I just watched a great TV report from the BBC’s Rory Cellan-Jones about the installation of Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) in Amsterdam’s Zeeburg, the docklands district, which he also wrote up on his blog on the BBC website.
It’s the first phase of Citynet, which aims to bring fibre to all of the city’s 450,000 homes. The city council has invested a mind-numbing amount of cash in the scheme, putting up a third of the cash needed so far. At €800 for every home passed, it comes with a hefty price tag, but the good news is that it does mean connections of up to 100mbps.
Although everybody seems to agree that’s a nice-sounding figure, the likely future economic benefits are hard to quantify. Most people I know are rarely signed up for more than 20mbps with their ISP. However, this is how I see it: the Netherlands is now well placed to lead the way in developing the web innovations of the future. The installation of a network like this requires significant cash investment from someone, somewhere, who respects the fact that the impact will be seen one day, even if we can’t judge exactly how or when it will happen. I suspect HDTV and film will provide a lot of the impetus at first, but eventually there will be a lot more to it than that.
There are parallels with the sale of 3G licences several years back. For a long time, the mobile operators who won those contracts were scratching their heads, puzzled as to how on earth they’d make a profit on the huge sums spent. Now, with the emergence of HSDPA and LTE firmly on the agenda, it’s looking like a much smarter investment. It’s now much quicker and easier to access email on the move, or watch mobile TV, or send and open images, than it was 3 or 4 years ago. You now have laptops with integrated HSDPA. The price plans have improved and a new economy has developed around these services.
As a serial technology entrepreneur, I’m proud to see my home city of Amsterdam showing some initiative in making FTTH a reality. It’s also nice to see that the Netherlands, along with Sweden, is showing Europe the way by accepting backing from local authorities. How to connect the countryside is another question, but if Amsterdam can get fibre, I’m sure other European cities are capable of bringing their infrastructure kicking and screaming into the 21st century.
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And living in Sweden I can back you up on how much of a difference fibre makes! Whenever I visit other countries it sometimes feels like they stuck back in the Stone Age technologically. Not that I like to brag, of course!
You’re right re the economic benefits – who knows what they will be, but I reckon the countries that shoulder the costs and put in the effort now should see some return. Nobody knows exactly when or by how much, but I’m pretty sure it will happen – they are certain to attract the developers who are serious about moving the industry forward.
Martin
Thanks for backing me up Martin!
Bandwidth is so important and this will change our lives drastically.
Increased bandwidth for mobile devices will open up so much opportunities and benefits for businesses and individuals.
It will change the media, telecom and infrastructural economies.
It is the starting point for the internet of things.
The only reason you have to perform multiple steps to send some simple pictures to your family is a lack of bandwidth. It is that simple. I now have to think about re-adjusting for size, not too big, not too small etc. All not needed when you have enough speed (and diskspace in your mailbox etc of course)