Pajama Entrepreneur

Today I received an email from Breednet, the Netherlands open fiber network, asking me to fill out a form indicating whether or not I am interested in (a) 100 Mbps at 275 EUR per month or (b) 1 Gbps at 675 EUR per month symmetrical broadband service to my office (which is also my home). The prices are a bit steep, but I am drooling at the prospect of having 1 Gbps . . . to my house!

In a study conducted in November 2007 by the city of Amsterdam, 7 out of 10 businesses surveyed indicated they were interested in being connected to the super-fast Breednet fiber network.
So, what should I do with all that bandwidth? Please post your comments below.

The Wall Street Journal writes about the French telecom regulator forcing France Telecom and the other fiber operators (Neuf Cegetel and Iliad) to share fiber ducts leading to apartment buildings. The result is more competition in the market for broadband services in France. Indeed in Paris you can get 50 Mbps symmetrical broadband service for 30 EUR per month.

Quote from the WSJ article:

When France Télécom SA hooked up an apartment complex in eastern Paris to its new high-speed broadband network recently, it did something unusual: It left the door open for its competitors. In a small supply closet on the ground floor, France Télécom built a metal cabinet to store all the tiny fiber cables that eventually will connect to people’s apartments. On one side it installed its own fiber lines, but the other side it left empty for its competitors.

. . .

“It’s silly for each company to lay its own fiber and dig up the streets three times. They will exhaust themselves and run out of resources,” said Gabrielle Gauthey, a commissioner at Arcep.

Read the WSJ article to understand how the French regulator is making a lot of broadband customers very happy indeed.