Yesterday I had a short meeting with an industry executive in my hometown Utrecht. Another very valuable meeting - by way of reality check.
We mainly discussed two topics.
1. WholesaleI think of wholesale as a very attractive business. Obviously, there is a strong connection to the
separation stance.
In the old days, incumbents like KPN instructed managers pretty explicitly to frustrate their wholesale clients. Even today, Deutsche Telekom thinks it can only recoup their FTTN/VDSL investments by demanding a
regulatory holiday, effectively allowing its retail organisation sole access.
Now, this is all reversing – maybe not at DT but I do think at KPN (a
finalist for Light Reading’s Awards). More incumbents acknowledge that independent service providers (let’s call them BSPs) have something to add – things that are not in the incumbents’ DNA. Think innovation. Also, marketing to specific niches can handily be left to focused BSPs.
Linked to this is the telco stance that the investment incentive supposedly disappears when full (structural or ownership) separation is forced upon the company by the regulator.
Again, I do not see this. Extending the portfolio, and opening the platform to third-party developers, looks like a sound business strategy to me. It will attract BSPs large and small. Sure, investing carries risk, but that’s part of doing business, isn't it?
Speaking of which – applications. Please allow me to wander off for a moment. I have been putting together a very short overview.
Fixed
Back in April, BT took the lead by restructuring and establishing a BT Design and BT Operate unit, granting developers access plus a SDK. AT&T may be planning a similar move.
IPTV
See my post on Orca Interactive and SeaChange. IPTV seems to me the one area that could benefit most from adding apps, in order to strengthen the telco vis-a-vis
the cableco or satco.
Internet
Facebook did very well, allowing third-party developers access to the APIs, even if monetization is not quite so easy. In any case, the apps worked well for the valuation of Facebook.
Yahoo! may follow.
Mobile
Motorola launched a ‘solutions Catalog’ into beta to invite third-party developers.
2. KPNFew will
contest the strategic logic of the string of acquisitions (Telfort, Tiscali NL, Getronics
, iBasis, etc.) by the Dutch incumbent, KPN. Right now, it looks like brand rationalisation will happen, but what does that mean when the company has a multi-brand strategy?
Of the above takeovers, obviously Tiscali is the one that will have to return its brand to the mothership in Italy. Normally, they would probably have 36 months or so. After that, I think KPN will revert to one of the existing brands. I guess XS4ALL, the premium brand, could be a candidate.
So, which holes are left in the KPN portfolio? After the Tele2 Belgium
deal (which effectively
precludes a Belgacom merger), KPN may shift its attention to Germany. I think E-Plus will be beefed up by an LLU operator. Some are not for sale (subsidiaries of Vodafone, Telefonica and Telecom Italia), many others probably lack sufficient network coverage. What’s left is Versatel Germany or QSC. The latter has a wholesale business only, so combining it with E-Plus may not be a bad idea at all.
Finally, for my readers at Belgacom – check out this
Trouw article (in Dutch) on Reggefiber, the stealth FTTH builder in the Netherlands. Get back at those KPN guys who bought Tele2 Belgium, and enter the Netherlands by
buying Reggefiber!
Some will argue that owning an (open access) network is at the lower end of the value chain, but I believe it can produce great returns, especially since a FTTH network is future proof. Granting independent BSPs open access not only allows you into the wholesale market, it will keep the regulator happy too. Furthermore, you can always start or buy your own retail organisation!
UPDATE (thanks Dirk 'FTTH' van der Woude: "It's been quite a while since I last reported something remarkable from the Netherlands, but I think this falls in that category.")Reggefiber and KPN are teaming up in Almere, reports Trouw. That adds a twist to any Belgacom/Reggefiber speculation. Of course, all we need is a single FTTH network. KPN and Belgacom could dump all their FTTH assets into a Reggefiber Joint Venture and turn into service providers.Here is an English translation of the Vincent Dekker story (translated by Vincent himself):KPN has decided to join forces with Reggefiber to speed up the roll out of FTTH in Almere, the fifth largest city in The Netherlands. Reggefiber already owns some networks in smaller towns and in parts of cities, like the project in Amsterdam. This time they will build a network for the whole of Almere. KPN will deliver services on that network. It will bean open network though, so KPN will have no monopoly on it.
Then why would KPN do this? Well, I'm not sure, but it looks as if KPN has no other options. KPN is losing customers in great numbers to the TV-cable networks nowadays. These networks can offer full triple play, whereas KPN kan only deliver ADSL and telephony on its network. IPTV is not a success as yet. And its Digitenne (DVB-T) is also not good enough to really compete with the cablecos. KPN has a plan to roll out All-IP in the next 4 years, which is fiber to the street cabinets and old copper from there to the homes, but this VDSL will also not be good enough to protect marketshare.
So KPN needs FTTH badly. In Almere Reggefiber was already chosen to build the FTTH network and now KPN has decided to join forces with Reggefiber. It will encourage its customers to switch from the KPN POTS network to the fiber network. That should make the new network profitable in a very short time. On that network it will most probably not only offer very fast internet (100/100 to start with) and cheap IP telephony, but also DVD-quality analog video and digital hdtv. With that offering people might be persuaded not to switch to the cable company and even drop that cablecompany for their tv-service. In the Netherlands some 90 percent of all homes now still get TV via cable, the rest via satellite and a few percent via Digitenne.
KPN will keep its POTS network alive for the time being, but that can't last very long. So in a few years this incumbent will no longer own a network that covers the whole of the country. My guess is that Almere could very well be the start of much more cooperation between Reggefiber and KPN in other parts of the Netherlands, Amsterdam and other big cites to start with. KPN needs a network to compete witch cable, and it needs it fast. The news of todaycould therefore be good news for everybody in The Netherlands: the start of a national FTTH network at last. We're a few years behind Japan and quite a few other countries already, so it certainly is not too soon...
Almere is an interesting city for FTTH. The cable company there is UPC, owned by Liberty Global of John Malone. If Almere will show the same pattern as seen in other towns where Reggefiber already has fibernetworks, UPC can expect to lose some 70 percent of its customers in the next 2.5 years. After Amsterdam and Rotterdam Almere is UPC’s biggest market. So losing most of its customer there will hurt. And ater Almere, Amsterdam or Rotterdam could be next on the agenda of Reggefiber and KPN.
KPN has decided its POTS network in Almere has only marginal residual value. That's one message we got today. How long will it take before cable companies will admit that this is true for their network too?
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