|
Written by Ken DiPietro
|
|
Monday, 07 March 2005 |
|
Page 3 of 3
The least expensive estimate I have heard mentioned to connect a building to fiber is $200/installation. Based on this information
from the US Census Bureau we find there is 120 million plus homes in
the US. Using the $200 figure cited above (and to be honest with you I
believe this number to be very low) we get a number of $24,000,000,000
and that would bring the total up to $44 billion dollars.
The next two questions I have are where is this money coming from and when will it ever return a profit?
Where
is the money coming from? I would have to speculate that the money is
coming from several different sources, including the revenue the ILECs
generate. But, if we are to take anything I have written here seriously
(Don’t worry, I’m not even sure I take myself too seriously.)
then we understand that the ILECs are seeing a steeply diminishing
revenue stream from losing their customer base to both VoIP and cell
phones.
This (one might think) would also scare off any
investors from wanting to inject huge amount of cash into this venture.
If we also factor in the fact that the Telecommunications Industry as a
whole is in pretty tough shape one would have to wonder who in their
right mind would invest in this plan. Of course, there has to be a
profit, all we need to do is amortize this plan over a century or so
and everything looks rosy!
All in all, this leaves all of us in
an uncomfortable position. We are now forced to choose between backing
this plan (a plan that doesn’t seem too well thought out) or being
faced with the threat that the telecommunications network might go dark
– if they don’t get a huge influx of money.
What I don’t
understand is how the ILEC can believe they will win in this situation.
Do they believe that fiber transport will be so valuable to the
American public that we will forsake satellite TV and all other forms
of communications so that we will uniformly adopt their product
offerings alone? Could this be why there is a huge lobbying effort to
wipe out the independent ISPs and to halt the progress of municipal
broadband deployment? Is this the last act of desperation from a huge
entity that is just now starting to realize that their technology and
business model is no longer relevant in this new age?
If this is
the case, what the heck are we going to do with this elephant? Perhaps,
the name WorldCom was more appropriate than any of us understood.
Respectfully,
Ken DiPietro
New-ISP
NextGenCommunications
Credit to David Isenberg and Roxane Googin without their work to reference I never would have been written this piece.
Let's face it, if you're not getting the right information, you can't make effective decisions.
|
Industry Commentary 
Advanced Search
