BBWN Bites: New Broadband Map Uses Census Blocks, Adds Prices
Also today, TM Forum and friends tackle IoT interoperability; Wilson, N.C., gets giggy; Virgin Media makes Manchester even greater; mobile mixed reality forecast hits hefty numbers; two industry groups agree on open-source standards for broadband; smart-home security M&A; Sunrise-Liberty deal still in hot water; plus BICS' fiber expansion.
BroadbandNow on Monday unwrapped a new national broadband map that includes the price an operator charges for a service based on location. The price-aggregation and data analysis site currently depends on census-block info from FCC form 477 -- but 100-plus providers already have updated this information with more accurate data, according to BroadbandNow. The map also incorporates service pricing from more than 2,000 providers, and interactive toggles so users can search by price, availability, technologies (such as fixed wireless, cable, fiber or DSL) or speed. (See Why Did FCC Kill NTIA's Broadband Map? and Broadband Map Gets Open Sourced via App.)
New Broadband Map Relies On Census Blocks, Adds Prices
BroadbandNow leverages its database of operators' real-time pricing to add a new layer to the broadband map question -- a layer many operators have said they do not want featured. See the interactive map at: National Broadband Map.
Working with Vodafone, Axiata and the IoT Forum, TM Forum today announced an IoT Device Management API Component Suite that gives operators end-to-end IoT device management -- a key piece of cracking the smart-home and other vertical markets. The suite includes TM Forum open APIs such as alarm management, resource management, activation and data access endpoint.
Wilson, N.C., is the state's self-described first gigabit city, serving more than 10,000 residential and 400-plus business customers via its FTTH network. After three years in operation, revenue exceeded expenditures, a county-wide school network serves all county school facilities and a 1 Gbit/s metronet service is available to one of the county's largest employers, said Will Aycock, general manager of Greenlight Community Broadband for the City of Wilson. Aycock credits ETI Software for integrating with its FTTP GPON network, interfacing easily with the city's CLEC partner and digital video platform in a manner that kept Wilson's churn down to 2% or less.
Virgin Media has deployed its DOCSIS 3.1-powered Gig1 fixed broadband service to about 500,000 homes in Greater Manchester, part of the Liberty Global family member's vision of providing high-speed connectivity via its fiber and HFC infrastructure to more than 15 million UK households by 2021. (See Virgin Media Brings Gig1 to Greater Manchester Area.)
Greater Manchester: Full of Greatness -- and High-Speed Broadband
You can find many historic buildings throughout the villages, towns and cities of Greater Manchester, including Stockport's Strawberry Studios. Many punk icons (and some pop stars, all right) recorded here, from Buzzcocks and Joy Division to OMD and (definite non-punkers) Bay City Rollers. (Photo Source: Robin Stott; Wikipedia)
The worldwide value of mobile mixed reality will exceed $43 billion by 2024, versus $8 billion this year, a new report from Juniper Research finds. Mixed reality features overlays of interactive digital images and videos onto the real world via a smartphone, tablet or smart glasses. These bandwidth-hungry applications likewise tap into mobile or home and business WiFi networks. Edge computing and 5G are two technologies accelerating the development of these services in 2020, the research firm found. But after watching Ellen DeGeneres narrate a Spectrum commercial, it's apparent that at least some MSOs are staking their claim early.
The Broadband Forum and the Open Networking Foundation agreed on how operators can best leverage open source and standardization projects to help migrate to automated access networks. Open Broadband-Broadband Access Abstraction (OB-BAA) is designed to allow SDN-based management and control of multi-vendor, multi-technology access networks using a standard abstraction northbound interface.
A couple of recent acquisitions just happened in the world of smart-home security: ADT bought Las Vegas-based I-View Now, which provides alarm-verification services, and Alarm.com took a majority stake in OpenEye, which provides cloud-based video surveillance solutions for commercial properties, Axios.com reported today.
However, Sunrise's anticipated $6.39 billion acquisition of UPC Switzerland is looking less and less likely. Liberty Global, which owns the Swiss operator, today stated it supports cancellation of a shareholders meeting scheduled for Wednesday to approve the cash call. The proposed deal has run into multiple hurdles, including resistance from Freenet (Sunrise's largest financial supporter) and activist investor AOC (no, not that AOC).
One AOC Not Involved in the Sunrise Deal
The activist that initially help up the Sunrise deal was German-led investment firm Active Ownership Capital (AOC) -- not Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the U.S. Representative for New York's 14th congressional district. (Photo Source: Ocasio-Cortez' Twitter)
BICS added a new fiber route between Turin, Italy, and Lausanne, Switzerland. The Belgian operator also added five points of presence designed to provide low-latency services in northeastern Europe.
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— Alison Diana, Editor, Broadband World News. Follow us on Twitter or @alisoncdiana.
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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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