Cable concerns
The Internet didn't invent conspiracy theories, but it has given them a more powerful voice and the ability to go global in hours if not minutes. When the first speculation surrounding cuts in two undersea fiber optic cables connecting India to Europe ran to thoughts of sabotage, paranoia seemed to be in full flower...
DSL decline
There’s been a lot of talk lately about efforts to pump more power and speed into DSL. Whether its bonding VDSL2 pairs, bonding ADSL with cable, reallocating upstream and downstream bandwidth, reducing noise on the line or just giving the signal a little boost, everyone’s interested in squeezing more speed out of DSL...
Ask Steve: Our new monthly Q&A column
Welcome to our monthly column, Ask Steve. We’re going to tackle small and medium business-focused questions every month. We’ve received some great questions so far and will try to get to all of them. This month we’re going to look at smart phone applications and broadband connectivity. Keep those great questions coming!...
Q&A: Gillis Cashman, MC Venture Partners
After eight years at MC Venture Partners, Gillis Cashman made partner this month at the venture capital firm, which focuses on technology and communications startups. Cashman, who sits on the boards of Cavalier Telephone, Zayo Bandwidth and cable player Baja Broadband, spoke with Telephony’s Ed Gubbins about the future of CLECs and current economic trends shaping the telecom service provider space and investment in it...
Hopeful signs on the cost vs. consumption curve
Telecom carriers have struggled for years with contradictions between their cost structure and their revenue streams. Life would be easier for carriers if their customers would pay more according to what they consume, though how could they ever be convinced to do that?...
Embarq’s third act begins
I had the pleasure of spending some face time with Dan Hesse this summer for an in-depth and exceedingly well-written profile I wrote about him and Embarq. Hesse has a warm, easy smile, but he is frighteningly tall...
Interesting times
As the year ends down, the year-in-review stories wind up. Let it never be said that Telephony missed a chance to add our two-cents. Thus: the 2007 Best and Worst issue, on newsstands now, as they say. Or you can hop over to our Web site and see our Top-X lists right now...
The new digital divide
Though I applaud Verizon for making fiber to the home a cornerstone of its future -- the FiOS network has reduced operating costs significantly while giving consumers faster speeds, higher quality, and unique services and features -- in reality, it poses a problem that highlights the potential for a new type of digital divide: fiber vs. copper...
Unbundled DSL
Embarq says it is offering standalone DSL service, but only to customers who threaten to cancel their bundled services. Now that the company has admitted that, though, the notion they’re using it “only” as a retention tool seems a bit slippery...
Beyond our control
Since we reported that Houston’s Optical Entertainment Network had abruptly and mysteriously discontinued service earlier this month, many of you have contacted me wanting more information on what had happened to the company. Get in line...
SureWest East
Two weeks ago I reported on SureWest Communications’ stated desire to scale its fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) business through acquisition. At the time, I offered the only potential candidates I could think of, under time pressure, that might appear on SureWest’s short list...
It's an upstream world
Forget what you know about network engineering because it's worthless...
Hammerhead shows its claw
As the folks at Hammerhead Systems briefed me on their new system for interworking PBT and MPLS, a spokesperson pointed out that it addresses two of the biggest criticisms of PBT so far from entrenched MPLS router vendors: namely, that it’s a just point-to-point technology, and it can’t handle multicasting...
FTTN the favorite
AT&T’s pronouncement today that it will lower its deployment projections and raise spending on its fiber-to-the-node (FTTN) network will no doubt get a lot of attention. What probably won’t surprise anyone, however, is that BellSouth is essentially becoming the third of four Bell carriers to adopt FTTN, leaving Verizon (the carrier with the oldest copper) the only Bell to favor FTTP instead...
Qwest’s fiber first
Plenty of head-scratching followed Qwest’s description today of its fiber-to-the-node strategy. The company is moving ahead with a relatively modest but not inexpensive FTTN rollout, but those plans don’t appear to include a terrestrial video service offering...
Tough choices at Alcatel-Lucent
In her book Tough Choices, Carly Fiorina, former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, recounts the way she helped cement the cultural integration of one of telecom's largest acquisitions using nothing more than a pair of cowboy boots and a knot of men's socks...
Sixty-five percent
TheStreet.com is reporting that AT&T has hired Goldman Sachs to explore a possible acquisition of EchoStar (or its DISH satellite video business), a hypothetical that has been the subject of much rumor and speculation in recent weeks...
No one can hear you now
I spent considerable time last week listening to established competitive service providers talk about the eminent danger of rulings in Washington such as last Thursday's partial victory by AT&T in a broadband forbearance ruling...
Fiber and the flood
Last week’s Fiber-to-the-Home conference was turgid with talk of a coming deluge of traffic that threatens to choke today’s telecom infrastructure...
Broadband before its time
Almost 20 years ago, I helped write Probe Research's landmark study, “The End of the RBOCs,” in which we argued that one of the then-seven Bell companies would sell its outside plant in exchange for regulatory freedom to offer any service. This was a novel concept, and it made perfect sense. But it was totally premature...
