FCC Ruling: The FCC legislation does away with and forbids all exclusive deals in MTE’s (multi-tenant buildings i.e., MDUs /MTUs). All wiring in the buildings are open access to everyone. That includes all in-building wiring including copper pairs, coax and fiber and the in-unit wiring as well. Landlord exclusive agreements with carriers are not permitted, nor are sale and leaseback agreements nor are any revenue kickback or revenue sharing to the landlord permitted.

The lack of exclusivity applies to internet services, TV services, in-building wiring, etc., all across the spectrum.

Bulk agreements are still permitted, but not on an exclusive basis. That means any service provider can offer all occupants in a building a ‘special price’, but the occupants are free to sign up with anyone for their service.

Initial Impact on Carriers: All the cable companies will lose exclusive access to the coax and all other carriers / service providers will lose exclusive access to the copper pairs or fiber. It means that any newcomer service provider can make deals with occupants for service and will then get the use of the existing wiring which the then existing service provider will lose access to on a unit-by-unit basis. It is all open season on access. It is like the wild West.

Timing of the ruling: The ruling is effective in April or mid-May this year for all buildings with no existing agreements in place. For buildings where service providers have agreements in place, they will lose that privilege in the October / November time frame. It doesn’t matter who paid for the wiring, they will no longer own it. This will create a lot of competition and open up “locked in” buildings to all competitive providers of service.

Impact on installation of fiber or coax in buildings: Service providers will not want to invest in new wiring because any competitor can “take the use of the wiring that they paid for” away from them. Any new wiring in new buildings or brownfield buildings will be paid for by the property owners as they benefit from the availability of high-speed broadband in their buildings as an amenity. They will want the ability to provide high speed broadband to be competitive, so the wiring will be part of their capital investment just like the furnace or windows are in a building. The installation of fiber in brownfield buildings will cease or will be significantly reduced.

Impact on Property Owners and Anchor institutions: They will pay for the wiring in new buildings and in the case of brownfield buildings, they will either pay for fiber or they will be very pleased to have a service provider that uses technology like Positron’s G.hn so they don’t have to pay for the rewiring of the building and eliminate the construction mess, disruption, and cost for such rewiring. The property owners and anchor institutions are incentivised to have a high bandwidth infrastructure so their properties can remain attractive and competitive and provide the needed bandwidth services to their clientele.

Impact on Fiber in the Access Network: Service providers currently make decisions on bringing high speed band width to a building either by fiber or fixed wireless on a building-by-building basis based on the anticipated CAPEX, ROI and whether they feel that they will attain a minimum percentage ‘take rate’ in the building to justify the expenditure. The high cost of rewiring with fiber has resulted in bypassed buildings resulting in unserved and underserved users. Any fear that this will slow down the installation of fiber in the access network is misplaced. Technology like Positron’s G.hn GAM dramatically reduces the cost and disruption and increases the ROI making those buildings more attractive to attract fiber to the building. It will also increase the availability of fiber in the network.

Problem for Traditional Service Providers: With the free-for-all to win customers, traditional service providers who need a high minimum capture percentage of the building in order to be profitable will quickly lose market share. They will face competition from nimble service providers that quickly adapt to new technologies that are scalable, that do not require high CAPEX and that have a fast time to revenues, provide high speed broadband and a high ROI, enabling them to be immediately profitable even with a very low initial capture rate. Those service providers that do not adapt quickly will be big losers. The simple story is “Adapt to new technology quickly or die.”

Technological Crossroads: We are entering a new period of rapid change.
It is similar to the evolution “From Blockbuster to Netflix”.

Cable companies: Cable companies will lose their coax agreements. They have lost competitive edge in that DOCSIS has poor high speed bandwidth capabilities, especially in the upstream direction. G.hn technology provides virtually symmetrical Gigabit bandwidth on coax or on telephone pairs which significantly outperforms DOCSIS on coax. Various cable companies have started migrating to G.hn.

Anchor Institutions: Many service providers are slow to adapt to new technologies even when they are proven in service at major service providers. Anchor institutions want to get the most benefit for their available dollars. They want very high-speed internet services quickly and without construction disruption in their buildings. They will want to use the existing wiring (either telephone pairs or coax.) and they need a solution that is future proof. With new construction, we recommend fiber. In older buildings that do not have fiber wiring (88% of existing buildings), they will want a solution that delivers virtually symmetrical gigabit services but without the cost of rewiring with fiber in the building. G.hn will enable them to achieve this at less than 25% of the cost of extending fiber.

It is important to select a service provider that uses the latest technology, or who is at least willing to learn what is available, which would enable that provider to quote and provide the:

• Most cost-effective solution
• Fastest time to service (hours)
• Lowest CAPEX, highest ROI
• Ability to take advantage of the FCC ruling
• Be profitable to the service provider from day one even with initial low take rates

Benefit to Consumers, Anchor Institutions and Service Providers: This technology enables providers to dramatically reduce their costs, increase the speed of deployment, eliminate costly disruptive construction, and reduce pricing.

We strongly recommend that anchor institutions vet their suppliers to ensure that they are not purely fiber centric and do not only rely on limited methodologies but are open to the benefits to themselves and to you that new technologies bring.