Verizon FiOS TV Changes Coming?

Triple Play and Broadband Pricing: The Assumptions Always Matter

Methodology matters when any researcher attempts to make a cross-nation comparison of TV, voice or broadband access value and spending.

For example, when trying to determine whether consumer prices are up, down or flat, and looking at either stand-alone or bundled service packages, the assumptions make all the difference.


A new study by the Technology Policy Institute, for example, finds that U.S. broadband prices are relatively steady.

 Researchers Scott Wallsten, TPI VP and James L. Riso, TPI senior fellow, studied about 25,000 wireline broadband plans across Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries as part of their analysis.

Overall, quality-adjusted prices remained relatively constant from 2007 to 2009, they find.

Prices for standalone broadband plans in the U.S. are approximately in the middle of the range of prices across OECD countries. Prices for triple play plans in the U.S. are among the highest in the OECD. And while residential prices have on the whole remained constant in the U.S. they have been declining in most other countries.

read the full study here.

The study also compared quality-adjusted broadband prices across countries and over time, and found that
U.S. standalone broadband plans (plans not bundled with voice or video services) compare favorably to other OECD countries, but that U.S. prices for triple play (plans bundled with voice and video) packages and very-fast broadband connections tend to be higher than those in other OECD countries. In addition, while residential prices have remained unchanged in the U.S., they have been falling in most other OECD countries, the study found.

One might argue that the triple-play prices are subject to the assumptions one makes. By definition, a triple-play bundle includes three products at one price, so an analyst has to attribute component prices to each of the constituent products.

Indeed, the researchers caution that the results must be viewed carefully. "The figures must be interpreted cautiously," the report says. The raw prices do not immediately translate into meaningful observations about the real world for at least two reasons, say Wallsten and Riso.

"First, the number of plans in a given country will affect the median and range of prices in that country," they say. "These simple summary statistics assume all of a country’s plans are equally important and representative, which is not the case."

Plans often are available to subsets of a country’s population of varying size, and the popularity of different plans differs even when they are available to the same population. "Notably, existing studies and sources of data on prices suffer from this problem: the prices they report may be based on plans that are not those to which consumers typically subscribe." In other words, the study deals with published rates, and not with the percentages of consumers who may be buying various plans.

Also, the plan data does not account for contracts and data caps, which makes simple comparisons difficult.

The other issue, when looking at triple play pricing, is that if prices for the other constituent services--voice and video--vary significantly, the triple play packages will reflect, to a large extent, those pricing differentials. And most observers might note that U.S. video entertainment packages cost more than equivalent services in most other markets. See study  here for a comparison of multichannel TV spending in variious countries.

The point is that all such cross-country studies are highly dependent on the assumptions and methodology used.

AT&T Now Sells Triple-Play Bundles With Mobile Voice, Rather than Landline Voice

AT&T now allows consumers to buy a $99 triple-play bundle that allows customers to choose wireless as their voice option, rather than a fixed landline voice service.

The not-unexpected move shows both the appetite end users have for such packages, as well as AT&T's decision that now is the time to put more emphasis on gluing wireless users to the landline services, and less emphasis on using broadband and television to slow the rate of wireline erosion.

That isn't to say the original impulse is no longer important. It remains important for many customers. But the new bundles reflect the growing demand for wireless voice in triple-play bundles, rather than fixed line voice service.

AT&T "U-verse Choice" bundles start at $99 a month for three AT&T services, including U-family; U-verse High Speed Internet Pro (up to 3 Mbps downstream); and a choice of AT&T Nation 450 wireless voice or U-verse Voice 250 home phone.

Other packages featuring faster broadband speeds and more wireless or home phone calling minutes or more TV channels for $127 to $150 a month.

Where U-verse service is not available, customers can bundle DirecTV service with broadband and voice.

Weaker Market for Fixed Line Services Due in Part to Housing Market Changes

As if fixed-line providers of entertainment video, voice and broadband did not have enough problems, it appears there are fewer households to sell services to, these days.

Lower housing starts and a severe job market are obvious reasons why uptake of new services has been challenged.

But it appears there are other demographic changes at work as well. More young people, for example, are living longer with their parents than once was the case.

Also, more people in their 20s have moved back in with their parents. That is important as younger people represent one of the biggest groups of "single person" households. If there are fewer of those sorts of households, there are fewer potential occupied homes to sell services to.


A 2009 Pew Research survey found that among 22- to 29-years-olds, one-in-eight say that, because of the recession, they have boomeranged back to live with their parents after being on their own. That suggests as many as 12.5 percent of those 22 to 29 have removed themselves from the ranks of households with a possible need for fixed line communications or entertainment services.

Those trends, in turn, seem to have been driven by the recession's impact on younger workers.

According to a Pew Research Center analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data, as of 2009 some 37 percent of 18- to-29-year-olds were either unemployed or out of the workforce, the highest share among this age group in nearly four decades.

In 2000 there were about 42 million people living in multi-generational households. In 2008 there were 49 million, and one suspects that number grew in 2009.

Verizon Offers New Bundle Pricing and Features

Starting Jan 18, 2010, qualifying customers can order double- or triple-play bundles with up to 7.1 megabits per second high-speed Internet access for the same price as bundles with up to 3 Mbps, a $10 per month rate reduction.

Consumers in select Verizon regions can also order quad-play bundles at the new 7.1 Mbps bundle price.

In addition, new voice and high-speed Internet access customers ordering qualifying double-, triple- or quad-play bundles are eligible for their choice of a Compaq Mini netbook or $150 back in the form of aVerizon Visa Prepaid card.

Existing Verizon customers who add either new home voice or High Speed Internet service in a qualifying bundle are eligible to receive a $100 Verizon Visa Prepaid card along with the other incentives.

Bundles eligible for these offers include the triple play featuring "Verizon Freedom Essentials" unlimited local and long-distance calling, up to 3 or 7.1 Mbps HSI and DirectTV's "PLUS DVR" service, including a free DVR upgrade, and the double play with Verizon Freedom Essentials and up to 3 or 7.1 Mbps HSI.

Customers who sign up now can get all this value for just $94.99 per month for the triple play and $69.99 per month for the double play, with the prices guaranteed for 12 months. One-year Verizon agreements and two-year DirecTV agreements apply.

Triple-play bundles that feature up to 1 Mbps HSI, Verizon Freedom Value and the DirecTV "Choice" package are offered at $84.99 per month for 12 months.

Double-play bundles that feature Verizon Freedom voice options with either HSI or DirecTV programming are also available, many at carryover or lower pricing from 2009, and range from $54.99 to $89.99 per month for 12 months.  One-year Verizon agreements and two-year DirecTV agreements apply.

New HSI customers with Verizon home voice service who do not opt for a bundle can order the broadband service for $19.99, $29.99 or $39.99 per month for up to 1, 3 or 7.1 Mbps service, respectively, and enjoy a lifetime price guarantee as long as they maintain the same tier of service and Verizon HSI is available at their service location.

EchoStar, Dish Now Separated

EchoStar has completed the spin-off of its set-top box business into a new a company called EchoStar Holding Corp. The parent company, which now consists primarily of its satellite TV broadcasting business, will change its name to DISH Network Corp., and keep DISH as it stock symbol.

The transaction makes Dish a pure-play video entertainment provider, and arguably a cleaner asset for an acquirer or merger partner. There has been much speculation about an at&t purchase, but that seems unlikely given at&t's recent decisions about its stock buybacks, acceleration of its U-verse deployment and dividend increases.

The earlier proposed merger of Dish with DirecTV didn't pass regulatory muster, in part because the market was defined as "satellite TV" rather than multichannel video entertainment. At some point, as telcos gain more video market share, that argument might not be so compelling, and Dish and DirecTV might be allowed to merge.

Given that the consumer market increasingly is dominated by triple play, dual play and quadruple play providers, and where each of the services markets increasingly are saturated, regulators might take a fresh look at allowing the two satellite providers to merge.

The Dish Networks separation from the the EchoStar set-top manufacturing operations will help.

Comcast, Time Warner Won't Bid for 700-MHz Spectrum

Google is in, Time Warner Cable and Comcast are out, at least in terms of submitting an initial bid for 700-MHz spectrum. The big issue is how many of the incumbent wireless carriers will participate in the initial round. Verizon has been seen as a certain bidder, at&t a possible bidder, T-Mobile a potential bidder as well.

Cable companies have bid for spectrum in the past, in partnership with Sprint. So far, though, financial results from the cable-Sprint collaboration in the consumer market have been disappointing, though it remains unclear how much of the sluggishness is attributable to operational or marketing issues, and how much to "core competency" issues.

Up to this point, cablers have been most successful with products that can be delivered over their own plant. Wireless is outside that realm. Wireless might also be an area where telecom companies simply have more "core competence" capabilities that force cable companies to compete where they have few natural advantages.

For the moment, cable executives seem unwilling to acknowledge that wireless services are strategic.

Consumers really don't want a quadruple-play bundle, Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt insists. "I don't think the quadruple play is a big deal," he says. "So far we've not seen a great demand for that." Comcast likewise only says it continues to study the matter of wireless services closely and continuously.

Is Wireless Cable's Achilles Heel?

In the early 1990s, Comcast and other cable partners invested in an earlier version of "SpectrumCo," a business that would eventually become Sprint PCS, only to pull out later in the decade when the going got tough. Cablevision, for its part, also flirted with creating its own PCS network, but ultimately decided against it.

In 2005, Comcast, Time Warner Cable (TWC), Cox (COX), and Advance/Newhouse Communications banded together with Sprint Nextel to creat the "Pivot" service.

Sprint CEO Gary Forsee says that it took longer than expected to get Pivot off the ground and subscriber numbers haven't been released. That logically suggests uptake has been slow.

Recently, Sprint abruptly withdrew from SpectrumCo, the entity that in late 2006 snapped up $2.37 billion worth of licenses to wireless airwaves. The acquisition had spurred speculation that together, Sprint and cable companies were planning their own wireless network.

All of which might suggest wireless continues to be the platform telecom competitors can use to parry cable's wireline thrusts. It is, after all, a simple line extension to add voice and broadband access to a cable network. It is a discontinuous jump to offer wireless services over a completely distinct network. And cable execs dislike discontinuities as much as any other exec.

And the evidence is growing that mobile is way people "do voice."

DirecTV Adds Broadband Over Powerline

DirecTV will wholesale broadband over powerline broadband access services from Current Group no later than the beginning of 2008. The move gives DirecTV the ability to create a triple play bundle of voice, video and high-speed data access in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, reaching 1.8 million homes and businesses over the next several years.

The move shows the necessity of providing a triple play offering in the mass market, whether one approaches that market from the legacy voice or legacy entertainment video business. Both DirecTV and EchoStar have been weighing their terrestrial options for some time, though both have marketing deals with the leading incumbent telephone companies as well.

DirecTV might have additional concern about those relationships since at&t bought BellSouth, which had been a DirecTV partner. It isn't clear yet whether EchoStar or DirecTV will continue to be at&t's partner in the future, but EchoStar's longer history with at&t (formerly SBC) should carry weight.

Interesting bit of trivia: The just-launched Hughes Network Systems Spaceway satellite was originally supposed to be the third bird in the fleet of IP-enabled spot beam satellites. But when DirecTV was sold off to News Corp. by the holding company that still owns HNS, the first two birds went to DirecTV.

Perhaps sadly, those two birds are used for conventional TV broadcasting rather than the mesh networking applications the satellites originally were designed to support. Linear TV, including the high-definition sort, obviously is the foundation for businesses consumers consider important.

For some of us, though, broadband Internet access is the most important application, if one could only choose a single service remain available (and that includes landline voice, mobile phone, television and fax). The spot beam and on-board router capabilities of the first two of three "Spaceway" birds wound up in the dustbin.

I don't know that the owners of those two birds would have made more money, or garnered more strategic advantage, if all three Spaceway satellites could have been used for their original intended purpose. I will say that given a choice between devoting scarce spectrum to television, when it can be used for communications (including IP and Web applications), seems like a suboptimal choice.

That said, there's little question but that DirecTV has used the capacity provided by those two former "Spaceway" satellites to shore up its competitive position in the high-definition TV area, compared to its cable competitors. "Highest and best use," I believe property assessors call it.