In 1994 one of the buzzwords you were bound to hear if you were even remotely interested in technology was the “Information Superhighway”. Of course, as a quasi-technical-turned-social term, it had a multi-level meaning, depending on who you were talking to. Laypeople would immediately infer a superfast, all-encompassing, ubiquitous network infrastructure that would allow them to surf and communicate faster. Entrepreneurs imagined a new world that would make use of this network and their idea to help them make money. Technically proficient people would, then, translate these features into a number of parts. And those parts would almost always include or revolve around Fibre-optic networks; infrastructures where fibre would not be limited to trunk communication links between large Telephone Companies (Telcos) and regional, national or international backbones, but would feature in every single part of the network offering astonishing speeds all the way to the consumer, or, as it’s colloquially known today, FTTH/FTTP (Fibre To The Home/Fibre To The Premises). Fibre-optic communication, the encoding and transmission of information through bursts of light carried by glass strands, represented the only technologically sound answer to the Information Superhighway challenge. It still represents the future of wired communications through its massive bandwidth potential.
But fibre was expensive and coming up with increasingly sophisticated modulation technology was not easy. Telcos have traditionally been regulated as public utilities. This meant that — in principle — they were obliged to reinvest most of their income in order to improve their network capabilities, their reach, their services. This also meant no profits. The combination of the promise of an ‘Information Superhighway’, the vast requirements in research, development and implementation (i.e. digging the roads and laying down cables of fibre optics) and the increasing privatisation/deregulation of Telcos meant that in the 1990s many governments agreed to do away with the ‘Rate of Return’ regulations and allow Telcos to — effectively — do what they please with their profits and hoped that this would result in a healthy competitive market. This was especially true in the U.S. where the regulatory system was largely ineffective or, rather, partial to the megacorp interests. Of course they were expected to build the networks for this century, in the same way the telephone, road and rail networks were built for the previous two.
Ten years later and ADSL is more or less the norm for broadband, both in Europe and N.America with only a couple of Asian states having transitioned to Fibre. What ever happened to Fibre? Is ADSL good enough or is it an abused short-term alternative employed by those same companies that were supposed to deliver years ago?
Telcos all over Europe have been making huge profits, be it as recipients of EU or government grants aimed at creating modern networks or through their long-established practical monopolies on telecommunications and the lack of proper regulation. In the U.S., the few huge cable and broadband providers have similarly profited by the technological increase and deregulation without passing this to the consumer, either through better services or lower prices.
So who is offering Fibre connections today, where and for how much?
It is no secret that the main developed Asian countries, Japan, S.Korea, Hong-Kong, have been pioneers of ultra-broadband connections based on Fibre. Connections that in many cases reach or exceed 50Mbits in both directions for less than €30/month in most cases, according to Wikipedia.
And while some European states are not exactly known for their infatuation with high technology, they are now among the most technologically developed in terms of their data and telecommunication networks: Where Scandinavian countries such as Denmark, Sweden and Norway pioneered high-bandwidth internet services back in the 1990s, it is now the Netherlands, Denmark, Iceland and, surprisingly, France that are leading the pack along with a number of Eastern European countries such as Slovenia, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Croatia and Romania all turning to Fibre. All those states, for very different reasons indeed, are rapidly modernising their networks and laying fibre all the way to their customer premises and offering comparable services to those found in Asia. At the same time, a number of other main European states are sorely lacking in the same areas: countries such as Germany, Spain, Portugal, Hellas, Austria, Luxembourg, Belgium, the United Kingdom and many others do not have any Fibre services available to consumers, but are limited to ADSL and cable connections of varying performance and prices.
Finally, one cannot ignore the U.S. The birthplace of the internet, the de facto dominant technological player of our times, the place where the term ‘Information Superhighway‘ was coined. Well, the country seems to have lost the edge when it comes to home and business internet connectivity. While The Clinton-Gore administration aimed at creating a modern network infrastructure and gave the Telcos many billions of dollars of tax write-offs, little has been done to achieve this. Relatively slow connections and considerably higher prices than those found in the leading European states or Asia are the norm in the U.S., with very few exceptions. In addition, AT&T is back, and wants more and this time it seems that there’s much less the government can do to stop it. The net neutrality debacle of 2006 in the U.S. is a token of this increased power telcos wield in that country.
It is almost mid-2007 and the ‘Information Superhighway’ is as romantically obsolete as the V32.bis 19,200baud modem of around the same age. In the past fifteen years Telcos have benefited from vast amounts of money, be it through misregulation, tax-breaks, lack of competition or development grants without really returning much back. And most people are now convinced that ‘broadband’ is a 512Kbit, 1, 2, 6 or 10Mbit connection. To them I say: Well, guess again. It isn’t, you’ve paid and keep paying for much much more. Perhaps it’s time to ask for it. So, where’s the fibre?
I’m writing this using a 1Mbit/256Kbit connection in Athens, Hellas for which I pay about as much as a Japanese person in Tokyo would pay for a 100Mbit fibre connection both ways. There are currently no plans to roll out FTTH/FTTP/FTTB services in Hellas and the high-end services here utilise ADSL2+ and peak at around 10Mbits/400Kbits. Can you say ‘leapfrog’? I wish the governments could, for they don’t seem to realise the importance of connectivity in our time.
Fibre image by Flickr user Wysz. Used under Creative Commons by-nc licence.