ComptelPLUS Fall15 Show Daily Day 1

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COMPTELPlus | Monday, October 19, 2015 Beka Publishing, 10
Gigabit Fiber: Driving Economic Benefit
COMPTEL PLUS Fall 2015 Business Expo
DAY 1
The race for Gigabit fiber is on, shaping the last-
mile industry in new ways. But looking ahead,
what does the future hold and how will it
impact customers and service providers’ business?
These will be the core topics for Monday’s panel
discussion, “The Future of Fiber: Gigabit - What’s
Next?” at 10 a.m. in The Hub.
A key topic for panelists from the Fiber to
the Home Council (FTTH Council), Google and
FirstLight will be how new fiber networks foster
economic growth for communities. And, also
figuring into the discussion will be the economics
of buildouts, deployment challenges, the expan-
sion of fiber networks into rural markets and the
need for content and video reform.
Gigabit Fiber: It’s Not Just
About Super-Fast Content
Gigabit services are the new frontier of competi-
tion for triple-play providers—and they turn out to
have a measurable economic benefit. A study from
the FTTH Council found that communities with
widely-available gigabit access have per capita GDP
that is higher than communities with little to no
availability of Gigabit services.
The study examined 55 communities in nine
states, finding a positive impact on economic
activity in the 14 communities where gigabit
services are widely available. That plays out in
multiple ways, including through the direct
effect of infrastructure investment and increased
expenditures, as well as shifts in economic activity
(e.g. job creation and occupational changes) and
productivity gains.
“Gigabit communities are empowered commu-
nities,” said FTTH Council president and session
panelist Heather Gold. “The study results suggest
that gigabit broadband communities exhibit a
per capita GDP approximately 1.1 percent higher
than the similar communities with little to no
availability of gigabit services. In dollar terms, this
suggests that the 14 gigabit broadband communi-
ties studied enjoyed approximately $1.4 billion in
additional GDP when gigabit broadband became
widely available. As we look at these study results,
we can clearly conclude that every community
should be a Gigabit community.”
Conversely, the 41 communities in the study
that didn’t have widely available Gigabit broad-
band likely experienced forgone GDP in 2012 of as
much as $3.3 billion, the study found.
This impact can play out in many ways. “I antici-
pate that the increase in bandwidth will pave an
easier pathway to various other infant technologies,
like the Internet of Things, cloud computing and
contextual machine learning technologies,” said Alex
Cho, a research analyst with Seeking Alpha.
Google itself seems to indicate that things are
playing out as such. It has said that in Provo, Utah,
By Tara Seals
Panel Discussion - The Future of
Fiber: Gigabit - What’s Next?
Monday October 19, 10:30 – 11:30 a.m.
Location: Yerba Buena Ballroom (Expo Hall) - The Hub
Moderator:
Chip Pickering, CEO, COMPTEL
Panelists:
Heather Gold, President & CEO, Fiber to the
Home Council
Kurt Van Wagenen, President & CEO,
FirstLight Fiber
Chris Levendos, Head of Network
Deployment and Operations, Google Fiber
(See Gigabit Fiber, page 12)