SUPERCOMM Plenary Panel: Perspectives on Growing Broadband Deployments

"Money isn't scarce, good ideas are," said James White, VP Marketing, in Alcatel's Fixed Networking Division, who spoke on the SUPERCOMM "Broadband Applications" Plenary Panel. Good ideas for new services are what will drive further broadband deployments. White observed that carriers are now experimenting with application ready networks that can deliver digital rights management, PVR, home networking and other capabilities. Online gaming is catching on quickly and carriers could leverage QoS capabilities to offer premium connectivity with low latency and high throughput. The RBOCs have proposed a plan for service enabled broadband networks to the DSL Forum (see DSL Home Initiative). Other potential applications to drive broadband growth include Virtual Private Enterprise services, "portable" DSL (broadband services that are truly always on through wireless and location aware network capability), and second-line VoIP services that serves as a cell phone extension.


Dr. Paul France, Head of Laboratories, Internet and Data Design Centre at BTexact Technologies suggested that the industry consider the UK's approach as a blueprint for continuing the growth broadband around the world. In the UK, the average price of DSL has dropped by half in just a few years, strongly fueling demand. However, broadband thus far has predominantly been a substitution to dial-up for early adopters. To drive growth further, the industry needs to offer new services. The UK's regulatory approach to telecom broadband is a wholesale model, which has strengthened the growth of DSL vs. cable. Access and content have been separated. France believes that this "open portal" model will support ISPs and encourage ASPs to offer innovative new services, and will lead to alternative pricing options. We may move away from flat based pricing to application or even session based pricing. However, network architectures need more capabilities to deliver these new services and pricing options.


Broadband service providers must manage two major challenges: how to attract new subscribers and how to maximize the revenue they generate from each line. According to Bernard Debbasch, VP of VDSL Products at GlobespanVirata, new technology offers answers. The ADSL standard has evolved into the faster and longer reach ADSL2. At the same time, the industry is now finalizing VDSL. The speed increase from systems using this standard will be a big boost to usage. Debbasch said that broadband penetration in Japan and South Korea is among the highest in the world because consumer access speeds of 24 and even 50 Mbps are offered there, which has fueled demand. Debbasch argues that significant speed boosts will drive new applications. Video has started to move from physical rentals, to downloads, and now to streaming over the Internet. More and more traffic, both legal and illegal, is over P2P. Forecasts predict 100 million digital cameras by 2005, and the resulting images that people will want to share will result in more demand for broadband networks. In addition, to justify the "always on" connection, broadband must be linked to other household appliances. Better silicon in next generation gateways will bring the household network together.


Demand for broadband is growing. The problem, according to Edward Kennedy, President of Operations and Executive VP at Tellabs, is that there isn't sufficient revenue to support it. In April 2002, 80% of network traffic contributed just 10% of revenue. This network growth is almost all IP data. To support it, the network infrastructure has to change, because current economics simply do not work for service providers. Cost per bit can be driven down dramatically by collapsing distinct networks into a data enabled backbone and converged edge.
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