Jean Claude Mallet has been appointed to succeed Paul Champsaur as President of ARCEP, the French telecom and post regulator. Many believe that this marks a new era for the regulator which has aggressively pushed for local loop unbundling and lower mobile phone charges.

Jean Claude Mallet belongs to the family who created the Bank Neuflize Schlumberger Mallet in 1667 (it is now a part of ABN AMRO). After classical studies in literature at the elite Ecole Normale Superieure where he became a specialist on Flaubert (in particular Madame Bovary), he went to Ecole Nationale d’Administration to begin a career as a civil servant. Mallet has never worked in the private sector, which is not unusual for high-ranking French civil servants. From 1992 to 1998, Mallet served as director of strategic affairs at the Ministry of Defense, then became General Secretary of Defense, a post he held until 2004. He was named Joint Ministerial Delegate for French support to countries affected by the December 2004 tsunami. Since 2007, he has been President of a Defense and Security commission that produced in 2007 a highly regarded white paper on National Defense and Security at the request of the President Nicolas Sarkozy.

A strategist comfortable is complex situations

Definitely a senior specialist in Defense and Security strategy, his white paper paints a detailed picture of French and European Defense and Security and set up the strategy for a complete reorganization of French National Defense as a part of Europe in the context of high technologies, a more efficient economy in a global environment and international terrorism. Not an engineer by training, his work as President of the commission gave him the reputation for being a person who promotes open dialogue in confrontational situations, a decision-maker who is capable of making innovative decisions under political constraints.

Four hot topics for ARCEP in the immediate future

Jean Claude Mallet stepped into the role of president of ARCEP on 4 January 2009 with several key decisions to take in a short period. Paul Champsaur, the previous president said in his last speech:

“I should like to cite some of the major issues to which ARCEP will need to devote its energies. I have chosen four: postal regulation (which in France is highly opposed by French unions who believe that the Post Office should not a for-profit activity); the new European framework for the electronic communications sector; the deployment of optical fiber in the local loop by several operators; and the convergence between networks and content, notably audiovisual media.”

For Champsaur, one of the most important issues for ARCEP is to keep its independence from market players, vendors and users, while taking into account the emerging role played by local authorities in the regional development of fixed and wireless networks in France. In a farewell speech to the European Regulator Group (ERG), Champsaur also expressed his views, based on his experience, on the role of regulation in Europe and on the governance of the future group of regulators to be set in 2009 by the European Parliament.

Rapidly allocate the 4th mobile license and digital dividend

The new President of ARCEP will have to work immediately on the distribution of the frequencies of the Digital Dividend and of the fourth mobile license in France. Champsaur was later more specific about his positions in interviews given to the French press saying: “Free and Numericable must enter the mobile sector, to be able to make converging offers. The purpose of the fourth license is not to bring a pure mobile player, but to equalize the competition conditions between fixed and mobile operators in the context of convergence, and in the long term the survival of the fixed operators.” For him, the rapid allocation of the fourth license will immediately trigger investments from all the mobile operators. About the Digital Dividend, he said: “Criteria to allocate the Digital Dividend must be set in the RFP to guaranty low frequency access to these operators who do not have it. The exercise will be new and complex. It is needed because of scarcity.”

Resolve the unproductive competition between CSA and ARCEP

Champsaur has taken controversial positions on politically sensitive topics during his tenure as president of ARCEP. For many years, France has had two regulators for frequencies: the CSA (Conseil Superieur de l’Audiovisuel) for TV and ARCEP for telecom. At several occasions, they have been venturing on each other’s turf especially on frequencies that came up for the Digital Dividend created by the switch to digital television. This interference with one another’s territory created a lot of inefficiency and confusion.

For Champsaur, the mission of each regulator should be clearly defined by the government: “ARCEP is a techno-economic regulator dedicated to ruling on the competition conditions of the telecom market. Its role has to decrease in the future. CSA is a social regulator dedicated on content. Its role is cultural and it has to stay in the future. There is no more reason to attribute separately frequencies to TV channels and to separately manage the engineering of the broadcasters.” This is a fairly sensitive position to take, just before the next session of the parliament where the law makers will have to discuss a controversial law on content at a time where operators are trying to take over the services and content provider business.

Free-Iliad position looks a good compromise for fiber

For Champsaur, 2009 will be a strategic year for bootstrapping investments in New Generation Access Networks (fiber optic networks). “If the government wants to move fast, it has to rely on local collectives and on the telecom industry which is not cyclical and has a lot of money.” Regarding technical choices, after an asymmetrical regulation focused at one operator only, ARCEP has imposed a symmetrical regulation, asking all the operators to share the terminal part of the fiber local loop in buildings. “We took all the operators to the negotiating table to obtain a formal agreement, it did not work completely. Two Ministers, Luc Chatel and Eric Besson then decided to set up a steering committee with ARCEP to conduct technical tests and solve the problem as soon as possible. I think the proposition (supported by Free-Iliad) to put many fibers in a building so that each operator can have equal access to the end user is a good compromise.”

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© 2009 MuniWireless. All Rights Reserved.

A Happy New Year to everyone! Although most of us would rather forget 2008 and consign it to the darkest corners of human memory, I’d like to take one last look at the most significant Muniwireless stories of the year. From the increasing demand for Wi-Fi to the exciting launch of WiMAX in the US (although not so exciting launch in Amsterdam), the much-awaited release of the 3G iPhone to the revival of intelligently planned municipal wireless broadband networks, there’s a lot to celebrate about 2008.

(1) Wi-Fi use grows in popularity as more people buy iPhones and other Wi-Fi enabled portable devices.

No doubt about it, the iPhone has been THE gadget launch of the year. Analysts who said the iPhone would be a catastrophic failure sound like the financial analysts on Wall Street who proclaimed that the US economy was fundamentally sound.

When Apple released the 3G iPhone in the US and other countries, people responded by buying it in massive numbers. Because of the iPhone’s screen and interface, people do on the iPhone what they are used to doing on their laptops: they visit websites such as Google Maps, watch video, perform Google searches, update their Twitter feeds, visit social networking sites, waste enormous amounts of time reading blogs, send and receive email, all of which are data-intensive, putting tremendous pressure on AT&T’s 3G network. It’s not surprising that people complained about network outages, slow download and upload speeds, and poor service on the AT&T 3G network. The solution for many iPhone users was to find a Wi-Fi network and get on it quickly.

AT&T must have realized that getting people to use Wi-Fi benefits them as well (i.e. no pesky fights with city councils on putting up yet another 3G mast that will fry our brains). So it began offering free Wi-Fi at Starbucks cafes (which you still won’t get me to visit because the coffee tastes like watery sludge — thank heavens, there’s Peets which is slightly better, but if you are an espresso fanatic, there are better cafes in San Francisco and Silicon Valley).

Here are the stories from 2008 about the increasing popularity of Wi-Fi:

Smartphone users love WiFi: 42% of iPhone requests are made from Wi-Fi

BT WiFi traffic doubles in one year

Icomera reports 272 percent increase in Wi-Fi use on public transport

Business use of WiFi hotspots grows by 46%

Europe leads global WiFi hotspots growth; free WiFi model gaining ground

(2) EarthLink shuts down high-profile Philadelphia network. MetroFi dies. What went wrong?

This story was the media darling of the year. There’s nothing like hyping a story in one year only to flush it down the toilet the next - makes for a lucrative news cycle especially in a business that’s dying faster than the trees they kill to print the news.

Although there were very serious problems with these high-profile network deployments, the reality is that the networks in Philadelphia and Portland were not really launched. Neither MetroFi nor EarthLink made a big marketing push to get subscribers; neither company’s networks were in service for a year or more for us to evaluate if they were truly popular and if not, what went wrong. The death of EarthLink’s CEO, who promoted municipal Wi-Fi, plus the company’s failed investment in Helio (incidentally, NOT a muni Wi-Fi product, but rather the old-fashioned cellular business), resulted in severe cost-cutting that led to massive layoffs at the company. EarthLink is back where it was - in good old dial-up - which continues to thrive in the United States because Americans are waiting for Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand and the miracle of the free market to bring high-speed (i.e. fiber) broadband service.

EarthLink notifies subscribers of shutdown

MetroFi also canceled their ambitious plans to unwire Portland, Oregon and a number of other cities

For a perspective on what went wrong with these citywide Wi-Fi plans:

What went wrong with muni WiFi and what cities can do now (by Karl Edwards)

Philadelphia network flop points to failure of corporate franchise model (by Sascha Meinrath)

Despite the gloom and doom, investors in Philadelphia have organized the creatively named Network Acquisition Company (a temporary name, we have been assured) to take over the EarthLink network. Let’s see if they can do anything to bring fast Wi-Fi connectivity in those places in Philadelphia where it makes sense to have it. One little problem: it’s difficult to raise money. The capital and bond markets are, despite Bernanke’s most fervent wishes, still very tight.

(3) But wait a minute! There are a number of successful municipal wireless broadband projects.

After printing endless stories about the death of muni Wi-Fi, the mainstream press got bored and started running stories again about Angelina Jolie’s tiff with Jennifer Aniston. Then, they got bored with that and woke up to discover that there are municipal wireless networks up and running that do all the fancy things a network should do such as offering Wi-Fi access to residents, monitoring sewage and water treatment plants, reading electricity and water meters, changing traffic signal lights, creepily watching their residents’ movements via wireless video surveillance cameras (YouTube meets City Hall meets Big Brother), and forecasting the future of the S&P 500 (just kidding about the last one). The Wall Street Journal even did a story called A Second Look at Citywide Wi-Fi. I was interviewed for the accompanying podcast (which I couldn’t bear to listen to because I hate hearing myself recorded).

Here are a few cities that use their networks for municipal applications (e.g. public safety and meter reading). They pay for part or all of the costs of deploying and maintaining the network and provide public Wi-Fi access where it makes sense. In many cases, the cities own fiber (this is the key to having high-capacity wireless networks that won’t piss off users when they’re trying to do video, chat, email and Google map searches at the same time) and are the local public utility. For cities that have given away their public infrastructure to private telecom and utility companies, what can I say? Sometime in the future your blind faith in “private enterprise” may be rewarded.

Ponca City Oklahoma: wireless automated meter reading, free WiFi

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma: largest Wi-Fi public safety network in the world

Rock Hill SC: wireless meter reading, energy management, public safety, free WiFi

Minneapolis, Minnesota: public access, public safety

Riverside, California: public access, public safety, traffic management

McAllen, Texas: wireless video surveillance

Dallas, Texas: wireless video surveillance

Reading, Pennsylvania: wireless video surveillance

Southlake, Texas: wireless video surveillance

Temple and Washington, Georgia: wireless video surveillance

Granbury, Texas: wireless video surveillance

Gangneung, South Korea: public safety, free Wi-Fi

Craven County, North Carolina: education

There are other cities that have rolled out networks and I will be releasing an updated (and long overdue) report of cities and counties that have city and countywide wireless broadband networks.

(4) So what went wrong with Philadelphia, Portland and all those other cities where we were supposed to have Wi-Fi everywhere? Here are two commentaries:

What went wrong with muni WiFi and what cities can do now (by Karl Edwards)

Philadelphia network flop points to failure of corporate franchise model (by Sascha Meinrath)

(5) Increased competition in European broadband markets result in lower prices, more choice for consumers.

Enough of the bad news. Here’s something to cheer about. While the US doesn’t seem to have an antitrust department going after anti-competitive telecom practices (the current administration believes that same glorious unregulated “free” markets that brought us unbelievable prosperity, rising house prices, Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme and the implosion of the banking industry will take care the broadband competition problem), the Europeans have been busy ensuring that there is competition in the broadband and mobile wireless markets by going after their telecom incumbents and the sleazy practices that mobile operators around the world do best.

A French competition court just banned Apple’s exclusive deal with French operator, Orange, paving the way for other operators and large mobile phone resellers such as Phone House to cobble together amazing deals for French consumers. Where else can you get a 19 EUR 3G iPhone (with 2-year contract from Bouygues Telecom)? Unlike American consumers, the French have a choice and they can also purchase legally the iPhone unlocked (unsubsidized) for 730 EUR.

The French telecom regulator ARCEP has also done a great job in forcing telecommunications companies to share their networks and fiber ducts into apartment buildings. The result is that more French residents have access to real broadband (i.e. FTTH). ARCEP has forced mobile operators to lower call termination fees, another decision that will result in lower mobile phone bills for consumers. France has seen an overall 16% growth in DSL subscriptions as a result of ARCEP’s aggressive stand on encouraging competition.

Meanwhile, Ofcom, the UK telecom regulator, reports that broadband prices have been falling steadily in Europe and have gone after dodgy practices of Internet service providers: an ISP code of conduct! You mean, no more lying about “up to 1 trillion megabits per second for only £10 per month”?

(6) Clearwire/Sprint WiMAX officially launches in the United States.

I’ve been waiting for this and now it’s here. Real live WiMAX service to help us meet our high-speed on-the-go data needs. If WiMAX service from Clearwire and Sprint become truly ubiquitous and very fast — faster than 3G and its spawn — I’ll be the first to bring out a glass of bubbly and run out to buy the latest WiMAX portable device. There are a number of WiMAX gadgets that have come out: WiMAX/3G cards, Nokia N810 WiMAX Tablet, Lenovo laptops, Asus laptops, and HTC’s WiMAX handset. Still wondering what’s in it for you? Read our Consumer Guide to WiMAX.

What’s the biggest threat to WiMAX in the US? Hint: it’s not LTE

Clearwire business pricing emerges

Clearwire Portland launch: 6 January 2009

Clearwire CEO says full steam ahead with WiMAX

Clearwire’s 100-day agenda

**But one thing has been bugging me: why have Clearwire and Sprint been allowed to merge their WiMAX businesses? I thought the whole idea behind awarding two licenses was to create two competitors so that we would have choice. Isn’t there enough demand for WiMAX to support two companies?

(7) WiMAX deployments around the world gather steam, but most are still offering only fixed service (i.e. you need a WiMAX modem). Mobile or nomadic service is rare.

I’ve got a bee in my bonnet about this. I’ve spent endless hours putting together a Google map of where one can find mobile WiMAX service. I visited WiMAX websites and emailed people who know a lot about WiMAX network deployments. The idea is to land in a city, pull out a WiMAX device like a laptop (or a USB dongle) and just log onto the local WiMAX network. No big fat modem necessary! I created the map so that travelers like me could easily find and pay for WiMAX service on a daily or weekly basis. I want to avoid roaming charges.

In the process of putting together this WiMAX map, I encountered three things:

• the lists and descriptions of WiMAX deployments around the world (on other WiMAX websites) are grossly inaccurate and going to the well-known industry alliances does not help. You have to check each network;
• a number of people took me to task for using the word “mobile” because on most of these networks, you can’t really zip down a highway at 120 kph and remain connected, doing all the things the people do on wireless networks (talking, browsing websites), so they’ve asked me to use the word “nomadic”; and
• several people told me I was a complete idiot because I could just go to a cafe in any particular city and get free Wi-Fi service.

If you want to see the results of hours of checking, rechecking, arguing with WiMAX providers (who insist that I hire a butler to walk behind me dragging around a large WiMAX modem so that I could enjoy “mobile” WiMAX service) go to:

Google map of mobile/nomadic WiMAX service around the world

Details about how I put together the WiMax map (a painful exercise)

There is one shining example of a WiMAX network where you can buy daily access for 6 EUR a day:

Amsterdam WiMAX provider, WorldMax, increases download speed to 5 Mbps

The only problem that one reviewer encountered with the service is that he could not get the signal indoors. It works well outdoors but I would not recommend this in the cold wintry months when you should be skating instead. I don’t understand why it’s so difficult to get an indoor signal — could it be that WorldMax Amsterdam uses 3.65 GHz for the service? Nevertheless, the launch of WiMAX in Amsterdam went largely unnoticed, except in tech circles. Most people don’t care: they’ve got very high speed Internet access at home and in the office; free Wi-Fi in cafes and other places where they congregate; and relatively fast HSDPA service on their mobile phones (and laptops, if they have an HSDPA card) for when they’re in cars, trains, buses, stores, etc.

(8) Most commented upon articles:

Silicon Valley’s shameful secret: lousy broadband

Muni WiMAX global map of cities with mobile WiMAX service

Is Meraki as inexpensive and open-source as it seems?

MetroFi selling muni WiFi networks in Portland and other cities

Free WiFi project in Sydney canceled (for a rousing debate on the difference between infrastructure and service)

(9) Muniwireless launches new website, WiMAX coverage, Linked In Group

I launched the new website in November 2008. The most significant change is the addition of a WiMAX section. Paul Kapustka, founder of Sidecut Reports, has joined MuniWireless as the editor of the new WiMax section. I also changed the fonts to make the articles easier to read (I’m getting older and my eyes are not what they used to be). Other changes: narrowed down the list of categories, improved site navigation.

Muniwireless launches new website and WiMAX coverage

I have created a MuniWireless / Muni WiMAX Linked In Group and after only six weeks, we have 300 members. The goal of the group is networking and discussions. Please join us:

http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/1347277

I am sending out the Muniwireless newsletter again so sign up now to receive it if you have not done so:

http://www.muniwireless.com/subscribe/

(10) Sidecut Reports has released a new updated version of their WiMax report.

The updated report includes a comprehensive study of the “new” Clearwire WiMax deal and its $3.2 billion of investment from a group that includes Google, Comcast, Intel and Time Warner Cable.

Game On, WiMax! Why the ‘New’ Clearwire gives WiMax its best chance at success in the U.S. marketplace

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UP NEXT: What’s in store for us in 2009 (apart from a global recession, possible Depression, deflation, stagflation, severe climate change, rising oceans, probability of large asteroid hitting the Earth)

© 2009 MuniWireless. All Rights Reserved.

Somerville, Massachusetts (pop. 77,000; 4 square miles) has issued a Request for Interest (RFI) for its municipal Wi-Fi network. The city wants to achieve three goals:

• improve public service: give city personnel access to data while they are out in the field, enhance public safety;
• bridge the digital divide: inexpensive wireless broadband access for all residents; and
• encourage more economic development and innovation.

Companies and non-profits that send in proposals must ensure that their plans encourage competition and consumer choice, and that the network is open to all applications and service providers (net neutrality).

The city is giving respondents a lot of freedom to propose the best network for the community. In this regard, Somerville has several strong points:

• city-owned fiber
• mounting rights to traffic and light poles
• 30 city-owned buildings where access points can be mounted
• high-density community with a lot of students and professors from Harvard, MIT, Tufts
• low buildings
• lots of public squares and university lawns where students congregate

Responses are due by 27 February 2009. Download the Somerville citywide wireless RFI (or if that link does not work go to www.somervillema.gov). You can also request it from:

Rositha Durham, Purchasing Director
City of Somerville
93 Highland Avenue, Somerville, MA 02143
Phone: 617-625-6600 x3400
Fax: 617-625-1344
Email: rdurham@somervillema.gov

What I would propose for Somerville

I lived in Somerville, close to Porter Square, in my first year at Harvard Law School and if there’s any place that’s perfect for a network that blends in public access and municipal services, it’s this one. So here’s what I hope respondents will propose to the city:

• wireless automated meters in houses and commercial buildings (if they can get the public utility to work with them)
• field applications for city inspectors
• public safety applications for police, fire and emergency personnel
• traffic management: controlling traffic signals on Mass. Ave., the main thoroughfare between Cambridge and Somerville
• public WiFi access in the squares and outdoor areas (students run around with WiFi devices like the iPhone and the iPod Touch) and would really appreciate having low-cost or free WiFi so they can access email, websites, Google Maps and search, etc.

I have written about two small cities that have used their city-owned fiber to create a municipal wireless broadband network for municipal uses and public WiFi access. If you are planning to respond to Somerville’s RFI, you will want to look carefully at these examples:

South Carolina city uses muni wireless for energy management, public safety, free WiFi

Ponca City, Oklahoma blends municipal wireless with energy management

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© 2009 MuniWireless. All Rights Reserved.

It made sense to us that small-to-medium-size businesses might be some of the early adopters of mobile WiMax services in the U.S., especially companies with “local nomads,” workers who roam a lot but in a somewhat local region (which could be covered by a single metro-area WiMax service). Seems like the Clearwire folks are thinking the same way, as evidenced by this new page touting business-specific service plans for their Portland, Ore., network.

While the in-office broadband prices seem competitive — unlimited usage with 6 Mbps/1 Mbps download/upload speeds for $75 a month — the more-compelling offer may be the “mobile shared” services which, allow for both in-office and local-roaming use. The mobile plans (which are advertised under a “coming soon” banner) will let small offices support teams of users on the same billing plan, starting at $75 a month for a shared 15 Gbytes of mobile data. According to the plan page, each additional device is $25, which theoretically makes such a service much cheaper than cellular data plans, which average about $60 a month per user for much slower speed links.

While the Clearwire/Xohm rollout so far has been targeted mainly at consumer use, the success of standalone WiMax services for business from providers like Towerstream suggests that setup speed, low pricing and flexibility could make WiMax an good choice for budget-minded small businesses. The Clearwire page also advertises a Business Voice service (”coming soon”) for $25 a month, but no details whether that is per office or per user. If it’s $25 for the whole office, that’s a real enticement, almost as good as the free VoIP we suggested as a pot-sweetner.

So far, the business pricing plans haven’t shown up on the Baltimore services page, for the network still known as Xohm but changing to Clear any day now. Guessing we will hear more details about business plans at the upcoming “official” Portland launch event Jan. 6.

Business WiMax is just one of the monthly topics we will cover in full detail in 2009, as part of the Sidecut Reports WiMax Focus research service. Sign up before Jan. 12 and receive our WiMax Market Report, a $299.95 value, free!

© 2008 MuniWireless. All Rights Reserved.

The French Parliament, in a recent law called “Modernisation de L’Economie” ordered ARCEP, the telecom regulator, to study the impact of “local collectives” (local government cooperatives) on broadband coverage and speed in France. ARCEP released the results of its study just before Christmas. It is considered to be legacy of Paul Champsaur (president of ARCEP) and Gabrielle Gauthey (ARCEP member), both of whom are leaving at the end of the year. During the last six years, Gauthey and Champsaur have been the key players within ARCEP, where they urged local governments to be more active in deploying communications infrastructure.

The increased participation of local collectives in infrastructure deployment began with the passage of a new law (the “code of territorial collectives” passed by the French Parliament in June 2004).  Article 1425-1 authorized them to finance, establish, exploit and delegate the exploitation of infrastructure networks for telecommunications. At the same time, France Telecom CEO Thierry Breton started pushing a plan called “Departements Innovants” to each of the 50 Department Assemblies (Conseil Général)  in France promising them high speed access with France Télécom in their territory, but also undermining or even preventing  any action from the local collectives. Many of them signed an agreement which was mostly kept secret.

The 1425-1 initiated a growing movement called “Réseaux d’Initiative Public” (RIP or Public Initiative Networks) of local collectives financing and establishing for themselves an infrastructure network in their territory. The goal of these neutral and open networks (in general, fiber) was to unbundle the local loop for DSL. The collectives outsourced the management of the network to a private firm or a consortium, whose task was to lease capacity to operators at the same price, giving them access to the France Telecom central offices (NRA) and to the copper local loop. The purpose was to provide alternative DSL access to the end user. This was a key element in increasing competition between access providers in France; it also gave small operators access to end users. The movement accelerated when ARCEP regulated the “dark fiber lease offering” (LFO) of France Telecom, requiring it to publish a unique tariff for leasing its dark fiber to operators.

On 1 December 2008, ARCEP found that 116 Public Initiative Networks had been launched at the metropolitan, departement or regional level (there are 22 regions in France). This means that each of these projects covers more than 60,000 people. Among them, 56 projects are already live with a commercial offering, 13 projects are still in the consultation process, and about 10 are in the preparation phase. The 56 working projects have raised €1.4 billion in investment with 50% of this amount coming from the private sector (telecommunications). Today, 40% or 1650 of the France Telecom central offices are unbundled by Public Initiative Networks, corresponding to 4.8 million users’ lines.  It is estimated that without the Public Initiative Networks, about a third of France Telecom central offices (or 1000 for 1.9 million households) would not have been unbundled. They are generally located in what is called DSL white zones.

Public Initiative Networks have had a significant effect on enterprises. ARCEP’s report shows that in territories where a Public Initiative Network is live, there are 10 times as many local enterprises with a fiber connection than in territories where there is no Public Initiative Network. In total, these Public Initiative Networks have brought high speed broadband to 2300 economic activity zones in France, with broadband costs 20% to 30% lower than what France Télécom had initially proposed. In some places, the networks have facilitated the emergence of local operators targeting the professional market.  On the end user market, the networks have resulted in lower prices or higher broadband speeds.

For Gabrielle Gauthey, another major effect of the Public Initiative Network is its role in preparing France for FTTH access. “Because the bandwidth demand on the networks continues to grow, the territories will have the basic infrastructure to feed it and connect to the coming optical local loop.” Gauthey thinks it is better to create an equalization fund to facilitate investments in FTTH in less populated areas. ”The fund could be set up with  the money from wireless auctions. We should also consider how public investment attracts private capital.”

After showing how most of the Public Initiative Networks have evolved to respond to needs which were not initially considered, the reports ends with recommendations on how to facilitate the deployment of Public Initiative Networks in France. One recommendation made to collectives is to allow firms doing road work to lay spare fiber ducts. The report also pointed out that there should be Geographic Information System (GIS) information providing the government with a database of existing networks everywhere in France. Several laws are to be promulgated to give more power to the local collectives to be able to collect information on the networks in their territory and keep track of the services they offer.

In one of her last interviews as a member of ARCEP, Gauthey said: “We have been able to anticipate the coming of fiber so that we avoided the re-creation of a monopoly out of the historical operator (France Telecom) or the creation of local monopolies. We also struggled at the European level to include the fiber ducts in the scope of the ex-ante regulation and to define what is called “symmetrical regulation” as a tool to require operators to share the terminal part of the optical local loop.”

© 2008 MuniWireless. All Rights Reserved.

The Netherlands’ competition authority (NMa) approved the joint venture between KPN, the Dutch telecom incumbent, and Reggefiber, a FTTH operator, to build out fiber networks to homes in the Netherlands. Initially, the competition authority and OPTA (the telecom regulator) rejected the joint venture because they feared that companies’ tie-up would exclude service providers from delivering competing voice, IPTV, Internet and other services on the network.

However, the NMa approved the venture after KPN and Reggefiber agreed to allow other companies to lease access to the network on a non-discriminatory basis for 14.50 EUR to 17.50 EUR (depending on the region) per month for each household connection (the fee will be indexed for inflation).

See the Netherlands competition authority’s press release concerning the approval of the KPN-Reggefiber joint venture (in Dutch).

Below are the tariff tables published by OPTA for wholesale fiber capacity leasing (per household; colocation and backhaul).

(vezelpaar = fiber pair; klant = client; tariefplafond = tariff ceiling)

© 2008 MuniWireless. All Rights Reserved.

The question about how WiMax provider Clearwire would answer the national-roaming question got a little bit clearer Wednesday, when Sprint officially announced its long-promised 3G/4G hybrid device, a USB dongle that lets a laptop user connect to both Clearwire’s WiMax and Sprint’s 3G cellular networks.

For right now, that former option means one city — Baltimore — where the service previously known as Xohm has been running since September. But Todd Rowley, vice president of Sprint’s 4G business unit, told us Wednesday that the new device will work in all the networks being readied by the new Clearwire, starting with Portland, Ore., sometime “by the end of Q1.”

Without getting too much into specifics, it isn’t the technology holding the card back but Sprint’s back-end ability to support it on the “Clear” networks — like Portland’s, which is set to publicly launch Jan. 6. So yes, Rowley said, the device will eventually allow roaming users to link up with Clear WiMax networks wherever they may be launched, maybe not right when they launch but soon after.

In terms of value, the hybrid device is kind of a hybrid offering — it’s not as cheap as the straight-WiMax offerings and it comes with the standard (for cellular data) two-year contract and early termination fees. You also can’t use the 3G service for VoIP calls (and it has bandwidth restrictions), though Skype over the 4G service should work just fine, Rowley said. And while the price — $80 a month, plus $150 for the device — is steeper than some 3G-only plans, it’s still cheaper than a typical bundle of landline broadband and mobile broadband, making it perhaps a smart deal for someone who needs mobility past the Baltimore WiMax coverage zones.

The value of the device, of course, will increase as more Clearwire networks launch, giving users more places to roam and use the more-compelling 4G part of the connection. But until then, they’ll at least have Sprint’s 3G service as a fallback, which isn’t too bad according to some recent reviews of 3G services.

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*Join the MuniWireless / Muni WiMAX Linked In Group for networking and discussions. Over 200 members as of 19 December 2008.

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© 2008 MuniWireless. All Rights Reserved.

Orange will lose its exclusive deal with Apple to sell the iPhone through Orange beginning this Christmas season pursuant to a decision by the French Competition Council. Orange may wholesale the iPhone, on a non-exclusive way to multi-brand resellers (for example, Darty) but it must ensure that the iPhone works the same way on any existing mobile network in France. Therefore Orange may continue to sell a SIM-locked iPhone tying it to the Orange network in its own distribution channel. The Competition Council says Apple must limit exclusive contracts to 3 months or less.

Background of the Competition Council’s decision

Last September 2008, Bouygues Telecom filed a suit at the French Competition Council against Orange France complaining that they asked Apple for permission to sell the iPhone in France. However, Apple refused because Apple had signed a 5-year exclusive agreement with Orange.

ARCEP, the French regulator was asked to give its advice on the matter. ARCEP published a report on 4 November 2008. The regulator mentioned that when the iPhone first launched, Apple had signed exclusive agreements with one operator per country to sell the iPhone, but that that time, the phones were not subsidized by the operators. Apple received payments from the operators based on traffic on their networks. After the poor sales of the 2G iPhone, Apple changed its model for the 3G iPhone: the operators went back to their old model of subsidizing the iPhone to sell it at a lower price based on a 2-year contract with their end users.
ARCEP in its report says that the market for mobile data is a fast-growing strategic market in which smartphones are the preferred device. It emphasizes that the iPhone is bundling an attractive phone terminal and an iPod at a very attractive price compared to the iPod alone. For the iPhone, the report explains that Orange has created a specific set of exclusive and attractive services.

“This bundle of services with a specific terminal gives Orange the ability to conquer a base of young and high value added customers. It is easy for Orange to “lock” them because his exclusivity on ability to wholesale the device and to deliver services is multi-annual and concerns future unannounced iPhones. The future devices would also generate  exclusive services resulting of a technology transfer with Apple.”

For ARCEP, the bundle ”terminal+service” is based on two exclusive practices  which allow Orange to sell the iPhone only bundled with his own services. The first exclusivity “as a wholeseller”  gives Orange the exclusive right to resell the iPhone in France, the second exclusivity “of service” gives Orange the right to sell the iPhone only bundled with his own services (SIM-locking), even when it is sold to multibrand channels.

Today, the impact of the iPhone in France is significant since Orange has sold more than 600,000 iPhones in one year, large number of them (216,000) during the third quarter 2008 alone.

The Competition Council has decided that “all these facts are contributing to reinforce the dominant position of Orange on the market of mobile services and to weaken the competition between operators on this market.” The Council’s final report rejected Orange’s claim that there is no real exclusivity because iPhone users can pay a one time fee of 100 EUR to unlock the phone. The report notes that “the problem is serious because the Competition Council, ARCEP and the European Commission already have reported a lack of competition on the mobile telephony market, and at the time of the emergence of the Internet Mobile market with unlimited data offers giving it an active thrust, the Orange exclusivity would introduce a factor of rigidity to this segment.” The lengthy explanation of the Council contains a lot of interesting information and statistics on the Orange contract with Apple.

Orange says it will appeal the decision

Orange issued a press release to acknowledge the problem and says they will appeal this decision:

“Orange notes that this decision places France in a radically different situation compared to countries such as the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom and Spain. The Competition Council’s decision also undermines Orange’s efforts to develop high-speed mobile services in France. It is ironic that the operator which is most behind in terms of rolling out its 3G network initiated this complaint . . . This decision is a serious blow. It calls into question the economic structure of the market and in particular, the different partnerships made between mobile operators and handset manufacturers working in the best interests of consumers and promoting innovation. Unfortunately, this decision may have serious consequences on manufacturers, as well as their subcontractors and software suppliers, sectors that are already facing economic difficulties.”

Orange fails to mention that since the launch of the 3G iPhone, several countries (Austria, Switzerland, Italy and Portugal) already have two operators selling the iPhone.

Now Apple will be able to sell iPhone to be used on the 3 mobile networks available in France, which we think is a plus for Apple and for the consumers.

© 2008 MuniWireless. All Rights Reserved.

Robert Berger has finally revealed the dirty little secret of the world’s supposedly most innovative tech community, Silicon Valley. Robert lives in Saratoga, which is home to a lot of entrepreneurs, and says that there is no broadband. None. His startup’s office is in Mountain View, home to companies such as Google and the only “high speed” service they could get is 1.5Mbps down / 512Kbps up ADSL.

Robert says it’s time for re-divestiture: the physical plant (fiber, rights of way, conduits, utility poles) are community owned. I agree with him. I posted an Open Letter to President-Elect Obama urging the government to open the incumbents’ networks to all competitors, forcing the incumbents to separate their service and network businesses, and building fiber networks that are owned by the city, county or state (open to all service providers).

Read Robert Berger’s post on the US national broadband shame (it shows the top 10 broadband countries - guess which one isn’t on the list?).

The US government’s policy on broadband, which is to leave it to the “free” market, on the belief that the “free”market will sort things out and bring us true competition (lower rates, higher bandwidth), has utterly failed, just like its unfettered belief that light regulation of banks and hedge funds will make the financial markets stronger.

Related news:

French operators agree to share fiber local loop

Orange and SFR agree to share fiber access in buildings, Iliad-Free cries foul

European Commission launches public consultation on fiber networks

Progress in reform of EU telecoms regulations

© 2008 MuniWireless. All Rights Reserved.

The municipal wireless broadband network in Longmont, Colorado has finally gone live. DHB Networks, a service provider, took over the network from Kite which the city had contracted in 2006 to build the network. Kite went out of business after spending almost $2 million. DHB says that it has 1000 subscribers in Longmont and that its goal is to increase that number to 2500 by the end of 2009.

Colorado law prevents munis from upgrading infrastructure

Although the city owns the fiber that functions as the backhaul for the muni wireless network, the city is prohibited by Colorado law from owning and operating the wireless network. DHB has to buy capacity from Longmont Power & Communications and lease space on light poles (so the city gets some revenue from DHB but is itself prohibited from controlling the network). Longmont is restricted from doing what Ponca City, Oklahoma and Rock Hill, South Carolina have done: use the city-owned fiber network plus muni wireless to install automated meter reading, energy management and public safety applications that not only save money for residents and the utility but also improve the quality of life.

There are other states with similar laws on the books and it’s time for those states to revisit them and ask whether these laws exist solely to protect the interests of incumbent wired and wireless telecom operators to the detriment of cities that wish to upgrade their broadband, municipal and utility infrastructure.

Previous post on Longmont, Colorado:

DHB Networks takes over Longmont, Colorado muni wireless network

© 2008 MuniWireless. All Rights Reserved.