Hitting back

UPC is answering the FTTH challenge in the Netherlands, with a DOCSIS 3.0 deployment promising 120Mbps and branded "Fiber Power 120." Don't get me wrong, stuck here in the land of Access 1.0, I wouldn't turn it down, but how can it compete with GigE to the home, particularly if KPN ends up in the driving seat at Reggefiber? Plus, it's still a hugely asymmetrical service, which might turn off power users. Then again, as Vincent Dekker points out (welcome to the blogosphere!), in the short term, this really is the final nail in KPN's FTTC plans (appalling translation here). An interesting inclusion in Vincent's post, but omitted from the press release, is that the first deployments will be in Amsterdam and Almere, places where Reggefiber's investment has so far been concentrated. It looks like in this case the market genuinely will drive investment towards full-blown FTTH, at least on a highly localized basis - a dynamic I look forward to seeing in other cases where incumbents have opted for FTTC.