PGHammer
join:2003-06-09
Accokeek, MD
clubs:
 ·Comcast
| Re: Deja vu all over again Actually, it's a completely different pig.
What Covad is doing is going after traditional POTS customers (as opposed to broadband customers). By installing at the RT (instead of at the CO), Covad can basically provide *naked* VoIP at prices less than POTS (because Covad's lease fees will cover basically the *last half mile* from the RT to the customer, as opposed to CO-to-customer-including-RT fee they pay for traditional DSL coverage).
Covad's problem is that the ILECs (especially Verizon) are fully intending on removing copper from this *last half mile* (unless Verizon basically plans to give Covad the last half-mile, since it won't use it itself).
In the Verizon thread, there are several comments from Verizon itself on not only their FIOS FTTP services, but their plan of attack on their whole wired network. (Basically, Verizon plans on going copper-free by no later than 2012. *No* copper whatever (except within the customer premises).)
By overbuilding their entire network with fiber (that it doesn't have to share with anybody) Verizon is the biggest threat to CLECs that lease rack space from it (such as Covad). However, in providing voice services, Covad is very much in danger in getting caught in the wake of the *fiber effect* (where voice rates will drop so low that Verizon will basically be able to offer AYCE voice service within their network for nothing or next to nothing, just as they currently do on the Verizon Wireless network). Covad sees a way to gain *traditional* POTS customers by providing LPV; however, Verizon can trump that by providing low-cost or no-cost intra-network calling.
It's about to get seriously bloody. |
