Reader feedback loop: FTTH and more

Over the past few days I spoke/mailed with a number of 'industry leaders'. In some cases the most interesting things came up in a sideline. Here is what I have to share, with more to come next week.

1. Ed Achterberg of Telecompaper.com

His outfit is growing, both internationally and 'up the value chain'. Telecompaper already is the preferred partner of most Dutch operators and providers (and many more) for news, market research (including surveys) and analytics (including services). Now, they are adding commentary, research and who knows where they will be in 5 years time.
(Sounds like a takeover candidate for Informa or Wolters Kluwer, but that is another matter.)
Two items stood out:

• VDSL. KPN seems to be skipping this technology and may move into FTTH on a larger scale. Good news for us FTTH aficionados, even if I was reminded of Philip Rogge (of Belgacom, which did roll out VDSL on a large scale), who said that you may need VDSL as an intermediary solution as FTTH may take a long time to roll out.
• Mobile broadband. Ed views this as an ever more (HSPA+) viable DSL/cable replacement. In his monthly magazine he acknowledges that "it won't do for daily YouTube consumption", which makes me a big skeptic. Still, my 85 year old mother could be convinced - all she does is basic email.

2. Marcel Jansink of Wavin

After this post on Wavin's ducts he agreed to let me take a look (next week) at the cost model that TNO developed for FTTH deployments.

3. Serial entrepreneur John Goedegebuure

He called after reading this post on his Daily Media box. Next week we will meet (together with UCD CEO Hennie Meijndert) to talk more about the (28!) very open business models.

• He hinted at the upcoming availability of a DTT-ready version of his Daily Media box, which would make KPN a serious potential partner - just as I 'predicted'. And BT as well, because BT's Philips-box has a Freeview connection (but a different business model).
• Besides KPN, the MSOs and Reggefiber, John suspects there may be a #4 FTTH market participant in the Netherlands: Rabobank. Through their Bouwfonds venture they are buying an MSO and are supposed to have hundreds of millions available for telecom infrastructure projects. Remember that Rabobank is no stranger to telecoms: they were an original investor in Dutchtone (then Orange, now to be integrated into T-Mobile).

4. Stefan Stanislawski of Ventura Team

His group produced an FTTH usage study for the FTTH Council Europe. A must read.