Almere: a broadband living lab

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.

Almere is a 30 years old city, a new town, with 180.000 inhabitants and 70.000 households and it is still growing at great speed. The fibre will be a standard facility in all the new homes that will be built in Almere and in all the exiting districts starting this autumn with the Almere Harbour area. After that district by district will be canvassed. The inhabitants will get tv, radio, internet and telephony and get new facilities like video communication with care institutions.

This fibre project has been initiated and executed by the Almere Fiber Consortium, which consists of the municipality, three housing corporations, Reggefiber and a local entrepreneur D. Zantinge. The crucial question in this type of projects is the financing. Municipalities are allowed to invest under very strict rules; for example the municipality of Amsterdam has invested in its fibre project and is now under scrutiny of the European Commission. But the fray for the Almere fibre project will be born by Reggefiber.

The city of Almere wants to be the first digital city in the Netherlands. The objective of the project is promote innovative developments which will strengthen the economy, education, care, living and culture. Having a fibre infrastructure will make the city more attractive for companies in many ways. Employees can work from home. But also network companies can have a direct backbone connection from the Almere Interchange. This was already reason enough for the academic computing centre Sara to come to Almere. Almere ’s fibre network will be an open network. Any supplier of internet services can deliver its services in a level playing field to consumers and companies. In this way Almere will become a living lab in which internet and communication services can be developed and trialled.

The municipality Almere has already a super fast fibre network in use since the summer of 2006; this connects all municipal buildings, schools and social institutions. Also the industrial areas have been connected to the network. Besides these connections a pilot has been executed linking 1700 households and 500 companies to the network. With the experience of these smaller projects, Almere can start its roll-out of the entire network.

I have not seen more details on the roll-out yet. So I do not know when our office will be connected to the network. But to tell you the truth, I can not wait. The speed will always be more than the present UPC speed of 8Mbps; despite the fact that UPC has shown a speed of 100Mbps on the cable, it has not changed its offer of speeds and tariffs. Perhaps for the time being, I still should change to Alice or Telfort (but I do not like their fair use clause) for an ADSL 20Mbps line at 30 euro, including fixed line telephone.

Blog Posting Number: 897

Tags: broadband

Two speed broadband in Europe

Although some European countries lead the world in broadband access, there is a growing gap between the best and worst performers, according to a report presented by the European Commission today. Lack of competition and regulatory weaknesses are cited as the main obstacles to broadband growth. The Commission will address these shortcomings in its proposals to reform the EU's Telecom Rules on 13 November.

On 1 July 2007 there were over 90 million fixed broadband lines in the 27 EU Member States of which some 20 million lines, excluding Bulgaria and Romania, have been added since July 2006, an increase of 28.7%. Proportionally growth was highest in Denmark (7.7 lines per 100 inhabitants), Luxembourg (7.1 per 100) and Ireland (6.7 per 100).

Broadband growth has continued in the last year throughout the EU, as businesses and citizens continue to benefit from the digital revolution (see IP/07/582). Average penetration (number of subscribers per population) has grown from 14.9% to 18.2%, despite the relatively modest penetration rates in some Member States. In the best performing countries – Denmark (37.2%) and The Netherlands (33.1%) – roughly one third or more of the population has broadband, with a substantial proportion using an infrastructure other than the incumbents.

According to data published by the Commission, the gap between the strongest (Denmark 37.2%) and weakest broadband performers (Bulgaria 5.7%) is widening slightly, with now more than a 30 percentage point difference. The main reasons for this are the lack of significant alternative infrastructures in some Member States or the need for a more consistent and speedy application of existing remedies (see IP/07/435). More than the already proposed enforcement needs to be done to stimulate investment so there is more consistent growth across the EU. Effective competition on the broadband markets in order to achieve "broadband for all" is therefore a key priority of the reform of the EU Telecom Rules that the Commission will propose next month.

KPN feels competition from Alice
Talking about broadband and the Netherlands. When the ADSL 20Mb service Alice was introduced, KPN employees sang the song Who the f*ck is Alice. But after two months KPN feels the bite and has come up with a competitor: Telfort. And I hear you say: But Telfort is a KPN brand for mobile telephony and not for fixed lines. When KPN bought Telfort it paid almost one billion euro; now this money will have to be earned back. So from this month onwards Telfort is no longer an exclusive mobile brand. It offers now also fixed lines and voip.

Besides its mobile offer, Telfort now offers two products: internet with a speed of maximally 20MBps for 19,95 euro a month and a voip subscription for 9,95 euro a month with free phoning to all fixed line numbers in the Netherlands. Telfort guarantees no price increases after one year or extra costs for the use of the fixed line. There is one catch: for Telfort internet and phoning a fair use policy is in force.

In the press release Telfort claims to bring clarity in the intransparent ADSL forest. In a recent market research survey the Dutch express that the internet market is intransparent, complex and full of misleading internet offers. This is a funny statement as Telfort mother KPN has a market share of 53 percent built up with a series of brands (XS4ALL, Speedlinq, 12Move, Tiscali and Planet, formerly Planet Internet) and its most expensive 20Mbps subscription plus voip subscripting is 92.50 euro. Bewilderment all over KPN brand portfolio.

Blog Posting Number: 896

Tags: broadband