Aussies and Kiwis sampling Dutch broadband (5)

Especially the civil servant in the Aussies and Kiwis trade delegation were eager to hear about the involvement of the government in the pushing of Fibre to the Home (FttH) networks. The first that they arrived they already upset the program set up by Paul Budde and Fred Kappeteijn. While in Amsterdam they wanted to know everything about CityNet and how do you get it off the ground. Also on Tuesday it remained a subject of interest. And when they were in Almere they still were eager to learn how to set up an FttH network and keep it an Open Net.

Of course Amsterdam is the most interesting case as the city has invested 6 million euro and is now under scrutiny of the European Commission. The municipality of Almere has not put any money in it the FttH network, which will be laid from 2007 till 2010. Also the municipality of Nuenen did not put money in the network.

(c) Elaine Sullivan

The Netherlands is not the only country working on FttH networks. IN Japan 300.000 FttH connections per month will be realised by 2008. In Europe the battle for Paris is on. The Iliad network will go after 1 million homes at 1 billion euro. Neuf Cegetel wants to have 250.000 FttH connections at 50Mbps for 29,90! The incumbent France Telecom starts FttH connections at 100/10 Mbps for 44,90 in Paris, Poitiers, Marseille, Lille, Toulouse and Lyon. Noos Numericable puts in a massive investment. In the department Haute-de-Seine 1,5 million household connections are aimed at as well as 100.000 SME connections at 50 to 70 million euro. All in all no less than 100 broadband projects are under way in France. In Cologne in Germany a broadband project is going on as well as in Schwerte, Norderstadt, Hamburg and Gelsenkirche. But there are also projects in Vienna (Austria) and Zurich (Switzerland), while in Denmark an FttH network project has been taken up by an energy company, which will connect 35 percent of the homes and reach 50 percent of all Danish people. In the UK there is a project in Oxfordshire. In the rest of the UK the slogan is: 12/1 Mbps is enough for all and ever. Of course FastWeb in Milan is the most operational project in Europe.

Essential to the Open Net is the three layer model. There is a point to point connection for an unbundled local loop; this provides the largest capacity for future growth. The active layer has active Ethernet. On top of that is the application service layer. Any service provider can use the application service layer against the same conditions.

In Amsterdam the municipality is represented in the board of network. And Amsterdam has invested 6 million euro. Amsterdam claims that it did so under company conditions. In Almere the municipality is also represented in the board, but it will not invest in the network. In fact the municipality does not have to do this as an investor has been found and an operator, most likely KPN, will take care of the operations.

In all cases people ask, why an open network is the option. The answer comes from economics. A closed network will give a return upon investment of 8 percent, while an open network will yield 10 percent return upon investment.

Blog Posting Number: 696

Tags; Open network, FttH