Page 10 - PCCA Journal 1st Quarter 2012

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PCCA Journal|1
st
Quarter 2012
10
News Briefs
Continued from page 9
lower costs.
The Connect America Fund will put
America on the path to universal broad-
band and advanced mobile coverage
without increasing costs. By eliminating
waste and targeting support where it is
most needed, these reforms keep univer-
sal service funding on a firm budget, and
they will ensure rigorous accountability
for fund recipients.
Broadband Delivers
Strongest Growth
Since 2009
L
atest broadband and IPTV figures
published by the Broadband Fo-
rum show a significant surge in
worldwide growth in Q3 2011, with more
new subscribers added in the quarter
than at any time since early 2009. The
figures also point to the growing impor-
tance of fiber as FTTH and hybrid FTTx
deployments increase.
Overall broadband growth during the
quarter, according to figures prepared
for the Broadband Forum by Point Topic
(www.point-topic.com), is estimated at
17.4 million lines, bringing the global to-
tal to 581.3 million, a quarterly increase
of 3.08 percent and an annual growth
rate of 12.89 percent.
“These are very healthy figures for
Q3, and they demonstrate the ongoing
strength of the broadband market,” said
Broadband Forum CEO Robin Mersh.
The figures show that FTTx is now
gaining ground on more traditional
technologies. DSL continues to be the
most dominant technology, adding more
lines than any other in Q3. However in
percentage terms, both FTTH and FTTx/
hybrid technologies showed the larg-
est growth with more than 8 percent
overall, compared to 2.2 percent for
cable modems and 2 percent for DSL.
FTTx added just under 19 million lines
in Q3 2011; this is more than double the
number in the same period last year, and
it continues to accelerate. This means
that market share for fiber technologies,
now at 16 percent, is fast catching up
with cable’s 19.5 percent.
“Hybrid FTTx will be where the action
is over the next few years,” Point Topic
CEO Oliver Johnson said. “Consumers
are showing signs of being ready to pay
for faster connections, and the hybrid
solution set is a cost-effective way of get-
ting relatively high speeds to them.”
With a rise of almost 1.5 percent in
the year, the proportion of broadband
subscribers in Asia continues to increase.
Results from other regions were more
muted, although both Europe and the
Middle East & Africa returned better
numbers compared to the same period
in 2011. The Americas also performed
better in Q3 than Q2, with overall net
additions in subscriber lines rising by
309,518.
The National Broadband
Map Goes Mobile
A
t the end of January, the Na-
tional Telecommunications and
Information Administration
(NTIA) announced a new feature of the
National Broadband Map that will make
it easier to use on a mobile device. The
new feature allows users to more easily
search broadband availability, sum-
marize and rank data, and view a map
of community anchor institutions, all
optimized for their mobile device.
The mobile browser version of the
National Broadband Map is designed to
provide a clean, intuitive experience on
the screen size of a smartphone. Users
swipe across panels of information and
can always access additional information
by sliding the footer panel up. A sharing
panel is also available at the top of each
page.
Users can search for local broadband
data with their smart phones’ GPS ca-
pabilities, if available. Traditional search
is also supported, and the results are
presented in a new format for mobile
devices: in search results, just tap on a
broadband provider to see further details
and to access the NTIA’s crowdsource
voting links.
The Community Anchor Institu-
tions map is the first map the NTIA is
deploying for a mobile environment. Tap
“Search” to enter an address and find
the 25 closest facilities. The map will
zoom to the request location, and each
point will offer information about the fa-
cility and any known broadband service
details. Watch for additional maps to be
included in the future.
To use the mobile interface, visit
www.broadbandmap.gov with a mobile
device, and the interface will appear
automatically. Links to the complete
desktop version are always available on
the page footer.
Regulatory Policy Limits
Growth of Competitive
Electricity Markets
S
ignificant changes in the regula-
tory structure of the 125-year-
old electric utility industry have
allowed for competitive sales of electric-
ity by a new set of restructured retail
power sellers and service providers. As a
result, the past decade has seen a steady
increase in commercial and industrial
customers that can purchase electricity
from sellers other than their incumbent
utility. Since the California power crisis a
decade ago, though, no additional state
has opened its market to competitive
providers. In fact, several states and reg-
ulators have imposed limits and financial
requirements as well as increased their
scrutiny of competitive players, with the