TECHNICAL
Those that fail TO LEARN from history are doomed to repeat it 1
by John Francis Nolan, first mile networks
John Francis Nolan, first mile networks
Introduction 2 At the risk of understatement, the author has been “monitoring” the Internet 3 fibre access 4 market for a good few years i.e. from circa 2003 onwards with his definition of fibre access being “the replacement of the copper (and coax) infrastructure for connectivity, primarily to the home/business.” This paper is by way of an update on the author’s current thought process and will offer opinion, etc., where appropriate. In the development of this paper, the author has drawn on his experiences within the telecoms industry and a number of references – these references are expanded upon in Section 8. At the outset, the author wishes to draw readers attention to the early work of First Mile Networks (FMN) 5,6 with FTTH 7 in the
John is a Chartered Engineer and Director at First Mile Networks (FMN), a leading UK technology consulting and commercialisation firm, specialising in network strategy and planning, due diligence and audit, programme and project management and operations. He has directed numerous high profile telecoms projects (most notably the Determination of Fair Value of Turk Telekom). Before FMN John held senior positions in technology and telecoms consulting, working in a number of European countries as well as the USA, Asia Pac, the Middle East and Africa. He is a member of the IET, a Senior member of the IEEE, a member of the ACM as well as a new member of the SCTE.
UK, and in particular, discussions held with a number of UK “developers” namely Land Securities, Meridian Delta (MDL), and Quintain Estates. Figure 1.1 opposite illustrates an extract from the early FMN thought process and, whilst Land Securities and MDL did not engage with our approach, we were successful with Quintain in developing a comprehensive business plan for their Wembley Park Estate. The FMN business model was predicated on the provision of ducts and fibre at the early stage of such developments with the premise being that every potential end point on the estate would be serviced by fibre. It could be argued that the FMN model was a precursor to today’s many alternative network providers and hence
96
Volume 46 No.4 DECEMBER 2024
Made with FlippingBook - Online magazine maker