ChannelVision Sept-Oct 2017

an estimated 5.25 million of its inhabit- ants, making it the state with the most gigabit availability per head. The most gigabit-connected met- ropolitan area in the United States is Chicago, with over 6 million people having gigabit internet availability. This means that Chicago alone has more gigabit internet availability than many industrialized nations, including Japan, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Operator Moves While most major operators are working on delivering giga-speeds, the latest expansions show an accelerated rate of deployment compared to even last year. For instance, Mediacom recently went live with 1 Gbps internet service to 55 communities in South Alabama and the Florida Panhandle. The cable operator hit a milestone of 1,000 giga- bit cities in July, when it added 82 communities in Missouri and Kansas to its roster. As of late August, it reaches more than 1,200 communities across the nation; and 36 more communities in Florida and Alabama are scheduled to be turned up this fall. By the end of next year, it plans to bring 1 Gbps services to most of the 3 million homes and businesses encom- passed in its 22-state footprint. “Creating true gigabit communities across our national footprint was a cen- tral component of the three-year, $1 bil- lion capital expenditure plan announced by Mediacom in 2016,” said Doug Frank, group vice president for Mediacom’s coastal region. “Our aggressive rollout of gigabit speeds has provided dozens of cities and towns across South Alabama and the Florida Panhandle with a dis- tinct technological advantage in today’s global marketplace.” Comcast, the largest broadband provider in the U.S., operates in about 45 percent of the country. It’s steadily expanding its DOCSIS 3.1-based giga- bit internet service, most recently rolling out to business customers in the North- eastern and mid-Atlantic states, includ- ing Baltimore; Boston; Charlottesville, Va.; northern Delaware; New Jersey; Philadelphia; and Washington D.C. That move expanded on the com- pany’s existing DOCSIS 3.1-based internet service in Atlanta, Nashville, Chicago, Detroit, Chattanooga, Hunts- ville and Miami; and additional areas throughout will deploy on a rolling ba- sis through the fall. At the end of it all, Comcast will have the nation’s largest gigabit-speed network. There are plenty of local develop- ments happening as well. For instance, Grande Communications, the Texas- based overbuilder, rolled out gigabit internet service to all homes and busi- nesses within Grande-serviceable ar- eas in San Antonio in late August. Also, Atlantic Broadband deployed 1 Gbps internet service in Miami Beach and surrounding areas in late August. The launch completes the final phase of its $6.3 million FastForward Miami initiative. Other notable players include Verizon, which is launching near-gigabit speeds (940 Mbps down, 880 Mbps up) to more than 8 million potential custom- ers in eight East Coast markets, while Google Fiber and AT&T are also push- ing hard on their own deployments. New Era ofApplications With all of that speed, gigabit net- works can support brand-new types of services and business models for end users – and spur along the “digital transformation” wave that sees busi- nesses becoming agile, on-demand, borderless, mobile and real-time. “The digital workplace promises a more flexible, engaging and intel- ligent work environment that is able to exploit changing business conditions,” said Carol Rozwell, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner. “To be successful, a digital workplace can’t be built in a vacuum. It must be part of a wider business strategy that seeks to boost employee agility and engage- ment by developing a more consumer- ized work environment.” Comcast, which has been at the forefront of DOCSIS 3.1 deployments, is one operator that sees gigabit speeds as a transformational technol- ogy for enabling this vision. “Soon, we’ll be the largest gigabit provider in the country, which will allow us to really showcase what the last mile can do,” said Kevin O’Toole, senior vice president for Products & Cloud Solu- tions at Comcast Business, in a Q&A at SDxCentral. “Gigabit speeds that are cost-effective will allow customers to take on business strategies they’ve never thought of before. In the past, businesses tied T1s together to get 3 Mbps or maybe 6 Mbps. Becoming gigabit-powered changes everything.” For businesses of all sizes and across many industries, digital trans- formation is no longer something on Zettabytes 49% nd Unit Sales (#M) Cash flow Source: 451 Research Source: VIAVI Top 10 Metropolitan Areas with the Highest Gigabit Coverage Source: Parks Associates U.S. Annual Sales Forecast Smart Door Locks No Change On-Premises Private Cloud Company-Owned/Leased Datacenters and Facilities Third-Party Managed Service Provider Facilities Third-Party Colocation Facilities 26.1% 23.1% 22.5% 17.9% 10.2% Chicago 6,072,000 Chicago Metropolitan Area Greater Atlanta Metro Denver, CO and Suburbs New York Metro Area Nashville, TN and Suburbs San Francisco Bay Area San Jose Metro Detroit Metropolitan Area Fresno-Madera, CA Chattanoopa, TN - NW GA Metro Atlanta Denver New York Nashville San Francisco San Jose Detroit Fresno Chattanooga 3,795,400 2,290,400 1,986,300 1,265,000 1,204,400 1,098,400 922,000 586,000 506,000 2 1 0 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 Channel Vision | September - October, 2017 42