Welcome to the fibre-rich and super-fast world of Telecom
The RVA Market Research clearly indicates the arrival of fibre-era. The firm estimates that there were more than 1 million fiber users in North America as of September.
That’s almost a three-fold increase from the 332,700 subscribers at the end of last year and more than six times the 146,500 counted in 2004. The homes passed numbers — 6.09 million in September, 2.7 million in 2005 and 970,000 in 2004 — show the same level of growth.
The telephone industry — led by Verizon (FiOS) and AT&T (Project Lightspeed) — know very well that cable modems and DSLs are here to stay and they are taking apt actions to squeeze this opportunity. Equally competent are the projects by many smaller carriers and municipalities.
Earlier people knew nothing other than the dial-up access. Then cable modems and digital subscriber line (DSL) took the world by storm. Now, fibre and faster cable services are heralding their arrival. Indeed, it is a world in transition.
Telcos’ are targeting the current cable modem customers and their own DSL services. Cable operators are also looking to speed things up. For one thing, they are informally adding higher speed — and higher priced — services for corporate customers. They are looking to add fiber to the mix as well.
The market is developing and changing at a tremendous pace. The next generation of wired broadband — which is running parallel with similar evolutions in the cellular and wireless sectors — will be fiber-rich, super fast and convergence-friendly.
Source: IT Business edge