Utility Broadband the TRE-FOR Way

The separation of services and networks is considered by many to be fundamental to the future of telecom, and one of the reasons for this is demonstrated in spades by a municipal network project in Denmark.

The project in question brings a new meaning to the term “quadruple play” in that the developer, a cooperative called TRE-FOR, is adding broadband connectivity to the three other utilities – electricity, gas, and water – it already delivers to a community of about 300,000 customers.

TRE-FOR has crafted a role for itself as a middleman between its customers and service providers. It’s rolling out fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) and Ethernet infrastructure, offering customers a self-service portal for them to order services, and providing a platform that makes it easy for third parties to provide those services.

The bottom line is that TRE-FOR isn’t taking on any of the risky business of guessing what applications will prove a hit with its customers. It’s still in the utility business, where investments can be amortized over a long period, and thus it's able to keep a lid on costs. At the same time, it’s created an environment that encourages innovation and competition among service providers so that its customers (who are also its shareholders) get a wide choice of offerings at low prices.

This report steps through the project in detail, drawing lessons from the experiences of TRE-FOR and its suppliers, which include Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO) and Unisys Corp. (NYSE: UIS). Here’s a hyperlinked contents list:

• Page 2: Business Model & Market Considerations
  
  
• Page 3: The TRE-FOR Network & Services
  
  
• Page 4: The Ethernet Design
  
  
• Page 5: The Self-Service Portal & Equal-Access Network

• Helping Utilities Migrate to Next-Gen Services
• Ethernet Architectures: Pros & Cons of Aggregation Networks
• Using Metro Ethernet to Deliver FTTH Triple-Play Services
• Managing the Complexity of IPTV Deployments

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