Strategic Research Initiative

An Alternative Future of Broadband: Open and Neutral?

A Proposed Client-driven U.S. Market Assessment and Research Report

What is “Broadband” and has it become Critical Civic Infrastructure?  Is there an alternative future to the current smattering of duopolies, monopolies or nothing at all?  Most importantly, who’s going to define, fund and dominate this future:  Telco, Cable, Mobile?   FAANGs? Federal and Municipal Leaders? Private equity funded New Entrants?

Does your or your company’s success depend on the future of “Broadband”?  The futures of  broadband providers AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, Spectrum and T-Mobile +/-Sprint and their entire vendor ecosystem clearly does.  So too do the futures of  Facebook Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google/Alphabet (FAANGs). This groups’ future is in fact completely dependent on the future of broadband.  So are the futures of The Cloud, The Edge, IoT, Smart Homesand Smart Cities.  Even Local and national economies are dependent on their broadband future. Ultimately, community vibrancy and survival is dependent on local broadband infrastructure. 

Broadband needs innovation.  Broadband technologies including 5G, Fiber, DOCSIS, Fixed Wireless, CBRS, Satellites and Wi-Fi are all inventions that solve the same problem; they send data (bits) from Point A to Point B, the “Last Mile”.  In the future, broadband is about connecting to the Edge of the Cloud, wherever that may be.

Innovation needs to impact the entire ecosystems. Open and Neutral Broadband could be the ecosystem-wide innovation that will put $100’s Billions of investment capital to work, create an innovation engine and then drive local and national economies for decades. 

This client-driven strategic research initiative and report will provide:

  • An insightful overview of the broader U.S. and Global Broadband Ecosystem and major internal and external forces impacting it.
  • Early information on an alternative future to U.S. and Global Broadband that’s Open and Neutral
  • Strategic implications and strategies to dominate the future of broadband.
  • An identification of the 10 primary challenges to this future of broadband and strategies to overcome them.
  • What are the innovative business models for the future of broadband?

For more details and for pricing options please contact us at gwhelan@greywale.com or +978 992 2203.      

Early subscribers will drive research topics and deep(er) dives, receive interim reports and have substantial access to researchers throughout the project.

Principal Researcher :  Greg Whelan

  • Starting in 1992, his broadband background has grown from:
    • Initiated and led the development of the first ADSL modem semiconductor chipset (Analog Devices)
    • Architected and led the development of the first data centric DSLAM (Cascade/Lucent)
    • Drove product marketing and management for the first residential broadband gateway (Cayman/Netopia)
    • Drove strategic marketing and messaging for entire end-to-end broadband networks (Cisco)
    • Drove strategic marketing and messaging for the entire end-to-end broadband ecosystem (Greywale)
    • National thought leader in open access broadband and neutral communication infrastructure.
  • Alternative Broadband Activities
    • Created alternative broadband models comprised of Business, Technical and Financial architectures. 
    • Worked with technology vendors implementing the first Open Access Broadband networks in U.S.
    • Worked with leading European Open Access experts to adapt European/Swedish models to the U.S. and Canadian markets.
    • Worked with private equity and investment banking firms to create an open and neutral communication architecture for U.S. Markets.
    • Recently Keynote presentations at the Linux Foundation’s Open Networking Summit (ONS) on “Open Source and Open Broadband” and at the Telecom Association of New England (TANE) Executive Summit on “An Alternative Future for the ILEC”.
  • Education
    • BS Electrical Engineering – Cornell University
    • MBA Innovation Management – Northeastern University
    • Studied Digital Video over Broadband at the MIT MediaLab
  • Past Broadband Ecosystem Activities
    • Co-founder, and Vice President, of the ADSL Forum, now known as the Broadband Forum.
    • Active member of the U.S. Committee T1 – T1E1.4 – created the first ADSL Standard (T1.413)
    • Active member of the ITU SG4/Q15 – created the first global ADSL standards (G.992.1 and G.992.2).
    • Active member of the Universal ADSL Working Group (UAWG) (Microsoft, Compaq and Intel driven initiative) that accelerated U.S. Broadband Deployments.
    • Drove broadband product and marketing strategies at: Analog Devices, Cisco Systems, Cascade Communications (Lucent), Cayman Systems, Aware.
  • Broadband Speaking and Articles
    • Speaking: Telecom Association of New England (TANE) Keynote (2016, 2017) Executive Conference, Linux Foundation Open Network Summit (ONS), TIA Annual Conference, AllSeen Alliance Summit, SCTE TecExpo.
    • Articles; Lightreading.com, ISE, Broadband Communities, Linux Foundation, SkinnyWire, LinkedIN.
  • Industry expertise encompasses:
    • Open access broadband – technical, business and financial architectures
    • Neutral communication infrastructure – technical, business and financial architectures
    • U.S. broadband industry (Fixed and wireless)
    • U.S. Incumbent provider strategies (real strategies)
    • Community and Municipal Broadband threats and realities

For more details and for pricing options please contact us at gwhelan@greywale.com or +978 992 2203.      

Early subscribers will drive research topics and deep(er) dives, receive interim reports and have substantial access to researchers throughout the project.