I worry when thinking appears that offers a “build it and they will come” philosophy especially when the build plan is an investment for 20+ years. In Access technologies there are many solutions, Fibre Optics, variants of Copper and Cable, variants of Wireless including Satellite. Each approach has their own unique attributes and each deliver different values to different business cases.

There are a number of factors, which determine optimal access technology. It was a mistake that was often made when I was part of the vendor community that we felt our “leading edge” technology and feature set was the prime determinant of business case success.

More often what I have found to be the case is the end customers choice of device, application, their behaviors and values are by far the most important factor in determining the appropriate access technology.

Key questions to ask when deciding to invest in a network that will deliver value (i.e. return on investment) for 20+ years are

What will my customer value and want to buy 5-10-15 and 20 years from now? 

What level of certainty can I have in these assumptions?

Finally

How wrong could I be?

In addressing the first of these, what will customers demand as the features that are required for its future communications and entertainment devices?

I do not try to offer insight into how our environment will look in 2029 there are too many unknowns and my experience tells me to tread carefully. But, I can offer some foresight and evidence into the next 3-5 years which may point some directions as to the level of certainty with which we can invest and build referred to by the other two questions in my list.

Most devices sold today are wireless or wireless enabled, key is portability – last year in Q3 the number of laptops outsold the number of desktops – this event though long forecast had not been expected to take place till 2011. But the emergence of Netbooks, lower prices for Laptops and the emergence of ever better wireless solutions have accelerated this trend.

In fact the growth in global laptop sales year over year was 40% while growth in desktop sales was a negative 1.3%. All analysts I have reviewed suggest this trend will continue. Just for fun I asked several of the computer retailers how may laptops they sold vs desktops and their “on the street” feedback was 4 to 1.

It is also possible that netbooks and hyper portable devices like kindle dx www.amazon.com/gp/mpd/permalink/m3TW2JEKYJ8ODC could takeover from laptops as the volume device or create yet another new class of device. Cloud computing and the evolution of the consumer platforms have the potential to drastically change the way we perceive this space. I can  see a day relatively soon where desktops sell like vacuum tube based tv’s i.e. not at all .

Sales of Intelligent web browsing mobile devices have also grown at an astonishing rate. Web browsing on Mobile devices grew at 73% in the USA, 63% in the UK and 51% in Germany. With well over 10 Billion page views in June 2009 globally the growth of this technology is not only hard to ignore but hard to predict.

I have a strong suspicion that the devices and applications can drive an outcome that would sideline any fixed residential network, copper, Cable, fibre or otherwise over a 10 to 20 year horizon, and what consumers will value, is the device, portability, adaptability and personalization.

It is my experience that all Telecommunications operators watch very carefully the emergence and popularity of devices and base their investment plans on device availability and adoption. Operators who have built networks prior to device availability, or while devices were clunky or costly have tended to loose money, sadly I have seen many examples of this phenomenon.

As the products our customers choose are more and more portable and wireless networks to support these devices  emerge, my advice is to watch this space as the wireless world continues to innovate and grow.

This is not to say that Wireless is the only technology, but neither is Copper, Cable or Fibre. The future is not clear cut, many early mover telecommunications investments have failed in the past internationally and in NZ and to invest without reading all the signs introduces extreme levels of risk. The result is business cases that I wouldn’t put my pension investments into.

Which brings to mind a quote:

"Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other."

Benjamin Franklin