NAB: FTTH providers wave broadband flag

LAS VEGAS – Three service providers and the head of USTelecom took to a podium here at the NAB show to defend and promote the US broadband industry, which frequently has taken its lumps in comparison with the rest of the world.

Walter McCormick, president and chief executive officer of USTelecom, kicked off the discussion by touting the job creation accomplished by the broadband and IT sectors, amounting to half of all new jobs last year, and the $900 billion that the telecom, IT and entertainment industries, all of which use broadband, pumped into the economy as well. "Over $1 of every $5 in private investment dollars went into communications technology," McCormick said. "Over $120 billion has been invested in broadband infrastructure in the last five years."

Link Hoewing, Verizon's vice president of Internet and technology policy, pointed out that while Moore's Law on the doubling of computing power is often cited, few people know that communications power doubles every 20 months, with the improvements in fiber optics and compression, and spectrum power will deliver 4G technology at speeds 20 to 40 times today's mobile data speeds. Verizon tops the list of global investors in 2008 and six other communications companies – NTT, Deutsche Telekom, France Telecom, Vodafone and Telefonica – are in the top 15, making the communications industry the dominant global investment force.

Ron McCue, chief operating officer of Silver Star Communications, an ILEC based in Jackson Hole, Wyo., serving western Wyoming and eastern Idaho, cited his company's early commitment to fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) back in 1999 and its early work in telemedicine, which helped save a local hospital by enabling remote training of nurses. "Wyoming is a big state, but we have learned not to let distance and density hold us back," McCue said. Silver Star isn't large, but the company has a three-person team devoted solely to developing new applications for the broadband network.

SureWest Communications is counting on new applications, layered on its FTTH network, to justify the telco's heavy investment in FTTH, said Steve Oldham, president and chief executive officer of SureWest. "We invest $70 million to $80 million a year, and that's a huge commitment for a company with a market cap of $150 million," Oldham said. "New applications will continue to generate multi-layered uses of the network, which will increase our revenues."