FTMH - Fiber To My Almere Home

Dramatic slowdorn in Dutch FTTH - my comment

2011-07-02T04:23:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I reproduced the press release by Telecompaper on the dramatic slowdown in Dutch FTTH. At first sight the figures are dramatic. Despite the roll-outs in 205 municiplaities of the almost 418 municipalities nationwide, the figures are down. Causes:
- Adverse weather conditions (a lengthy frost period) hit the overall market.
- Reggefiber's roll-out in Amsterdam also saw a dramatic slowdown; connecting homes in metropolitan areas has proven challenging.
- Competitive factors have held back FTTH as well, such as the nationwide availability of Docsis 3.0 (offering speeds up to 120 Mbps) by cable operators such as UPC and Ziggo.
- The absence of well-known brand names on FTTH (such as Tele2 and Online), and KPN's focus on shareholder remuneration forcing Reggefiber (in which KPN is a shareholder) to raise outside debt.

From my home situation I experience the dramatic slowdown in the Amsterdam metropolitan area. Last year I started a sibling blog on fibre to my home in Almere. Initially there was excitement with the activity of rolling out the cables. That was March 2010. By May this year, so more than a year later, the fiber was connected and two months later operational. Can you imagine: you put fibre in the ground and let it rest overthere for more than 16 months doing NOTHING. Of course the story is more complicated.

The fibre was resting in the ground for at least 13 months. During those months nothing happened and as far as I know fibre does not have to settle in the ground. If a bank would not pay rent for 13 months you would have brought your money already somewhere else. It is inconceivable why it took so long. The financing question of Reggefiber and KPN might have been at the root of this postponement.

Secondly, the fibre I am talking about has to enter an appartment building. In an appartment building with working people it is hard to coordinate to get the fibre connected. And as the organising company is only available in working hours, there is a problem. So that explains another month or two.

A third problem is the communication. As house owner you do not get a notice telling you that you are connected now and can have a look at the offerings. In the meantime you see only KPN canvassing the neigfhbourhood and some flyers of Tweak.

So you go to the page of Glashart, an coordinating organisation for the ISP's, type in you ZIP code at the site of Glashart and it says: Congratulations your address has a glass fibre connection; you can now enjoy all the advantages of the new connections and you have a selection out of eight ISP's. In your enthusiasm you start comparing all the offers and want to start ordering. But then something strange happens. So Glashart has told you that you have a glass fibre connection and that you can enjoy the advantages. But closer reading shows that your neighbourhood can not make use of all the offerings!

Time to make a phone call to the ISP you have selected after comparison of the offerings.As my house rule is to avoid any KPN subscriptions, I look for another ISP. BTW The KPN is lousiest offer of the eight ISP's. I get on the phone with one of the candidate ISP's, in my case Solcon. I tell my story: Glashart tells me I can get a glass fibre connection, but when I fill out my ZIP code on the Solcon site, I do not have a connection. The Solcon rep starts to explain.The glass fibre has been laid by Reggefiber. KPN has a majority share in this company. So KPN and its ISP's (Lijbrandt, Tweak) are allowed to canvas the eighbourhood EXCLUSIVELY for half a year in order to recover its investment in Reggefiber!

Besides all the problems mentioned (frost and finacing problems) the slow uptake of glass fibre can be blamed on: no level playing field fo all the ISPs and the lousy offer of KPN. For th time being I will stay with UPC which has also a glass fibre infrastructure with speeds up to 120Mb, but not to the home. So I have still to share the cable with my neighbours. When the close-up period for the ISP's in our neighbourhood is over, I will make another phone call. The earlier the level playing field is instituted the faster the subscriptions will come.

Dramatic slowdown in Dutch FTTH in 2010

2011-07-01T03:15:00.000-07:00

Telecompaper report finds:
a. dramatic slowdown in Dutch FTTH in 2010;
b. Household penetration forecast to reach 14% by 2015
　
The Dutch telecom research organisation Telecompaper has published its fifth annual report on the Dutch FTTH market. A host of new players has entered the market, and FTTH initiatives are underway in no fewer than 205 municipalities, almost half of the nation's 418. However, roll-out is going slower than some may hope. Adverse weather conditions (a lengthy frost period) hit the overall market, and Reggefiber's roll-out in Amsterdam also saw a dramatic slowdown. Connecting homes in metropolitan areas has proven challenging. Competitive factors have held back FTTH as well, such as the nationwide availability of Docsis 3.0 (offering speeds up to 120 Mbps), the absence of well-known brand names on FTTH (such as Tele2 and Online), and^ KPN's focus on shareholder remuneration. The latter forced Reggefiber to raise outside debt from an EIB-led consortium in a much delayed process which took almost a full year.
　
The Telecompaper report distinguishes between fibre-to-the-home and fibre-to-the-building (FTTB, also called Ethernet-to-the-home). By year-end 2010, we estimate the number of homes passed with FTTH or FTTB at 714,600. This compares to a combined 541,600 homes passed at the end of 2009.
　
Telecompaper expects the roll-out of FTTH to accelerate over the next few years. By the end of 2015, these two technologies combined stand to reach almost 2.5 million homes passed and over 1 million subscribers. The report also provides estimates on the market shares of the service providers in the Reggefiber ecosystem. The OnsNet cooperatives in Noord-Brabant lead the market with a combined 41 percent share.
　
For the fifth annual FTTH report, Telecompaper interviewed 17 market participants. The report describes the current state of the market and market dynamics evident in 2010, and provides estimates for the period through 2015. Many of the new and existing players are brought under the spotlight. Buyers of the report receive free access to our Broadband NL 2011 conference on 12 October, as well as a free copy of last year's report. Telecompaper is also preparing a national database of FTTH projects down to the city and borough level, to which access can be acquired on a subscription basis.

Please watch this space. I will have a comment on the slowdown tomorrow!

FTMH Dutch pension funds invest in FttH

2010-10-11T23:34:00.000-07:00

Three Dutch pension funds (ABP, PGGM and PvVervoer) have set up the Communications Infrastructure Fund (CIF) in which they have invested some €1 billion. The purpose of the fund is to develop, over the next ten years or so, a national fibre network through a range of mergers and acquisitions of existing networks as well as new builds and network expansion commitments. This network will be made available to all players including the incumbent KPN and the principal cableco UPC and Ziggo.

CIF also aims to invest in antennae to be used by mobile network operators for their mobile broadband offers based on HSPA+ and LTE technologies. The move is astute, given recent developments in both the fixed-line and mobile markets.

A report from the Task Force Next Generation Networks to the government in mid-2010 recommended that 90% of Dutch homes and businesses have access to NGN broadband services by 2020. The report covered proposals for rolling out faster networks, and assessed ways by which average download speeds could be increased to between 75Mb/s and 400Mb/s by 2020, compared to 5Mb/s to 14 Mb/s currently.

Mobile broadband will have a more substantial role to play in pushing high-end data services to rural areas: the April 2010 auction for licences in the 2.6GHz band saw four licences awarded to the joint venture between Ziggo and UPC, Ziggo 4 (set up in December 2009 to deploy and run telecom and broadcast networks). This will allow the cablecos, which together have near national geographic coverage, to complement their existing bundled services (based on fixed-line access) with mobile voice and broadband offers.

KPN’s HSPA network is currently being upgraded to provide up to 21.6Mb/s, while Vodafone in July 2010 doubled download speeds on its HSPA network to 28.8Mb/s in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht and The Hague. Tele2 NL in the same month announced plans to trial LTE in Diemen and Amsterdam (Tele2 also received four licences in the 2.6GHz frequency auction). All of these players would be able to make use of CIFs fibre-based mobile antennae as backhaul.

A main consideration for CIF is to provide a healthy return on investment for its clients. Real estate and most stocks have proved very volatile since late 2008, and there remain few safe havens for investors. The final cost of the project may reach up to €10 billion.

For more info go to: Budde Blog

BTW In June the fibre connection was brought to the cupbord of our Almere apartment. But there is still no live connection. All this FttH effort has been going on in our neighbourhood since 2009.

FTMH Dutch fiber connections doubled

2010-08-11T03:52:00.000-07:00

No less than 1,2 million glass fiber connections will linked in The Netherlands by 2012. In the past year the connections already doubled, but the execution of future plans is delayed. In 20 years time every household will have a fiber connection. Those are the conclusions of Stratix Consulting in their annual inventory and analysis of glass fiber in The Netherlands.

On 1 April 2009 218.000 households were linked up to the glass fiber network. One year later there were 451.000 link ups, a raise of 108 per cent. The statistics indicate the availability of glass fiber to the house holds. It does not mean that all house holds have subscribed. In the Netherlands the glass fiber link is laid up to the meter cupboard, but only connected when an application for a subscription has been made. In 2009 there were 139.000 subscribers and in 2010 only 217.000; only a raise of 56 percent.

Differences show up geographically. The roll out of glass fiber networks takes place under the free market system and makes the networks primarily available in strong social-economic areas. Money of market parties is invested mainly outside the big cities and in municipalities with a strong social cohesion, growth municipalities and new communities.

Top of the list is the province Flevoland, where almost half of the households (50,7 per cent) have a glass fiber link in their meter cupboard. The province of Brabant where the first commercial glass fiber network was introduced, has the highest number of subscribers.

Despite the raise of glass fiber house holds, Stratix notice a delay in the fiber plans,especially in Amsterdam. There the explosive growth has slowed down to a more gradual execution. Yet the progress is better than predicted last year. One year ago Telecompaper predicted that in 2013 the number of 1 million connections would be reached

Recently the Australian research bureau Budde Comm critisized the Dutch incumbent telco KPN for the slow implementation of glass fiber. But there is also criticism on the ground. People in for example the Flevo province notice the slow implementation. Last year March fiber was laid in Almere’s neighbourhood Tussen de Vaarten. Only in June 2010 the glass fiber was in the meter cupboards of the people. So the hunt for subscriptions started, but not for the apartment buildings. The families still have to wait for making the fiber operational., before a subscription can be entertained. With the glass fiber already in the ground for more than a year, the investment is not turned into subscriptions yet.

FTMH KPN responds to poor FttH uptake

2010-08-01T23:54:00.000-07:00

KPN is one of the few incumbents to pursue FttH, though the decision to go full-steam for FttH rather than the cheaper solution of upgrading its copper network (FttC with VDSL2 in the last mile) took some time. The company initially considered that VDSL could compete effectively with DOCSIS3.0, and its latest data release shows that it still believes that copper at least in the medium term is still sufficient for most customers.

Nevertheless, at the end of 2009 the company announced that FttH was indubitably the superior technology, and that it would invest some €1.3 billion to expand the number of FttH-connected homes, essentially concentrating on FttH instead of expanding FttC. Despite this appropriate emphasis on FttH, the company is still struggling to convince most customers to sign up.

This is partly due to poor marketing, but also – and ironically – due to the success of its VDSL roll-out. VDSL serves the last mile, and large-scale roll-outs began in earnest from January 2008. The VDSL network is capable of providing up to 30Mb/s, and delivers IPTV to 80% of households and HDTV to 70%. The company plans to expand the VDSL footprint to ‘outer suburbs’ (completing this job by the end of 2011) and so increase IPTV coverage to 88% of households, but otherwise there will be no further roll-out of FttC.

In poorly marketing FttH, KPN targeted what it refers to as ‘sub-optima’ customers in its roll-out areas, or a demographic less interested in services delivered or less able to afford them. The pricing for bundled packages was also set too high, which has dissuaded many consumers from switching from their existing DSL service (considered by many to be acceptable for their needs). In reality, only about 9% of customers capable of receiving FttH sign up for the service, though this is an improvement on the 2.7% sign-up of the first quarter of 2009.

To address these poor figures, KPN has set in train a number of measures to reduce its pricing and improve the way it targets and sells to customers. It aims to reach a 60% sign-up rate of activated homes and at least 250,000 customers by 2012. Prices for its FttH tiers (from this month) have fallen by €10 per month. Yet the difference between VDSL and FttH offers, if anything, is less pronounced than before. In the pre-July pricing structure there was a €5 difference between a 20Mb/s Premium VDSL offer and a 50Mb/s Silver FttH offer. There is still a €5 difference between these two in the new pricing structure, but VDSL has been ramped up to 40Mb/s. The inclusion with FttH of an additional TV receiver, HD recording capability and more IPTV channels may be enough to tempt some customers, but KPN’s experience thus far is that the majority of customers, if they are happy enough with their service, will not switch. To address this, the company aims to improve it fibre delivery mechanism, shortening delivery times and improving its ‘first time right’ ratio. The company at least needs to convince customers that switching from copper to fibre is seamless, that there are real benefits for households’ use of IP-delivered services, and that it will not cost them more.

More info: http://www.budde.com.au/

FTMH UPC cable out of action

2010-06-18T03:45:00.000-07:00

The UPC service is again out of action. Since I got behind my PC at eight AM, there is no internet, no telephone and no TV. The helpdesk just tells you that there is no internet, but does not tell you how long the interruption s going to last. There is no SMS service either telling you that the services will be interrupted or have been solved. In short, you have to wait and see. But I spotted two service wagons at the end of the street from my study. By twelve AM they were still there. So when they have left the UPC services will be up again.

Interruptions of the UPC service are not uncommon although the number of incidents has gone down. Whenever you complain about it, the helpdesk people, usually technical students, promise that it will be better with the new network. In the meantime they must have put in more than 10 new networks! Of course networks will have to be maintained and technical failures will occur. But interruptions irritate, certainly without service messages.

Of course it is funny to see how dependent we have grown to online. Up to 1990 you used online when you needed to search something. You were more offline than online. These days it is the other way around. You are more online than offline. But working offline usually requires online searches.

Whatever happened to the cable, whether it is an upgrade or failure, it is bad luck for UPC. For this week the sales people for the glass fiber service are crawling all over the neighbourhood trying to sell their packages. And they are competitive with UPC in tv, internet and telecom offers. With a real choice of cable or glass fiber coming up in the coming weeks, my choice is clear. It will be glass fiber and UPC will go out. too many incidents, no automatic service messages, overpromising and no compensation for the lost hours.

It is half past twelve and the service wagons leave. E-mail can be picked up and the telephone works again. In short a whole morning lost thanks to UPC.

Tags: UPC, glass fiber

FTMH Round Two: fibre in the home

2010-06-16T05:55:00.000-07:00

This week there was finally activity again on the fibre. A letter informed the apartment dwellers, which the fibre cable would be brought inside the apartment building and the separate units. It took some organising and getting people to stay at home in order to fix the glass fibre cable in the separate apartments. Now the main cable is in the building and the threads are being moved from the ground floor to the fifth and sixth floor.

There is a box at the end of the cable for every floor. In it the glass fibre threads are melted. This is a very precise job to be done by a small electronic device. Once a central box has been put on the ground floor and all threads of the apartments have been fixed to it, the fibre is tested with light A thread which is not properly applied will show a muffled light and a piece of the thread will have to be replaced. After the completion of the fibre network, the infrastructure is complete and can the sales of services start.

In Almere some five service providers have various internet, telecom and television packages. Presently KPN, Lijbrandt, Plinq, Tweak and XMS. Online,
the former Wanadoo, has also indicated to join the fray. KPN, and Online have already internet and telecom and television packages. Tweak and XMS come from the internet end. Lijbrandt and Plinq are new kids on the block.

I have been able to compare the packages of KPN and Lijbrandt. There is quite some difference between them in internet speed (up to 100Mb), but also in costs. Tweak is a frontrunner in internet in The Netherlands. It has already consumer connections of 200MB. Plinq and XMS have their package also published. Online still did not publish its package.

The competition is getting heavy now. UPC has an internet, telecom and television package for a the cable infrastructure which allows for 120Mb. The glass fibre brought into the home today will give access to the same type of package. However there will be differences. The links in the UPC network will be provided to more subscribers, which will bring down the ultimate speed. Presently the speed is not constant either and complaining does not help nor will UPC lower the tariffs for the incomplete service. With the others service provider you will get links for symmetric down- and upload, having a constant speed.

I have not decided on the service package yet, except for KPN. It will definitely not be the package of KPN. Besides the fact that I did not hear great stories on the installation, the package is lousy. And as KPN is an incumbent and did not have to sweat for its clients, I have chosen private companies ever since. I looked at the Lijbrandt service package and I was impressed with the price and the package conditions. It is a new name and people on internet for a have been weary about them, but I will compare further.

In the end I will not decide on the number of radio stations and television channels, nor on the telecom package, but on the speed of internet. Presently I have an asynchronous link with 10Mb uplink and 1,5Mb downlink. As I am not a movie buff, I do not see any reason to go to 100 or even 200mb. As I mainly play music and at scarce moments movies or television fragments, I do not need a fast uplink. Nor do I need a fast line for texts and PowerPoint presentations. But to be comfortable I am close to a decision for a 50Mb up- and download links.

Tags: glass fibre

FTMH KPN’s focus on FttC misses the broader picture

2009-12-16T00:02:00.000-08:00

It has been quiet since June 2009. The glass fibre cable has been laid up to the appartment building and then the activity died. So there is no connection yet in the appartments, except for the UPC cable and IPTV on ADSL. UPC is canvassing its subscribers to sign up for another year with higher speeds upto 120Mbps and even deductions on the subscription price of 50%. Yesterday, The Dutch incumbent telco KPN published its mid term strategy on broadband in The Netherlands.

IMHO, the strategy is neither fish, meat nor good red herring and is most concerned with returns in the mid term. But the Australian telecom consultancy Budde Comm harshly criticised the strategy, saying KPN’s focus on FttC misses the broader picture. (more)

FTMH - UPC Lowers tarriffs

2009-06-17T02:54:00.000-07:00

Since Monday UPC in the Netherlands has lowered its internet tariffs drastically. Since it completed its Fiberpower (fibre to the corner) and offers speeds up to 120Mbps, UPC is technically ready to compete with KPN and other ISPs in the fibre networks. The only real difference is that UPC for the time being will compete with FttH networks, while UPC has fibre networks to the corner. The last mile will be a coax link. Another technical difference is that the FttH fibre networks connect subscribers one-to-one to the network, while UPC links a series of subscribers to the head station; with more subscribers on the line the speed will slow down. (more...)

FTMH - The vote for fiber is yes

2009-04-17T08:08:00.000-07:00

The meeting of the owners’ association was disappointing. There was no representative of AlmeerNet. In one or another way I had misinterpreted the point on the agenda. No representative to answer my four questions. So the members of the owners’ association were asked to vote in favour of a motion, whereby AlmeerNet can link every apartment to the mainline. Voting for this motion was easy. It does not cost anyone a dime; besides the apartment is easier to sell with a link to glass fiber than without. The motion was passed with a large majority. Next step in the project will be the linking.

It brings closer the question, which company to choose. So far there were three parties involved: UPC, AlmeerNet and KPN. (more...)

FTMH - Fiber in the ground; next stage

2009-04-15T03:05:00.000-07:00

During my stay abroad, the laying of fiber in the neighbourhood has continued. In the streets behind the apartment building where we are living, street by street was cabled, by opening up the pavements, laying the cable, branching it to the houses and filling the holes and reconstructing the pavements. But the cable has also been laid for the vintage boats in front of our apartment building, as most of them are used as house boats and people are living on them permanently; so with water, electricity and telephone, they now get fiber to the boat (FTTB). In the meantime also our apartment building has been passed. It is a kind of funny as they had to negotiate a corner with a head to end box of the cable operator UPC (see photograph). Now the circus of linking up to the homes and apartments starts as well as the signing up for subscriptions. (more...)

FTMH - work in progress

2009-03-27T05:57:00.000-07:00

The digging work of the fiber cable has come to our side of the channel. Earlier the fiber cable had been shot under the canal and was ready to be connected (see spot 1 on the panorama photograph). In the past week the sidewalks were marked. (More...)

FTMH - Fiber coming up

2009-03-22T14:54:00.000-07:00

Fiber is getting close to our apartment in Almere now, as you can see from the photograph. Work is being done on the ring of fiber cables around the city. Two weeks ago the orange fiber cable was visible in our neighbourhood. Presently company laying the fiber cable is preparing the main routes in the neighbourhood. One of the difficulties is the crossing of the canal in front of our apartment.

Fibre to combat the crisis

2009-03-05T08:37:00.000-08:00

At the conference Light My Fibre yesterday, the Portuguese Diogo Vasconcelos was one of the speakers. He is a distinguished fellow in the Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group and works with governments and the European Commission. He had an optimistic message in these days of crisis. (more...)

Fast introduction of glass fibre

2009-03-04T08:39:00.000-08:00

In these bad economic times the Dutch government will stimulate a fast introduction of glass fibre. That said under secretary of state Frank Heemskerk at the first national glass fibre conference Light my Fibre at my hometown Almere. (more...)

Fibre comes slowly to The Netherlands (2)

2009-02-16T08:41:00.000-08:00

Glassfiber has been proclaimed as the knowledge promoter in The Netherlands and should be implemented with the assistance of the government and municipalities. In the meantime a mosaic of projects can be seen on the map of The Netherlands. Yet the uptake is meagre in the main cities Amsterdam and Rotterdam. (more...)

Fibre comes slowly to The Netherlands (1)

2009-02-15T08:43:00.000-08:00

AlmereGrid: a cityGrid for unused computer time

2008-10-10T09:23:00.000-07:00

The most famous example of a grid is SETI@HOME. Consumers donate computer time to a project that uses Internet-connected computers in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). I have had never the urge to participate in a project attempting to discover extraterrestrial life. But recently I was surprised to find city grid computing in my home town, Almere. AlmereGrid is operational since September 2006 after two years of preparation (The excuse for missing this news item is, that we were moving offices at that time).(more...)

UPC ready to fight fibre

2008-09-01T09:29:00.000-07:00

Next month UPC will start to roll out a high speed cable internet subscription with 60Mbps download speed and 8 Mbps upload speed over coax cable. The subscription price will be 50 euro a month; most likely this does not include telephone and television. The subscribers will get a new modem based on the docsis 3.0 standard. (more...)

FTTH taking off

2008-07-31T09:33:00.000-07:00

Last night a smart helpdesk lady of UPC seduced me into a subscription to a faster connection up to 10Mbps and a digital television subscription (yes I was charmed out of my pants). This morning the speed was already up to 9766 Kbps downloading and 1450 Kbps uploading. A comfortable speed. So far, I always said that I would wait to October 2009, when our apartment in Almere is up for a fibre to the home connection (FTTH). KPN is already selling three bundles of three speeds: 30, 50 and 60 Mbps for downloading at respectively 65, 80 and 110 euro a month, including telephone, internet and television. So I guess by 2010 stats of the Netherlands will be quite different in the ranking of semi-annual continent survey of the FTTH Council. In the latest survey it takes the 12th ranking. (more...)

2008: Year of the fibre breakthrough

2007-12-30T09:37:00.000-08:00

Amsterdam got its Christmas present from the European Commission. The municipality of Amsterdam was cleared from unfair state competition in the matter of the fibre project of the Cityring from the complainants the cable operator UPC and cable operators’ association VECAI (which changed its name to NLkabel recently). Amsterdam had never doubted the positive outcome of the EC investigation.

(c) 2007; Houthoff Buruma Solicitors

(more...)

Almere: a broadband living lab

2007-10-17T09:45:00.000-07:00

I had written about Almere and glass fibre already. But now the big news in my hometown is offcial: Almere (skyline of thecity on the photograph) will be the first big city with fibre to every home. On October 3, 2007 the telecom incumbent KPN and the cable construction company Reggefiber. KPN will offer the services on the fibre net and Reggefiber will lay the fibre cables. By 2010 all the households and companies will have a fibre connection at their disposal. (more...)