Google Fiber is more than the experimental publicity/political “stunt” many large cable companies and Wall Street investors have suspected since the search giant first announced it would build a 1,000/1,000Mbps fiber to the home network.

BTIG Research, which follows the telecom sector for large institutional investors and investment managers, says there is a lot more to Google Fiber than many initially thought.

If Google’s fiber project expands outside of Kansas City, it could ultimately transform the business model of broadband in the United States. It already has generated unease for Time Warner Cable, which has resorted to knocking on doors to preserve its customer relationships.

It is one thing to consider Google Fiber from a New York City office and another to see it working on the ground. BTIG’s Rich Greenfield and Walt Piecyk decided to travel to Kansas City to investigate the new fiber service first-hand.

“We believe Google Fiber will accelerate rapidly, changing consumer habits in its territory,” they concluded. “While it is very early in Google Fiber’s life, we fully expect Google to build out more markets after they perfect the broadband and TV offerings in Kansas City.”

There is ready-made demand, judging from the 1,100 cities that asked Google Fiber to set up shop locally. Local governments recognize their telecommunications future has been largely monopolized by one cable and one phone company, and it is important for that to change. Some have taken steps to build their own networks, others will throw a parade if Google does it for them. Reasoning with the likes of Comcast, Time Warner Cable, AT&T, and Verizon — among several others — has not gotten world class broadband at a reasonable price. Instead, many incumbent players have used their market power to raise prices, restrict usage with unnecessary usage caps, and retard innovation.

Google may prove to be the only force large and aggressive enough to throw a monkey wrench into the comfortable business plans and conventional wisdom about how broadband should be packaged and sold in this country. Community owned providers have shown they can deliver superior service and pricing, but face deep-pocketed incumbents that can use predatory pricing to save customers in one market while raising prices on captive customers in others. Incumbent providers also have successfully advocated for protectionist bans on publicly-owned broadband in a number of states. Washington regulators have thus far been largely supine and disengaged when asked to address the challenges consumers face from rising bills for more restricted service.

BTIG’s own research is a marked departure from the usual dismissive attitude incumbents and Wall Street have paid to the Google project. Greenfield himself acknowledges that the investment and business media communities typically respond with three reactions when one mentions Google Fiber:

• “Is it a sustainable business with those economics?”
• “How much cash are they blowing?”
• “Who cares about what they are doing in a couple of relatively small cities such as the Kansas Cities?”

But such thinking underestimates Google’s potential much the same way Yahoo! and AltaVista did with their dominant search engines a decade ago. The biggest mistake one could make is to assume Google just wants to be another competing cable or phone company. It goes far beyond that.

Greenfield believes Google is seeking to become an integral part of the communities it serves, equal in stature to the cable and phone companies, but without their reviled reputation.

But the most significant change Google brings is a challenge to the current business model of consumer broadband.

Phone and cable companies first monetized broadband speeds. The faster the speed chosen, the higher the price. The earnings power of broadband gradually increased as more Americans signed up for service and the costs to provide it declined. But as cable TV margins continue to erode, the money to cover the difference has come from broadband, which has seen regular, unjustified rate increases since 2010. Not content with monetizing broadband speed alone, many providers are also attempting to monetize broadband usage with usage limits and/or consumption-based billing schemes. A recent Wall Street Journal article estimated 90 percent of the price consumers pay for Internet access is profit.

With that kind of profit margin, the economics of Google’s ambitious fiber project do not look as unfavorable as some on Wall Street suggest.

Greenfield calls Google’s 1 gigabit speeds insanely low-priced at $70 a month. He’s right when one considers current pricing models of incumbents. At Time Warner Cable’s current pricing (50/5Mbps service for $99 a month), the cable company would charge consumers $1,980 a month for 1,000/1,000Mbps service, assuming they could actually deliver it. Upstream speeds above 5Mbps might cost even more. Cable television, which used to be the core service offered by cable companies, is almost an afterthought for Google. It can be added for $50 more per month, which is actually cheaper than many competing providers charge for a similar package.

Greenfield feels Google has an aspirational goal for its Kansas City network.

“In Kansas City, Google has a customer facing service with employees who are part of your community, trucks that come to your house and customer service reps that answer your questions when you need help,” Greenfield notes.

On that basis, Google can reboot itself into an entirely new entity in Kansas City, offering much more than a broadband service and a search engine.

Google’s sleek network box.

Greenfield notes Google Fiber has been carefully developed to break away from the familiar experience one has with the phone and cable company:

• The home terminals and DVR equipment more closely resemble a sleek Apple product, not a Motorola/Cisco set top box that has looked largely the same since the 1990s;
• The installation experience has been streamlined — the external network interface on the side of the customer’s home does not require anyone to be home during the installation, reducing the time needed for a customer to sit around while service is installed inside;
• In-home equipment envisions a more integrated IP-based network future with Ethernet and Wi-Fi connectivity, a centralized storage device which acts as an enhanced whole house DVR, and a minimalist TV box that can be hidden — no more unsightly hulking set top boxes. It represents a home entertainment network that goes far beyond what the competition is offering.

These factors deliver a positive customer experience, if only because Google paid attention to complaints from cable and telephone subscribers and decided to do things differently.

Other traditional business model busters noted by Greenfield:

• Google will deliver 6/1Mbps budget priced Internet for a $300 one time fee (payable in $20 installments) which includes an in-home router, breaking through the digital divide and getting Google’s infrastructure into homes that simply cannot afford traditional cable or phone company broadband. It blows away the current “lite” offering sold by cable and phone companies with much better speeds at a far lower price;
• Google is working with charitable organizations to help the poorest get broadband for even less, through donations and other fundraising;
• Google leverages the community as a crowd-sourced marketing engine. Word of mouth advertising and competition among different neighborhoods helps drive the expansion of the network. Even if a consumer has no interest in the service, many fight to see it in their neighborhoods for the benefit of local community institutions who will receive free hookups;
• Every new customer signed up for two years’ service receives a free Nexus tablet. The tablet is sold as the service’s “remote control,” but it is capable of much more;
• No data caps, no speed throttling. With just two speed tiers, Google has completely discarded the speed-based and usage-based business models for broadband.

A Nexus 7 tablet comes free with the service (and a two year commitment)

So what exactly does BTIG think is Google’s master plan? Greenfield suspects Google is not recouping its initial investment or costs with their current pricing model, but that may not matter. Google may earn profit in other ways.

A 33% increase in the number of homes with broadband could be a substantial boost for Google search and YouTube, earning Google additional revenue. Improved broadband available to an entire household guarantees people will spend more time online, especially with no data caps or slow speeds. Enormously faster upload speed promotes more content sharing, which in turn means more time online with services like YouTube. A home tablet enables even more broadband usage, according to Greenfield.

As broadband speeds improve, advertisers can expose web visitors to more attractive, multimedia rich advertising not easily possible on slower speed connections. That could let Google tap into a greater share of the $60 billion TV ad market, especially for YouTube videos.

Finally, Greenfield suspects the more Google develops brand loyalty, the more successful it will be pitching consumers and businesses on services of the future.

Greenfield notes there are still bugs and features to be worked on, particularly with Google’s TV offering, but the company will have plenty of opportunities to manage those before it introduces Google Fiber elsewhere.

The implications of an expanding fiber to the home universe in the United States under Google’s price model could deliver a potent punch to incumbents like Time Warner Cable. So far, the cable company has only faced satellite dish competition for television, a technologically inferior AT&T U-verse, which will never have the capacity Time Warner has so long as the phone company still relies on any significant amount of copper wiring, and Verizon FiOS, which has disengaged from a price war with the cable company and is raising prices.

The writing is already on the wall, at least in Kansas City. Greenfield relays that Time Warner has been going all-out to improve its own customer service. One customer noted Time Warner Cable came to his house twice in recent weeks, without a scheduled service call, to check on the quality of his Internet speeds and to make sure the customer was happy.

In some neighborhoods, Time Warner is going door to door to interact with customers, something not done since cable operators first knocked on doors 30 years ago to introduce you to their service.

Google Fiber could ultimately force the end of one more legacy the cable industry has earned itself over the past few decades: customers loathing its service and prices.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Google Fiber Demo by BTIG’s Rich Greenfield and Walt Piecyk 11-23-12.flv[/flv]

BTIG’s Rich Greenfield and Walt Piecyk experience Google Fiber in Kansas City.  (3 minutes)

A Comcast customer in Albany, Calif. got the cable company to pay her $290 towards the purchase of a new television after her cable box went out with a bang.

Kay Corlett’s television, plugged into the back of the box, was an unintended casualty.

Corlett had no trouble getting Comcast to replace her defunct cable box at no charge, but her television was another matter.

“I was very distressed because I had the feeling that they caused the problem so they should be taking care of it very quickly,” Corlett told KGO-TV News.

Corlett played phone tag with a supervisor assigned to investigate her claim and other Comcast employees proved unable to help.

Attitudes changed when KGO’s “7 On Your Side” consumer team intervened. With Comcast’s ongoing intransigence threatening to end up on the evening news, Comcast quickly asked their insurance company to cover the loss.

Corlett received a check for $290 which she put towards the purchase of a new and improved television.

Comcast called the incident extremely rare and recommended customers use surge protectors on their electronic equipment. It was unclear whether the cable box spontaneously failed or if a surge in a nearby power line caused the problem.

[flv width=”600″ height=”358″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/KGO San Francisco Comcast buys woman TV after cable box exploded 11-26-12.flv[/flv]

KGO-TV in San Francisco helped Kay Corlett get compensation for the damaged television she says failed after her Comcast cable box exploded.  (3 minutes)

Major cable and phone companies are rolling out new bundled packages and promotions designed to protect their cable television packages from cord cutting.

Verizon, Comcast and Time Warner Cable have all run promotions that carry a clear message: cancel your cable television and your wallet gets it.

The Wall Street Journal shared the story of Comcast subscriber Cathy Vu, who decided she no longer wanted cable TV and tried to downgrade to a broadband-only account.

Comcast gave her an offer she could not afford to refuse when the representative explained canceling cable television would increase her monthly bill $20. As a result, Vu decided she would save more money keeping her cable television turned on.

Welcome to the new world of double and triple play bundled pricing promotions that bring downgrade penalties customers cannot ignore.

The idea of repricing cable service to protect vulnerable cable television and phone service began in earnest after analysts like Sanford Bernstein’s Craig Moffett began noticing customers were no longer addicted to keeping cable television, no matter the cost. He proposed a solution: price broadband service higher and cut the cost of cable television.

The result: carefully constructed promotional and bundled package offers that entice customers to purchase services they might not even want, to get the best (and sometimes lowest) price. Gone were promotions that offered phone, broadband, and television service for $33 each. In their place, new pricing that charges $60-70 for the first service, and heavily discounted prices for each additional service.

You know the pitch:

“Yes, I am calling to sign up for broadband service,” you say.

“Certainly, I would be glad to help you with that. But did you know that for just $20 more a month, you can also get cable television?”

“Really, it’s only $20 more? Sure.”

“I am thrilled to hear you say that. But I hope you are sitting down because I have more good news. For just $10 more, we can give you a phone line with unlimited local and long distance calling. How much do you pay the phone company now?”

“Too much, that sounds like an amazing deal, so I get everything together for $99 a month?”

“You sure do, for the first 12 months anyway.”

One year later when the promotion ends, you call to begin downgrading service to lower your bill. But cable and phone companies are increasingly ready for you.

First they will offer you a slightly less attractive promotional retention offer to keep your business. If you accept, the company gets to book the extra revenue and probably locked you into an annual service agreement.

If you don’t bite and insist on a downgrade, they have some bad news for you — that broadband service you still want will now cost you $60-70 a month, including the modem fee.

If you bail early on a promotional discount offer, the bite on your wallet can be significant.

The Journal found unbundling just does not pay:

• Comcast: TV + Internet for about $50/month for the first 6 months vs. standalone same speed Internet for about $70/month.
• Verizon FiOS: TV + Internet for about $85/month (two-year contract) vs. standalone Internet for about $80/month.
• Time Warner Cable: TV + Internet for about $50/month for 12 months vs. standalone Internet for about $45/month for 12 months, then up to $60 after that.

At the end of the day, Moffett and the rest of Wall Street get their wish — preservation of the all-important growing average revenue (ARPU) collected from each customer. Downgrades lower ARPU, so they must be discouraged at all costs.

Cable operators “recognize that their most advantaged product is broadband,” said Moffett. “They don’t want to sacrifice that advantage by giving the opportunity for customers to cherry pick their best product at a low price and take the rest of your services from somebody else. In effect, they are pricing the broadband at a price that discourages you from taking broadband only.”

Customers primed for cord cutting (or who have never bought cable TV) are likely to receive targeted mailings from Verizon, Comcast and Time Warner Cable encouraging subscriptions to cable TV and prices that nearly give the service away.

Comcast’s Blast Plus promotion in selected markets delivers 30Mbps broadband with Digital Economy television service, both for $50 a month for six months. Internet-only customers would pay $70 per month for the same speeds without television.

Time Warner Cable in New York City wants to be your cable TV supplier so much, it offers a package of broadband and throws in Broadcast Basic service for just $5 more per month. Combined, Turbo Internet and television will cost $49.99 a month for a year. Standalone Internet on a promotion runs $45 a month for 12 months.

On a strict cost basis, charging more for Internet does not make sense. The Journal reports that about 90% of your monthly broadband bill is pure profit for cable operators, because the cost of delivering the service has continued to plummet to all-time lows. Cable television is no longer the cash cow it used to be for cable operators because programmers increasingly demand a piece of the profit pie. Today, cable operators only get to book about 35% of your monthly cable television payment as profit.

[flv width=”640″ height=”369″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WSJ Cable Cord Cutting Less Attractive 11-13-12.mp4[/flv]

The Wall Street Journal examines the trend towards repricing broadband service so that customers feel compelled to keep their cable television package or face even higher bills.  (5 minutes)

AT&T will spend $14 billion on its wireless and wired broadband networks in an effort to improve service for its urban and suburban customers, while preparing to argue its case for disbanding parts of the century-old landline network.

In a major 90-minute presentation with most of AT&T’s top executives on stage, the company announced its intention to move away from traditional landline service and towards a combination of an enhanced broadband platform and 4G LTE wireless access, especially in the 22 states where it currently delivers landline service.

The investment plan — Project Velocity — is a pivotal moment for AT&T, which has seen deteriorating revenue from its aging rural landline network and has focused most of its investments in recent years on its increasingly profitable wireless network.

But AT&T also hoped to hang on to the enormous revenue it still earns providing traditional home phone service. Its early answer for landline cord cutting came in 2006 with U-verse, an IP-based network platform on which AT&T can sell video, voice, and broadband service with a minimum of regulatory oversight. U-verse succeeded attracting high-paying customers who either stayed with or returned to AT&T. But now company officials hope U-verse can help the company achieve victory in its next public policy fight: to abandon traditional landline service altogether.

That emerging battle is likely to pit urban and suburban customers enjoying enhanced U-verse service against rural AT&T customers deemed unsuitable for wired broadband. AT&T is seeking to decommission up to 25% of its rural landline network as part of the strategy announced today, shifting affected customers to its 4G LTE wireless voice and broadband service, which comes at a higher cost and includes draconian usage caps.

Critics contend such a move could leave AT&T largely unregulated with monopoly control over its networks, with few service requirements or access concessions for competitors. It would also leave rural customers relegated to a wireless Internet future, perhaps permanently.

Landline/Wired Broadband: Good News for Some, Scary News for Rural America

AT&T plans to expand and enhance its broadband network to 57 million consumers and small businesses across its 22-state operating area, reaching 75 percent of customers by the end of 2015. AT&T will operate three broadband networks going forward, while gradually decommission its existing ADSL network.

• U-verse: AT&T’s triple play package of TV, Internet, and Voice over IP phone will be expanded by more than a third to reach an additional 8.5 million customers by the end of 2015. This will make U-verse available to 33 million customers in AT&T home phone service areas. Most of the expansion will be in urban and suburban areas bypassed during the initial U-verse construction phase. To remain competitive, AT&T will also increase available broadband speeds for existing customers up to 75Mbps;
• U-verse IPDSLAM: An additional 24 million customers will be offered a combo voice-broadband package that could be called “U-verse Lite.” It will offer speeds up to 45Mbps and is primarily intended as a replacement for the company’s DSL service in exurban and semi-rural areas. Arrives by the end of 2013;
• Fiber to Multi-Tenant Business Buildings: AT&T plans to expand its fiber network to reach more commercial buildings, but also lay the foundation to use these facilities for future distributed antenna systems and small cell technology that will create mini-cell sites serving individual neighborhoods, cutting down the demand on existing cell towers.

Customers living in rural, open country in AT&T service areas in states like Texas, northern Mississippi, western Tennessee and Kentucky, central and northern California and Michigan, and the rural areas of the Carolinas may eventually find themselves using AT&T’s wireless network as the company seeks to decommission its landline infrastructure.

A number of AT&T customers living in areas shown in red may see red if and when AT&T begins trying to force rural Americans to its more profitable wireless networks.

But AT&T officials also admitted in a Wall Street Q & A session that the company planned nothing special for rural landline customers transitioned to wireless. Those customers will be sharing service with traditional mobile customers. If AT&T’s service plan resembles that of Verizon, customers will pay around $60 a month and limited to just 10GB of usage per month. If AT&T decommissions its existing landline infrastructure, no other wired provider is likely to take its place.

Most remaining regulations enforcing a level playing field for telecommunications networks remain with legacy copper-wire landline Plain Old Telephone Service. AT&T’s plan would effectively banish that network in its entirety through a series of regulatory and service-transition maneuvers:

• U-verse customers actually no longer have traditional landline service. U-verse offers barely regulated Voice over IP service, free from most state regulations and pricing oversight;
• U-verse IPDSLAM customers will also quietly forfeit their traditional landlines. This product works over an IP network, which means telephone service is Voice over IP;
• Wireless service is already barely regulated and not subject to price oversight or universal service requirements that landline providers must meet to deliver service to all Americans.

AT&T proves you have to spend money on network upgrades to make money from customers purchasing the enhanced services they offer.

4G LTE Mobile Broadband: 99% Coverage Across 22 AT&T Landline States, Up to 300 Million Americans Served by the End of 2014

The majority of AT&T’s planned investment in its network will once again go to its highly profitable wireless division. At least $8 billion will be spent on bolstering AT&T’s 4G LTE wireless coverage area, especially in rural sections across its 22 state landline service area. That investment is necessary if AT&T hopes to win approval to decommission traditional landline service for rural customers.

• 4G LTE Expansion: AT&T plans to expand its 4G LTE network to cover 300 million people in the United States by year-end 2014, up from its current plans to deploy 4G LTE to about 250 million people by year-end 2013. In AT&T’s 22-state wireline service area, the company expects its 4G LTE network will cover 99 percent of all customer locations;
• Spectrum: AT&T continues its acquisition binge with more than 40 spectrum deals so far this year. AT&T’s biggest win of the year was approval for new WCS spectrum it will occupy alongside satellite radio. AT&T will have accumulated 118MHz of spectrum nationwide.
• Small Cell Networks: AT&T has already aggressively deployed a large number of Wi-Fi hotspots to encourage customers to shift traffic off its traditional wireless network. The next priority will be deployment of small cell technology, macro cells, and distributed antenna systems that can offer neighborhood-sized cell sites to serve urban and suburban customers and high density traffic areas like shopping malls and entertainment venues.

AT&T’s wireless 4G LTE upgrades will cover 99% of the service areas where the company provides landline service. It has to offer blanket coverage if it hopes to win approval for decommissioning its current legacy landline network in rural America.

Using New Infrastructure to Drive New Business and Even Higher Revenue

AT&T would have had a hard time selling its planned investments to Wall Street without the promise of new revenue opportunities. AT&T’s new network enhancements will support a range of new services the company hopes to introduce to win greater revenue in the future:

• AT&T Digital Life: A nationwide all IP-based home security and automation service set to launch in 2013 that will let consumers manage their home from virtually any device — smartphone, tablet or PC.
• Mobile Premise Solutions: This new nationwide service, available today, is an alternative for wireline voice service and in the future will include high-speed IP Internet data services.
• Mobile Wallet: AT&T is participating in the ISIS mobile wallet joint venture. Market trials are underway in Austin, Tex. and Salt Lake City today.
• Connected Car: More than half of new vehicles are expected to be wirelessly connected by 2016. AT&T is positioned to expand from vehicle diagnostics and real time traffic updates to consumer applications that tie into retail wireless subscriber data plans. AT&T already has deals with leading manufacturers such as Ford, Nissan and BMW.

AT&T’s 2012 Investor Conference introduced major transformative changes for AT&T’s wired and wireless broadband networks.  (2 hours, 9 minutes)

Lampert

Two twenty-something cell phone salesmen in Florida will be looking for work — and lawyers — after police say the two stole risqué pictures off a woman’s cell phone and then shared them with each other and at least one customer.

Officers arrested Gregory Lampert and are waiting for the other employee, Joshua Stuart, to return from vacation.

Authorities say Stuart offered to assist the Bartow-area woman with moving her photos and contacts from an old damaged cell phone to the one Verizon Wireless reseller Cellular Sales just sold her.

But investigators say Stuart ended up keeping the old phone and transferred copies of her pictures for himself. Unfortunately for the victim, a waitress at a nearby restaurant, several of the photos depicted her in various states of undress. Stuart allegedly shared what he called “the banging” pictures with at least one co-worker and a customer.

That customer happened to recognize the woman in the photographs and promptly told her. The victim filed a police report which launched the investigation by the Bartow Police.

Police later executed a search warrant at the Verizon store, seizing a laptop computer and two cell phones later found to contain pictures taken from the victim’s phone. Lampert later confessed he received copies of the images from Stuart and admitted to “stealing nude pictures” from another customer’s phone. Lampert is now charged with two felonies — dealing in stolen property and offenses against computer users and a misdemeanor count of theft.

Dhiman Bhattacharjee, owner of iPhone Repair of Lakeland told WFTS-TV customers should consider backing up and restoring data between phones on their own — a process made increasingly easy by cloud storage backup services offered by major wireless carriers.

“Whenever we transfer data, we always do it in front of our customers,” Bhattacharjee said. “A lot of times we’ll have a customer bring their own laptop or their PC or Mac and we’ll help them transfer or make a backup of their phone,” he said.

Another common sense tip: don’t take or record images on your phone you would be embarrassed about if others saw them. If you can’t help yourself, make sure to delete or move them before taking your device to a third party.

Verizon Wireless is reportedly very unhappy about the incident. The store in question is owned and operated by a third party reseller, and is not owned by Verizon outright. But Verizon’s name is prominently displayed inside and outside the store. Verizon told WFTS they intend to hold both the employees and the store accountable for violating customer privacy.

A spokesman for Cellular Sales of Knoxville, which runs the Bartow store, told the station they were extremely shocked by what happened and are “working like crazy to ensure it never happens again.”

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WFTS Tampa Cell phone salesmen accused of stealing customers nude pictures 10-31-12.mp4[/flv]

WFTS in Tampa covers the story of what can happen to your personal photos when unscrupulous technicians decide to make copies and share them with others.  (2 minutes)