Why Spend $350 Million to Map Broadband? - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

One word- Boondoggle. Every reader here could imagine a scheme to do this cheaper.

Clearwire Funding Gap May Put Backers’ Plans on Hold : Bloomberg.com

Clearwire can't raise capital. WiMax needs a vote of confidence outside Intel/Google to remain viable.

Cisco’s Cash Hoard Swells Along With Acquisition Rumors - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

Why does Cisco raise $4B worth of debt? Because most of the $26B it has is overseas, and repatriating it to use it for acquisitions or operating purposes would trigger taxes.

Alcatel-Lucent refocuses WiMAX business to support LTE | MuniWireless

Alcatel-Lucent defocuses from WiMAX, calling it a 'sidekick' solution to LTE. Something tells me Intel didn't fork over billions to be a 'sidekick' technology. Coming on the heels of Nortel's decision to exit, things are looking grim for WiMAX.

VScope™ Engineering Design Challenge 2009

Vitesse is giving away $10k to whomever comes up with the best new application for its data re timing chip. Not just your standard iPod prize - this is real money. Should be interesting.

Source: BLS

FT.com - The game changer

George Soros pens an op-ed on the origins of the financial crisis.

By 2012 Koreans Will Get 1Gbps Broadband Connections

Not the news it is cracked up to be as this is already underway. Korea has been actively wiring households with fiber for the past few years and the installed plant is now in place for a massive shift to FTTH, using primarily GEPON/GPON moving to 10G GEPON.

The Adventures of DCXMan

Hands down, the best tech advertising I have seen in a while. CHECK IT OUT.

AT&T Slows U-Verse Build Out

Calls new deployment plan "more elegant", an easy mark considerig the software and hardware complexity of the endeavor. The U-Verse FTTN deployment will now hit 30 million homes passed by 2011, a year later than previously planned. Total capex down 10-15%.

Barron’s Online : Verizon: Crumbling Enterprise Business Pressures Revs

Big Telco under attack from virtually every angle now. Cable is sniping broadband, Enterprise revenue is down, wireless margins going down when they are forecasted to increase, and everyone is losing 10-12% of their landlines a year. Results from Level3, Time Warner Telecom, etc. will be enlightening.

Obama’s Broadband Plan Disappoints Telecommunications Companies : Bloomberg.com

The fact that Big Telco doesn't like the bill means it is well structured. They're upset that the money is being funneled through agencies geared towards smaller, rural telcos. This will benefit companies such as Occam, Tellabs, and Adtran.

What Could Have Been: Nortel-Huawei JV | All About Nortel

Somebody lets slip the .ppt slides on a proposed Nortel/Huawei joint venture for routers. Contains such masterful strategic marketing visions as" "JV as a Spunky Canadian Beaver and not a predatory Chinese Tiger" and "Nortelization will allow us to position the products to be as Canadian as an Egg Salad Sandwich". We're not kidding.

AT&T Femtocell Service Website Goes Live - dslreports.com

Femtocells are arriving at a time where consumers are looking for things to cut. Femtos should, if anything, accelerate landline losses.

Chinese New Year - Welcoming the Ox - The Big Picture

Happy New Year to our Chinese readers.

Photos: Japan Optic Fiber Internet

A photo essay of a step by step install of Japanese GE-PON FTTH. Good photos, other than the fact this guy has a serious issue with his Japanese doll fetish.

Poll Says Cost Would Deter Customers Without Broadband - washingtonpost.com

Poor broadband penetration isn't just a result of availability issues. It is a messy problem, one I believe most tied to perceived value by late-adopters. It will take more than money to raise broadband penetration, and we must ask ourselves what the exact goal is that we wish to achieve. Some people took decades to convince they needed electricity. Or they just died off.

China Unicom loses fixed-line and broadband subscribers in December

Little known fact - After peaking a few years ago following strong growth, China is losing 1% of fixed line telephones… A MONTH.

Bloomberg.com: Intel Raises Possibility of Loss in First Quarter

“We are not going to wake up in six months with everything rosy again,” - Chief Executive Officer Paul Otellini. Article details what Intel is doing to avoid its first quarterly loss in 21 years.

Pictures: President Obama’s inauguration, as seen from space

Satellite photography goes real time. Very neat.

One tough Yahoo! | The Economist

Great profile of Carol Bartz, new CEO of Yahoo!.

Huawei: Nortel Ethernet—No, Mobile Phones—Yes

Huawei denies it was bidding for Nortel's business.

Time, Money, and Program Managers as Dumb as a Bag of Rocks : Telecom Straight Shooter

Dave Rusin, Fiber CLEC Telecom Executive, on the process of trying to lease fiber ducts from the big RBOC boys. Dave makes a great case in his blog about the value of owning fiber assets.

Bloomberg.com: Nortel Customers Opt to Stick Around After Bankruptcy

Though they do so out of necessity, not choice.

Bloomberg.com:

Nortel Bankruptcy ‘Blow to Psyche,’ Investors Say

The quality of management is what did them in… They went on an acquisition spree during the Internet bubble but they paid over the top for assets and never managed to get rid of the debt.

A lot of drinking in Ottawa tonight.

GlobeandMail: Nortel to file for bankruptcy protection

Speculation is company will be broken up and sold. Nortel is to Canada what Intel is to America. This is amazing.

Nortel's China Syndrome - Forbes.com

Good article on the potential of a Nortel/Huawei combo. I don't see it happening, but the analysis of the controversy surrounding such a deal shows that the forces of protectionism are mounted up and ready to ride, just as they did during the failed Huawei purchase of 3COM. My feeling is the Canadian govt will step in and bailout Nortel if needed, at the expense of bond and stockholders.

Three China Mobile branches kick off fixed-line network upgrades

Deploying 1Gb/s FTTB to buildings in selected Chinese cities as part of it's acquisition of China Tietong. Unclear whether this is GE-PON or just plain GigE.

Barron’s Online : Juniper Slides On Report Google May Build Own Router

Guess they didn't read the memo… we broke this news over a year ago.

Intel Fourth-Quarter Sales Drop 23%, Missing Forecast | Bloomberg.com

Decline is worse than any period before, including the tech bubble implosion. Intel indicated Q4 would be $10B in October, $9B in November, and this report indicates it came in at $8.2B. Intel also marked down its $1.6B Clearwire investment by $950M. With a blow like this we think it is a safe bet that Intel's adventures in WiMAX are over, and as a result, WiMAX is over.

Stimulating ideas | Global Crossing

Global Crossing blog shares opinions on what is needed for telecom stimulus. They reach the same conclusion as us - pumping more money into a broken system is not the answer.

With a Digital Stereo, Cisco Systems Is Starting a Push Into Home Electronics - NYTimes.com

"Your plumber would like to take you dancing"

Bloomberg.com: Friedman Would Be Roiled as Chicago Disciples Rue Repudiation

By the time the current crisis runs it's course, it will be the interventionists and the government that are handed the blame for lengthening and amplifying a bad situation. This a crisis that should be passed like a kidney stone- painful but with a definite conclusion.

Light Reading Europe - Huawei, ZTE Predict 2009 Growth

Those of you wondering what happened to growth in the Telecom business - here is your answer. Nokia/Alcalu/Ericsson are failing at the expense of Huawei. Think GM in the 80's, a permanent and complete loss of market share as a result of high costs and risk aversion.

Is Google Making Us Stupid? - The Atlantic (July/August 2008)

"As we come to rely on computers to mediate our understanding of the world, it is our own intelligence that flattens into artificial intelligence."

Gartner Forecasts 2009 Chip Sales to Decline 16% on Slowdown

Next year may mark the first time the industry has consecutive years of revenue declines. Ugly.

There are lies, damn lies, statistics, and Chinese statistics

Andrew Schmitt - 2008

Bloomberg.com: Cisco Becomes Infrastructure Play on Obama Tech Focus

Government arrives with bailout package for the communication industry - You're about 7 years too late guys. Even tech companies know no shame when feeding at the trough of government handouts.

Light Reading - Swisscom Plans $2.3B FTTx Rollout

I will guess this is GPON, but the announced plans show a heavy bias towards providing unbundled fiber to competitors, an architecture that tends to favor pt-to-pt fiber. $2.3B over 6 years for Switzerland works out to about $700/home. 60% of the 3.3M swiss households are apartments, so this number should be sufficient to wire almost the entire country. Wow.

Cisco Is ‘Very Comfortable’ With Long-Term Forecast - Bloomberg.com

He is “very comfortable” with the company’s long-term forecast of 12 percent to 17 percent annual sales growth in a normal economy… but what is a normal economy. Also indicates Cisco will be very "extremely aggressive" buying smaller companies.

China Mobile to Deploy National FTTx Network in 2009

China Mobile is leveraging the Tietong assets they acquired and deploying GE-PON equipment from Fiberhome. This is a win for GE-PON, nearly sealing the dominance of the standard in China, and also a big win for Teknovus, the leading chip supplier to Fiberhome.

Clearwire may slow WiMax build to cut funding gap | Reuters

The noose is tightening. It is impossible to see how Wimax in the USA makes any sense at this point. While it would be destructive, existing wireless providers will simply drop their rates and block Clearwire out. If the telcos know one thing, it's how to engage in anti-competitive behavior.

Bittorrent declares war on VoIP, gamers • The Register

Peer to Peer goes nuclear. Now using UDP instead of TCP to handle transfers. The supporters of Net Neutrality continue to ignore the lesson of the tragedy of commons.

Tech Trader Daily: Taiwan Semi Cuts Q4 Rev Guidance; Ominous For Semis

TSMC Q4 revenue now forecast by company to be down 30% year over year.

If you only read one thing on China this fall …

Excellent analysis of the latest World Bank China quarterly. It highlights some of the myths about China's economy. "China was no workers paradise during the boom years" and "China’s current slowdown was made in China, not in the world."

HP unit sheds stepchild status to take on Cisco - International Herald Tribune

Everything HP touches lately turns to gold. Now they are going after Cisco's enterprise Ethernet business, trying to grow from 7% share. It isn't clear to me why HP will succeed in an area where many others have failed.

Fiberevolution: Dutch pragmatism wins again

Netherlands carrier rolling out FTTH nationwide at a cost of 6-7 Billion Euros, or 1000E per home. This will be pt-to-pt fiber that could be operated as a PON or as active Ethernet. KPN has traditionally leaned towards active Ethernet using 100M over multi-mode fiber, so GPON may miss this party.

1.3 Million Add Broadband in the Third Quarter of 2008 | Leichtman Research Group

2 out of 3 new USA broadband subscribers took cable over telco. This is shockingly bad, particularly when you consider 30% of the telco subs were FiOS, an offering that is supposed to win handily against cable. A few more years of this and we will be talking about bailout bills for AT&T and Verizon. No joke.

Lightwave - Is high speed networking impervious to the downturn?

Uh, no. People who think capex is a function of "video demand" are delusional. Capex is a function of revenue, and when revenue goes down, capex does too. Someone, somewhere has to spend money for carriers to buy more stuff.

TelcoTV: Consumers Say Price Matters - Lightreading

Surveys indicate that price is the only significant variable customer care about when selecting a cable provider. As we have long feared, TelcoTV is a zero sum revenue game, and as long as this holds true, it is hard to see how it will drive significant capex expansion.