Broadband investigation in Sweden

I have now read the investigation myself, and talked with a lot of people. Mostly people have asked me what I think, but of course I have also read what other people think. Let me start with the good things.

  • The report say that minimum 2Mbps symmetric connection is what is to be called broadband. Much higher than the OECD specification. And that is what is to be used today. In 2013, it should be 10Mbps. Still symmetric.
  • The report conclude that this can only be achieved if there are neutral connection points from where the access network is to be built. A connection point that can not be as far away from households as the today default locations (telephone stations where the copper terminate). It must be within a few hundred meters of the household instead of within a few kilometers.
  • The report say that the access network between the household and the connection point can be any kind of mechanism. Copper, fiber, radio, whatever.
  • The report conclude that the network to the connection point must be fiber, but in rare cases other technologies can be used.
  • There is a suggestion that the federal government pay 50% of the €700M that is needed for creation of this network in Sweden, and that cities should pay 10%, and private investors the remaining 40%.
  • There is an acknowledgement that households, villages, and other kind of voluntary work is an important piece in the puzzle. Without local interest and local help, it will be hard to get a good network.
  • There is a lot of text about the need for good Internet Access for everyone.

But, there are of course a few things that could be better.

  • It could have specified what product is to exist at the connection point. If an ISP want to be available at the connection point, with what technology is that provider to connect to the upstream end of the neutral network? What technology is to be used by the household to connect to the connection point? At least it should have been mentioned that the more different technologies are in use, the more problems it will create. Personally, I think the connection point for the upstream should only be dark singlemode fiber. Downstream could be whatever the provider suggest.
  • The picture on page 332 is wrong. The whole description about network architecture on pages 331-332 is plain wrong. It tries to explain both the different kind of networks one talk about depending on how close to the household one is, and the different abstraction layers in the protocol stack. For example, if one want to connect to a service, of course the IP layer runs all the way between the client and the server! Also, “Internet” is not something “over there”. Everything connected to the Internet end up being part of the Internet. What is sad as well is that the text talk about “Internet access” being one of the services in the network. This when the whole investigation talk about Internet access being a necessity for using other services. This text in the appendix is because of this not in line with the rest of the report.

Now comments to the report.

  • Marianne Treschow from the PTS say Vi är också nöjda med att utredningen föreslår teknikneutrala lösningar to Telekomnyheterna. I ask myself what she really think of regarding “technology neutrality”. That the access network can be of any kind, or that the network to the distribution point not everywhere have to be fiber? The report is pretty clear that in the wast majority of cases the only viable solution is fiber.
  • Anders Bruse at Telia also think the report is good. He is also happy for the report to be technology neutral (which imply I have questions about what he think about…). He is though unhappy with the limit of 2Mbps: Det enda jag har att invända är begreppet med 2 Mbit/s i symmetrisk bredbandskapacitet. Av våra adsl-produkter är det bara 24 Mbit/s-tjänsten som klarar av att uppnå den överföringskapaciteten. Surprised? That is the whole point of the investigation. That people should get better connections, and also the investigation find that because of this one can not rely on DSL solutions all over the place. In many cases, but not everywhere.
  • Christer Kinch, ComHem, say that Vi är förvånade att ytterligare tre miljarder skattekronor satsas på statligt bredbandstöd, eftersom ingen har utrett hur effektivt det gamla stödet på mer än fem miljarder har varit. I do not think he has read the report, as I think this is exactly what the report is doing. Explain exactly how the previous support from the government has been used. Both based on technologies, geography and to what organisations the money has been given. So this complaint I think is wrong. Nothing to complain about there at all. Of course ComHem is unhappy with the investigation as it recommend the Government to ask PTS (the regulator) to define what discriminating behaviour is in reality.