Marketing Technology Letter
Broadband capacity is in-
creasingly extending from the
network infrastructures into
homes, shops and small offices.
But do we really need it? What
is the compelling killer app that
will make broadband something
really useful, a must.
“m” for mile
“m” for meter
Broadband could be a
customer nightmare
“Got thirteen channels of shit
on the TV to choose from.
I've got electric light.
And I've got second sight.
And amazing powers of obser-
vation.
And that is how I know
When I try to get through
On the telephone to you
There'll be nobody home”
Pink Floyd, The Wall, Nobody Home
CONTACT US : IC3 Limited
May 2002 – NO.
Broadband to the last “m”
In this paper, “m” stands for mile or meter like in the countries that have not quite
completed their transition to the metric system (it depends on the context: when you
see “exit 1/3m” on a motorway, it’s obviously not 0.333 meter away).
The world is crisscrossed by an increasing number of high-capacity, broadband tele-
com channels that can carry gazillions of bits over thousands of miles in a split sec-
ond. Yet, for a majority of mere humans, these fat pipes stop about a mile from
where the bits are needed, by the switches of telephone companies or in the main
electronic cabinets of cable service providers.
The first broadband challenge is to cover the last mile to reach most of our homes,
shops and offices. The incumbent telecom operators start to realise that the best way
to fight challengers and create value is to re-invent themselves. They offer last mile
technologies such as DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) in an increasing number of geo-
graphical areas and price the service at a more reasonable level. Cable operators
tend to undercut these prices by overlaying broadband Internet on top of their in-
creasing choice of TV channels. And people in isolated locations will be able to get the
same thing via digital satellites.
The next difficulty is to reach the last meter by extending the megabit channel into
any place within a building. Offices can connect the fat pipe to their LAN (Local Area
Network). But, in homes, one should be able to feed several PCs, TV sets and other
digital gizmos without having to wire all the rooms; and what about people on the
move with a laptop or watching TV in the garden? Wireless networking is the obvious
answer and WiFi is emerging as the winning standard in this area.
But the real problems could surface when the number of broadband connections ex-
ceeds the number of narrowband modems. Broadband could then become a mischie-
vous marketer’s dream (and a customer nightmare). It could spur the widespread
creation of multimedia websites trying to entice surfers with home pages looking like
Tokyo by night and featuring animation, video clips, pop-up windows, stereo sound
and other aggressions. It could facilitate the transmission of more e-mail, with ‘richer’
content, more bells and whistles, to more people. It could enable better, insidious
tracking of the surfer’s behaviour and the crafting of one-to-one messages that hit
him or her at unexpected times.
However, with broadband to the last “m”, we could face again the “technology in
search of a problem” conundrum. Right now, what broadband seems to miss the
most is a killer app[lication]. The few examples where broadband in the last mile is a
real plus for ‘normal’ people include today:
− make downloads significantly quicker (software updates, PDF documents, music
files, videos, etc.)
− view rich media content (could be encyclopaedia excerpts but also TV-like ads)
− get entertained at a faster pace (e.g. run multi-player games online)
− be able to check e-mail, financial statements and other exciting things at the
flick of the mouse since the line is permanently ‘on’
That’s not bad, indeed, but the above show only quantitative changes (except the
permanent ‘on’ status). The killer app should exploit the disruption created by broad-
band throughput and offer qualitative changes. In the late 1800s, electrification had a
limited impact until alternating current permitted electricity generation close to river
dams and coal mines and its transmission through high-voltage lines. The key factor
was distance. Today, the key factor is time. The killer app should revolve around the
fact that one is permanently online (zero time to connect) and that the Internet per-
forms something that is inconceivable at traditional modem speed (time to transfer
data divided by 10 to 50).
Visicalc, the original spreadsheet software, is often quoted as the killer app that made
the PC market take off in the early 1980s. The Internet gave it a second boost from
the mid 1990s. Can broadband be the rocket’s third stage?
www.IC3marketing.com tel : +44 (0) 20 8339 0709 e-mail : Henri@IC3marketing.com
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