INTUG - ITU Broadband Workshop

INTUG - International Telecommunications Users Group

ITU Workshop on promoting broadband

Promoting broadband content

Geneva 9-13 April 2003

Introduction

The extent to which you can drive broadband by stimulating demand seems to be very limited. Where broadband uptake is fastest, it is the result of competition between different infrastructures, notably between cable television and public switched telephone networks. At some "magic" price closer to US$ 25 than to US$ 35, demand explodes.

World leaders in this are:

South Korea

12Mbps is the main offer
12 million lines
50Mbps VDSL is on trial

Japan

12 Mbps is the main offer
9 million lines
100 Mbps Fibre To The Home (FTTH) is available

Hong Kong

6 Mbps is the main offer
1 million lines

Some countries try to pass off as broadband services at 128k, 256k and 512k but this is not going to change the world. This does not cause the busines model to be rewritten. Some countries compound this by imposing a download limit.

The problem for operators and consumcers alike is to discover how they can and will use the new technology.

Business models

We do not know what the business models are for any of the players, neither for operators nor for content providers. Everyone is experimenting.

Whatever else it is, it is not defending the old PTT model, that is finally dead. It is simply not feasible to try to defend revenues from ISDN, Leased Lines or expensive voice. Even if the regulatory regime allows an operator to try, the overwhelming weight of technological change will fall on them.

Game

survey data on the use of the Internet, the numbers being the percentage of users undertaking an activity.

application	before broadband	after broadband
electronic mail	91.2	94.6
web surfing	72.8	84.7
shopping	43.5	61.2
downloading software	43.4	63.6
downloading music and images	14.4	37.6
streaming audio and video	6.4	31
online games	8	24.7
video and video-on-demand	1.4	9.7

source: InfoCom

The killer application is ...

Voice? Importance of consumer devices.

Hollywood would have us believe the killer application is piracy. P2P.

Unique in suing their own customers. Sold people the same recording on vinyl at 45 rpm, 33 rpm, on various forms of tape cassette and most recently on CD.

Some are practicing necromancy, bringing the dead back to sing and act. An obvious attraction is that they are cheap.

Killer attributes

Content creation

Conclusion

The operators in a handful of countries have been willing to accept the reality of competition and the historical inevitability of the end of the PTT era.

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Last updated 17 March 2003