The Chinese--or at least the State Grid Corporation of China--are moving ahead with the "third wire" concept of delivering a triple play of voice, video and broadband Internet services over fiber networks built by electric utilities and connected to an information-collecting, power-saving smart grid.
State Grid plans to launch FTTH trials in 14 provinces and cities reaching 47,000 customers--a lot of people in Wyoming, a drop in the bucket in China--and will start with a community of only 81 units. Triple play investment and consumer spending should reach $100 billion over the next three years according to an executive with the Chinese Academy of Engineering.
Elsewhere, news apparently travels slowly to China (perhaps because it takes time to get through the censors), but no one apparently told media execs there that the capital of cable television has moved from Denver to Kabeltown (er, Philadelphia). How else to explain that what the Denver Post calls the "cream of China's media executives-in-training" are taking a mini-MBA course at the University of Denver? More seriously, the execs can thank the Anna and John Sie Foundation, which is sponsoring the course.
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