BBWN Bites: India's Top Carriers Could Shell Out $30B for 5G
Also today, Italy's Open Fiber and Wind Tre expand partnership, FCC considers whether SVoD is "effective competition" to Charter, Vodafone Germany gets even gig-ier and CBizz has a new name but nothing else changes.
India's top three service providers must spend $30.5 billion on fiber infrastructure and base stations alone in order to deploy 5G mobile networks, according to a report by UBS. Bharti Airtel and Vodafone's share: $10 billion apiece over the next five years, wrote India's Economic Times. Jio's larger tower footprint and greater ratio of towers already on fiber backhaul, plus its recent investment in fixed broadband, should reduce the operator's capex for 5G. (See BBWN Bites: India's MSOs Invest in Fiber and BBWN Bites: Reliance Jio to Debut Fixed Broadband – Report.)
Italian operators Wind Tre and Open Fiber expanded their partnership to deliver FTTH access. Wind Tre today can access wholesaler Open Fiber's infrastructure to reach Italy's 271 largest metro areas, and this week announced a deal to add more than 7,000 municipalities in areas with little or no broadband access. Open Fiber is targeting these regions under state-subsidized deployments, according to TeleGeography. The wholesaler recently launched broadband services in 70 of these so-called "white areas," which went from little to no connectivity to gigabit speeds.
A Question of Competition
The FCC will vote in three weeks to decide whether streaming services from providers like AT&T are "effective competition" to cable operators like Comcast. (Photo source: Pixabay)
The FCC is acting on Charter's claim the provider competes with AT&T's streaming service in Hawaii and Massachusetts, two of the last US areas where cable-rate regulation remains. On October 3, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said the Commission will vote in three weeks on whether streaming services are "effective competition" to cable operators. If approved, the agency would deregulate operators like Charter and Comcast in regions with limited competition, eliminating the current SVoD-only category. That would immediately morph streamers into direct competitors with cable TV companies. "Adopting this order would be a major step toward the Commission recognizing the realities of the modern video marketplace, and the increasingly important role that streaming services are playing in it," Pai said, in a statement.
Vodafone Germany's gigabit-capable network now reaches 10.9 million households, putting it well underway toward a goal of 25 million-plus premises by 2022. Today, almost 21 million homes can access 500 Mbit/s, 22.7 million homes can tap into 400 Mbit/s and 23.9 million residences can get 200 Mbit/s speeds via its fixed-access broadband infrastructure, the operator said.
Beginning Nov. 1, Dutch fiber-optic provider CBizz and its Your Fiber Brand will operate under the Delta Business name. In early 2019, Delta Fiber Netherlands acquired CBizz, which specializes in providing fiber optic infrastructure to business parks and developments. The name change will have no impact on existing services or customers, and contracts remain unchanged, CBizz stressed in a statement. "The services are provided over the same network by the same trusted, one team," the company noted.
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— Alison Diana, Editor, Broadband World News. Follow us on Twitter or @alisoncdiana.
(Home page image: Vraj Shah from Pexels)
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Here's where you can find episode links for 'The Divide,' Light Reading's podcast series featuring conversations with broadband providers and policymakers working to close the digital divide.
As we have for the past two years, Light Reading will present our Cable Next-Gen Europe conference as a free digital symposium on June 21.
Charter has sparked RDOF work in all 24 states where it won bids. The cable op booked about $19 million in RDOF revenues in Q1, and expects to have about $9 million per month come in over the next ten years.
As we have for the past two years, Light Reading will stage the Cable Next-Gen Technologies & Strategies conference as a free digital event over two half-days in mid-March.
Launch of 2-Gig and 5-Gig FTTP tiers in 70-plus markets puts more pressure on cable ops to enhance their existing DOCSIS 3.1 network or accelerate their upgrade activity centered on the new DOCSIS 4.0 specs.
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