An Insights debriefing

Telephony's recent Insights conference provided plenty of opportunities to talk informally with the Tier 2 and Tier 3 providers that are the target readership of The Independent and with others who have a stake in that market. I met Brandon Zupancic, director of technology for Canby Telcom and subject of this issue's Indy Dossier. I learned that Bill King, principal of JSI Capital Advisors, can deliver some pithy one-liners. And I talked with Calvin Deleavey and Barry Walton from BellAliant about Embarq's eGo phone, which figures in our cover story. They reminded me that NBTel offered something similar some years ago, but it didn't include Internet connectivity. By adding that capability, they think Embarq has a winner.

No conference would be complete without a little controversy — and that was provided by Vanu Bose, CEO of equipment-maker Vanu, who made the statement that any carrier with 700 MHz spectrum would be nuts to deploy anything but long-term evolution (LTE) technology. On the surface, his argument is logical: AT&T and Verizon Wireless, who own most of the 700 MHz spectrum, plan to use LTE and will drive economies of scale that no other technology will be able to match.

But that argument assumes smaller telcos that won 700 MHz licenses will want to offer the same mobile high-speed services that the big carriers are planning — and I'm not so sure that's true. CenturyTel's announcement was rather vague, but it talked about offering service to targeted neighboring communities, which sure sounds like a fixed deployment to me. And when I recently checked in with a couple of rural 700 MHz winners — Larry Sevier, general manager of Rural Telephone Service Co., and Lloyd Benson, president of Pioneer Telephone Cooperative — they both talked about fixed deployments, too.

For a rural carrier, fixed broadband wireless can be a great way of filling in coverage holes in areas beyond the reach of DSL or fiber, and it can provide a platform for serving communities outside their landline exchanges. But in an era of nationwide plans, a mobile wireless strategy is becoming less and less appealing for smaller carriers.

Even Independents considering mobile service may not want to wait for the big guys. With little fanfare, Redwood Wireless already has built a high-speed wireless network based on iBurst in the PCS band that supports mobile hand-offs, and the company is considering using the same technology at 700 MHz.

700 MHz and 4G are just a couple of the topics that the telecom industry will be debating in upcoming months. We look forward to bringing you coverage on these and other stories that affect the Independent market — and to revisiting the 700 MHz debate at next year's Insights conference.

Joan Engebretson can be reached at joanengebretson@cs.com.