Some people worry that U.S. consumers and businesses are not going to have fast broadband at reasonable prices. I’m not one of them. Worrying about broadband availability and speeds is a bit like worrying about microprocessor power or memory upgrades. We once used x86 processors running at 5 MHz. They were expensive. Now we use parallel gigaHertz processors and they’re pretty cheap. The same thing is going to happen with bandwidth, just not quite as fast (digging trenches takes longer than producing a new generation of chips).

 

Consider Verizon’s (News - Alert) FiOS program, for example. Mark Wegleitner, Verizon Communications CTO, points out that the original specification for the Passive Optical Network, the technology underpinning FiOS (News - Alert), is100 Mbps to the home. Verizon’s fastest access service now operates at 50 Mbps.

 

The specification also includes a migration to 200 Mbps to the home, with 400 Mbps peak rates. Most likely, the next generation of technology will allow Verizon to deliver between 125 Mbps and 175 Mbps to the home. “We are working with suppliers for that technology to go even faster,” he says. “But 100 Mbps is within range, and we could even go a little higher” on the same platform.

 

If you recall the development of digital subscriber line technology, which was an outgrowth of the basic coding used to create T1 services, there was quite a bit of initial difficulty. For technical reasons related to the design and operation of typical copper access plant, it was difficult to get laboratory performance replicated in the real world. Those challenges have been met. Copper won’t ever offer the bandwidth of optical fiber, but the progress has been quite substantial.

 

A former Nortel (News - Alert) AVP once confided to me in the early1990s that DSL just didn’t work well enough to deliver video. At the time, he was right. But technology always gets better. DSL probably won’t ever work as well as fiber for video services. But it works well enough to drive revenue, which is a far cry from what engineers had expected 10 to 15 years ago.

 

The same sort of development curve can be noted in wireless and cable hybrid fiber coax plant as well. As long as there is competition, there will be improvement. Some commentators, of course, think there isn’t serious competition in the access market. Let me humbly suggest they haven’t spent enough time in the actual access business. It is brutally competitive.

 

There always will be issues to solve. But people err in thinking old problems haven’t been solved. And when old problems get solved, it is time to move on to the new problems. Markets work. Processing and bandwidth will keep improving. Count on it.

 

Gary Kim (News - Alert) is a TMCnet contributor