Business 2.0: The telecom industry’s long-awaited turnaround may be under way. For the first time since the bust of 2000, companies are taking risks and making investments, broadband prices are beginning to stabilize after years of freefall, and, most important, demand for high-bandwidth data services is starting to rise. Driven by the growing popularity of Internet-based services — including voice-over-Internet-protocol phone services from companies such as Vonage and Skype, newly launched services like Google Talk and Google Video, peer-to-file-sharing, and digital-music services from Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT), and Yahoo (YHOO) — bandwidth is in high demand. Consumer demand and stabilized pricing could make this a comeback year for the broadband industry… read more!
Could This Be the End of the Telecom Bust?
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1 trackback so far
6:19 PM PT
[...] I have written in recent months that the bandwidth prices have stabilized a tad, and demand from new fangled services like iTunes is increasing. I might have been premature in my prognosis, some smart insiders in the wholesale business tell me. Instead, they think it is a calm during the storm. There are still too many bandwidth providers in the market, at a time when large bandwidth consumers like Comcast, Verizon, SBC and Qwest are building their own infrastructure. I see there is room for maybe one or two more wholesale providers in this market. [...]
3 comments so far
6:01 PM PT
From the article it quotes a $1000/mo. price for 100Mbs line from Cogent. I checked how much a 100Mbs (DL/UL) line costs from Korea Telecom (Megapass Ntopia). A 3-year contract costs 30,600 won (no contract @ 36,000 won). Priced in US dollars it is just $29.81!!! (3-year)
IOW, prices need to fall by 97% in the US to equal what you can get in Korea today. So I hope prices don’t stabilize, but with the cable/teleco duolopy I don’t expect a 100Mbs connection for that cheap a price until at least 2020.
6:02 PM PT
correction-the KT price is per month.
7:04 PM PT
those are two different kind of offerings - corporate and residential - koreans are getting 100 megs - maybe if taken into account peak possible speed etc. just slightly different than what we have here.
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