Dueling quadruple-play architectures at CES

Scott Fulton, BetaNews: One of the major trends we're following all this week at CES concerns connectivity: Specifically, how all these wired services are supposed to make it to the gateway of your home or office, and who will be the ones who get it there? In the wired fiberoptic service arena (as opposed to wireless), there are two principal rollout architectures, dealing with whether the line to your house gets replaced with fiberoptic or gets left as copper.

There was news on both fronts at CES this morning, and our Sharon Fisher has more about it.

Sharon Fisher, Senior CES Analyst, BetaNews: Anyone who has a phone line that shorts out in the rain may wonder how they're going to get landline service, wireless phone service, broadband Internet, and high-definition television - the so-called "quadruple play" -- into their house. Proponents of the two competing methods each made announcements here at CES.

On the AT&T side is U-verse, which uses Fiber to the Node (FTTN), or running fiber simply to the nearest network node, and using the existing copper lines to run an upgrade to DSL called VDSL2. On the Verizon side is Fiber Optic Service (FiOS), which uses Fiber to the Premises (FTTP), or running fiber all the way to the home.

AT&T's method is cheaper and uses existing lines, but Verizon's offers higher bandwidth.

On the AT&T side, the former Bell Labs, now known as Telcordia Technologies, has validated the performance of Rim Semiconductor's Embarq chips as being able to support the bandwidth requirements for quadruple play - up to 200 Mbps, which is twice as fast as the 100 Mbps supported by VDSLs. The chipsets also result in less noise because they use low power, resulting in less crosstalk, and avoid low frequencies. It was not clear, however, when these chips will be available for implementation. U-verse is being supported primarily in the 13 states originally served by BellSouth.

Meanwhile, Verizon announced the deployment of gigabit passive optical network (G-PON), starting with the states of California, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Texas. G-PON offers download speeds of up to 50 Mbps and upload speeds of up to 20 Mbps.
Needless to say, neither one supports Idaho. [Sigh]

Scott Fulton: In your work, you get to closely monitor the government of a largely rural state. It must be hell to try to get fiber-to-the-outskirts (FTTO), let alone to the node. What can a state government do to help expedite fiber rollouts in rural communities, or is there anything it really can do at this point?

Sharon Fisher: Two years ago the Legislature appropriated $5 million, I think it was, specifically for the purpose of bringing Internet to rural Idaho.

It was proposed last year to double that, to $10 million. However, we had a new governor, and the person who proposed doubling it was the interim governor, so it became a political football. The short version is, no additional money was appropriated for that purpose. I don't think they even asked this year.

Scott Fulton: If the cable that has to be laid included all those things in the quadruple-play -- landline phone, on-demand television, and broadband service -- would that give the state government enough a) incentive, and 2) levees to be able to push this a little harder?

Sharon Fisher: I'm not sure, but my guess is, I doubt it. There's quite a cozy relationship between Qwest, our phone provider, and the state government, and Qwest has said flat out that they don't intend to string cable to any additional areas unless the state government pays for it. We have a new governor who's just announced he's planning to implement zero-based budgeting starting next year. I wouldn't count on it. There's the perception, accurate or not, that everyone who doesn't already have broadband access in Idaho is either too poor or too old to want it.

Scott Fulton: So you're pretty much stuck with FTTSL (fiber-to-the-state-line)?

Sharon Fisher: I wouldn't go so far as to say that. Certainly the metropolitan areas have fiber. It's the rural areas, and particularly the moutainous areas, where it's missing. Something like WiMAX could really help there. As near as I can tell, there's $4 million in federal funds that have been recommended by the Governor for use to enhance broadband access in Idaho.

Incidentally, there was a fairly scathing report on how Qwest spent the previous $5 million. The short version is, it was expensive and didn't provide broadband Internet to very many new rural users.

The other problem is that by the way "broadband" is defined by the FCC, it can have a bandwidth of as little as 200 kbps and still be considered "broadband." What sort of performance do you think your "quadruple play" is going to get on 200 kbps?

Scott Fulton: Yea, it's incredible to me that the effort to get that definition officially changed, has officially stalled.

Sharon Fisher: No, it's not. I bet the telecommunications companies are big political donors.

Scott Fulton: And with that inspiring note, thank you, Sharon.

[CORRECTION: As our later research confirmed, Rim Semiconductor has allowed AT&T to test its Cupria chipset for use in its U-verse equipment, but AT&T is not necessarily a customer, as an earlier version of this story stated. We apologize and regret the error.]