatory approval
The 10 hottest wireline technologies in 2013
VDSL2 with bonding or vectoring - Top wireline technologies in 2013 Read more about: Alcatel-Lucent
back to top
Windstream (Nasdaq: WIN) is now offering its Advanced Application Reporting (AAR) product for enterprise business customers throughout its entire U.S. network footprint, giving enterprises near real-time visibility into their WAN traffic. By having this visibility, Windstream says its clients will be able to achieve three goals: quickly respond to problems, make informed network infrastructure investments, and optimize network connectivity. In particular, AAR can benefit customers with Ethernet-based Internet, dedicated Internet, MPLS and VLS services by giving them the ability to collect, format and display WAN performance statistics for multiple intervals (hour, last day, and last week). An enterprise customer will be able to better understand how they are using their existing bandwidth, which will help with capacity planning. And because collection can be done without the need to deploy on-site probes, enterprises can access AAR from any point in their WAN network. Providing features like AAR are important for Windstream as it looks to up its profile in the mid-sized enterprise market. The expanded AAR availability gives mid-sized companies that may not have the time or resources to create themselves this kind of tool to better understand how their network is performing. While Windstream has always provided a suite of business services it was only in recent years after purchasing PAETEC in addition to a series of smaller CLECs and ILECs that it became a more serious threat in the mid-sized business services market. These efforts have gotten the attention of the Gartner Group, which wrote in its "Critical Capabilities for U.S. Wireline Telecom Services" report that it "should be considered primarily by midsize enterprises looking for competitive voice and data service." "After successfully rolling up a series of regional competitive local-exchange carrier (CLEC) businesses, Windstream completed the acquisition of PAETEC," wrote Gartner. "It has now added a concerted focus on enterprise services, along with a larger footprint designed to meet the needs of the higher education market." For more:
- see the release
- and Gartner's domestic players report Related articles:
Windstream's Q4 earnings decline to $1.54 billion
Windstream Q3 revenues get boost from broadband, business and FTTT sales
AT&T, CenturyLink, Windstream face DSL patent suits
Windstream's virtual LAN services get MEF 9 and MEF 14 certifications Read more about: Wan, BSS
back to top
| 
Managing the cost of critical submarine cable routes
Take a look at our new feature detailing the search for submarine cable routes.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Keep a civil tongue.