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Sartre Project: Is Wi-Fi an Existential Threat to Telcos?

Jean Paul Sartre by GrayJean-Paul Sartre died in 1980. There were fewer than a thousand cellphones in the world. The World Wide Web was a decade away. He's the most prominent existentialist philosopher. There's no obvious connection between his work and this analysis of the impact of Wi-Fi on telephone companies.

As I write in August, 2015, it's not clear whether the panic telcos are demonstrating about Wi-Fi is justified. Verizon is running scared about the risk they face from Wi-Fi offload. That's the most powerful signal that WiFi is a real threat. On the other hand, Cisco and AT&T continue to project 40%-50% growth in data demand for four or five years at least. I haven't seen any convincing data to the contrary.

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USA: Cable adding, telcos shedding

Unlike Canada, Holland and England, telcos falling behind. Overall growth continues at about 2%/year. Some of those without broadband are signing on. There's a surprisingly modest loss to "wireless only" broadband despite speeds of 5-15 megabits and going up. AT&T lost 136,000 broadband customers while Time Warner Cable added 189,000. Both AT&T and Verizon showed large gains where they've upgraded (U-Verse, FiOS) and large losses where they haven't. 

Saul Hansell in NY Times got this one right: AT&T & Verizon and Verizon put much of their network into "harvest mode," back in 2004-5 with the intent of milking those lines and/or selling them.

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Verizon, Intel: "5G the Free WiFi Killer"

WiFi is an existential threat to telco revenue so they are fighting back in many ways. "5G-for-all presents the opportunity to kill free WiFi and instead charge users for every data packet they send or receive," Colin Johnson reports at EE Times. The implications Johnson heard at an Intel event inspired his title, 5G the Free WiFi Killer. The speakers were Verizon VP Bin Shin, SK Telecom CTO Alex Choi and Ericsson VP Paul McNamara. 

Johnson is on target that eviscerating WiFi is a crucial goal of the giant telcos. I'm not as confident as the author that high-powered, all-encompassing home gateways mean the end of free WiFi  The danger is currently unproven but we certainly need to avert the possibility. The more immediate danger is the telcos want to "Enclose" half or more of the WiFi spectrum. An important Wall Street Journal article by Thomas Gryta and Ryan Knutson has made this a top of mind issue in Washington. They conclude with Harold Feld's comment that Wi-Fi is too important to give carriers the ability to slowly strangle it.

50-70% of wireless traffic now goes over WiFi, a figure that will increase as faster WiFi routers become common and more home gateways are configured to share unused bandwidth. The telcos are working in closed industry fora, making a mockery of the U.S. and EU commitment to an open Internet and the "multi-stakeholder."

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300 Megabit 3 Band LTE in Korea, Spain

SK tri bandRealworld likely speeds of 50-150 megabits 90+% of the time. Two 20 MHz bands will deliver speeds like this. You rarely will need that kind of speed but higher capacity wireless means more bandwidth for all. The 2 gigabyte and 5 gigabyte caps need to disappear and they will where there's enough competition. 55% of Singapore is covered now and they'll be close to 100% next year.

Update 3 September: Vodafone in Spain announced a similar 300 megabit (shared) deployment rapidly going countrywide. By December, Voda will have 4G to 100% of Spanish towns of 25,000 or higher. 

   Rwanda will soon be supporting 750 megabits, as they build a network that can aggregate 5 carriers. The Africans look to leapfrog the west as they have plenty of spectrum available. There are very, very few phone wires in sub-Saharan Africa so the service will be wireless and they intend to make it efficient. 

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From Lantiq: Intel deal "is great"

Lantiq"It's great for us," Christoph von Schierstädt of Lantiq tells me. I compared the company at merger with the hopes of a few years ago. http://bit.ly/lantiqbye Christoph is looking forward and writes,

"Honestly, I don't really agree that the Lantiq / Intel story isn't a good one. In fact it's a great proof of everything we did to bring the company back on track  - We made the company faster, lean and nimble. Dan Artusi installed four key principles which we are acting under since then: customers, speed, simplify, participation. He furthermore demanded and successfully installed the 'see a problem, fix it' mentality; means we all care for the success of the company and remove roadblocks faster. 

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Gigabit cable for Montreal, Suddenlink & Alaska

Every cableco has plans but how will they price? Using DOCSIS 3.0, Videotron now is serving customers in Montreal (pr below) with the whole city set to upgrade in the near future. Hitron modems are going into use in the U.S., presumably at Altice's Suddenlink and at GCI in Alaska. (Also below). Suddenlink is charging $109 for the gigabit.

Comcast and Cox also offer a gigabit in many areas but today it's mostly a pr stunt. Comcast is charging $300/month and $1,000 for the install. They run a dedicated fiber and deliver the service as they would for a large business.

Both companies tell me they will switch to using their existing coax when DOCSIS 3.1 is ready.

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Gigabit of spectrum to Vodafone and Deutsche Telecom

DT 100Vodafone buys 110 MHz in German auction, DT 100 MHz. DT & Vodafone already offer 50-100 megabit LTE, which will increase in the next few years to a gigabit. LTE Advanced in the lab delivers over a gigabit in 100 MHz of spectrum, 5 channels of 20 MHz, 8 x 8 MIMO.

As I write in August, 2015,  a 450 megabit 3 channel, 4x4 MIMO is the fastest in field deployment. In the three years since Nokia demonstrated 1.5 gigabits over 100 MHz, engineers have been working furiously to deliver that speed in production.

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Germany chooses 100-150 megabit 35b DSL

Bruno wanted G.fast but DT chooses cheaper 35b.  February 2014. CTO Bruno Jacobfeuerborn startled the broadband world by suggesting they would deploy 500 megabit G.fast. Kabel Deutschland has been winning customers away by offering twice the speed of DT for the same price. BJ knows gigabit cable is close and he wanted to stay in the game. 25M homes were initially promised the upgrade and that's now been raised to ~30M, or 80% of the country.

A year later, his plans were cut back because of DT's financial problems. DT has lost billions on T-Systems, their computer outsourcing division as well as billions on T-Mobile USA. The losses in Greece and Eastern Europe are also high.  Over the last four years, they've paid more in dividends than their net profits. Debt is up by six billion. 

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More Articles ...

  1. Vultures come out on the Qualcomm-Ikanos deal
  2. $50-60M Ikanos buy brings Qualcomm into DSL
  3. Networks of the world, 2019. A first draft.
  4. 256 Antenna Transmitter & receiver for high frequency
  5. 10% Speed DOCSIS 3.1 to Australia in 2016
  6. 28 top engineers predict 5G
  7. 300 megabits (shared) going to a gigabit across Denmark
  8. Alcatel's Weldon: Governments are splitting the broadband market. We get 11% in China
  9. Fierce: 3 of 5 top 5G Universities are in the U.S.
  10. Adtran hurt badly by loss at AT&T, slowdown at DT
  11. Communication Engineers of the world unite in London, June 8-12
  12. Another Gigahertz of Wi-Fi Spectrum Sought
  13. IEEE Papers on Cognitive Radio
  14. First Look: Google Fi is "increasing" spectrum by ~20%. WTF?
  15. ITU 5G Focus Group wants you!
  16. First Look: 4G to 250M at China Mobile:
  17. Why telco small cells can't cover highways.
  18. "Rules of the road" for unlicensed spectrum
  19. 2022 or later for high GHz 5G
  20. Gig for $25/month in Bakersfield, CA
  21. $40/port VDSL Baby DSLAMs with new Lantiq system
  22. Review: Millimeter Wave Wireless Communications
  23. Death of Gigaom: This one really hurts
  24. 10 GHz spectrum for many gigabits
  25. Brooklyn in April is the Center of the 5G Universe
  26. 10 Gig WiFi demo from Quantenna
  27. 300 Megabit 3 Band LTE in Korea
  28. John Cioffi: WI-Fi’s extraordinary future: The Impact on Wireless Connectivity
  29. Gigabit WiFi: Broadcom, Qualcomm, Marvell & MediaTek chasing Quantenna
  30. 10 Gig - repeat, 10 gig - to 800K apartments in Hong Kong
  31. Verizon, T-Mobile, Ericsson Want WiFi Spectrum for LTE
  32. Goodbye, Lantiq. Hello, Intel
  33. ETSI sets up 5G high frequency "standards" group
  34. Ikanos: Still waiting on chips
  35. Obama's Seven Percent Broadband Plan
  36. Ten days to nominate DSL pioneers for the IEEE Ibuka Medal
  37. CEO: Verizon Dumping DSL for LTE
  38. HD Voice getting Golden Spike Jan 6 in Las Vegas
  39. Last Bow for "The DSL Committee"
  40. 300 Megabit 3 Band LTE in Korea

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