Telcos, cablecos have future role as middle mile and long haul IP connectivity providers

Bob Frankston has penned a thoughtful piece that encourages out of the box thinking when it comes to broadband Internet connectivity. He's dead on. We're at a transition point between yesterday's legacy single purpose, proprietary telco and cableco owned systems designed to dispense discrete services as billable events and the open architecture possibilities of the Internet that allow for customization according to need.

The two models are not compatible -- which Frankston says explains the artificial market scarcity of bandwidth delivered via the telcos (slow and costly 1970s-era T-1 lines that telcos are still selling, for example) and cablecos at a time where fiber to the end user is capable of delivering hundreds of megabits and even gigabits per second.

Instead of expecting telcos and cablecos to meet our Internet protocol-based telecommunications needs, Frankston suggests we view these entities as middle mile and long haul carriers. They would still have a critical role to play, serving locally owned and operated telecommunications entities such as municipal fiber systems and fiber cooperatives. Frankston has seen the future and I share his vision.

France adopts universal broadband requirement but sets bar too low

More international broadband developments this Thanksgiving weekend. While the Australian government struggles to implement near universal broadband access in the land down under and wrangles with its partially state owned telco, Telstra, over build out requirements, Reuters reports a French government official said his nation would require telcos (called telecoms in Europe) to provide universal broadband access providing connectivity of at least 512kbs throughout France starting in 2010. According to the Reuters dispatch, France had been pressuring the European Union to adopt a universal broadband mandate for telecoms that provide universal voice service but abandoned the effort due to lack of consensus among EU member nations.

France's 512kbs minimum speed requirement is really setting the bar low, perhaps in order to allow French telecoms such as France Telecom to attempt to deliver DSL over long and ancient copper loops commonly found in broadband black holes in the U.S. and elsewhere. That throughput level is already obsolete and is below even the minimal 768kbs "basic" broadband standard adopted by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission earlier this year.