I’m not a big cereal eater, but I do like the occasional bowl of Wheatabix. I’m not the only one who recognizes the value of a diet high in fiber. I was in Europe last about 6 weeks ago and walked right into its on-going fiber debate (see this post).
This week, back again for various events in southern Europe, I got another dose. Everyone (except that banker in London who doesn’t know why British families need broadband) wants a fiber-rich network. The issues in the way are simple, but the permutations of solutions to each quickly become non-simple.
- Who builds it: The state? The incumbent network provider, forced then to share it with others? Many competing providers, creating redundant infrastructure?
- Who pays for it: The state? The incumbent? The providers? Customers? Utilities and other owners of rights-of-way where fiber is installed?
- Who gets to use it: …you get the picture.
A recent Yankee Group report by regulatory expert Dianne Northfield (from our Link global regulatory dashboard assessing broadband regulation in 45 countries) has stirred the pot, predicting that European next-generation (fiber-based) network regulation will become more granular, down to the sub-national level, rather than harmonized at the EU level, even while the EC attempts to create yet another regulatory body that oversees its member nations’ own regulatory agencies. Not that any further stirring was necessary, given the alphabet soup of associations (APDC, BSG, ETNO, and ECTA to name just a few) already pummeling each other with their argumentation and interpretations of EC directives.
A very senior exec at a European carrier erupted in frustration to me this week: “Someone needs to ask the EC why they’re so in love with the British regulatory model. Typical government types, missing the point. It might look good on paper, but exactly how has it sped up fiber deployment in the UK? The model the EC needs is the US. There, the FCC has stayed out of next-generation fiber network regulation… and Verizon has spent billions to build out a fiber-to-the-home network. We know we have to do this here, and there is plenty of competition to make sure it happens.”
The network is the raison d’etre of the flattening world. Freidman’s money-maker could never have been written without the network linking India’s call centers to the developed world. A state of the art network must evolve throughout Europe to keep the region from losing further ground economically. Making the sweeping over-simplifications that both CEOs and Americans are (in)famous for, my answer at an APDC dinner event in Lisbon this week was this: “Every day’s delay is an added cost. Make it fast and fair. But make it fast.”
***Photo credit: Aaron Chamberlain, http://www.flickr.com/people/elmachuca