This industry not being an easy game is what we have been saying since years. That’s why we pride ourselves in the development of the FiberBroadband Strategy.

Of course I understand that everybody wants to see steak with the sizzle, but what we have learned from our nine years in this industry is something crucial and money-saving: being the first mover (or even among the first ones) is not a good thing. We learn from everyone’s mistakes, we benefit from technological advances, we see the competition bleed dry of money. The only thing I want to do is something big. We are not interested in launching for the sake of launching. There is no historical feat when you want/are able to roll out a network to a few thousand units or to a dozen cities.

However, this being 2009, and this era being of a major economic crisis, we feel that most likely the serious ones are left. The competition (including the threat of new entrants) is much less than say 1.5 years ago. Also, the fact that Reggefiber and others are getting into this market is a blessing for us, not a curse. Them opening the networks/systems is a boon for our business model beyond anything we imagined previously.

I received feedback from a Dutch analyst who stated the following about our plans:

Being a start-up, all I want to see is the project actually launching. There are incumbents… which are learning that this is no easy game.

This analyst makes a mistake that many observers do. UHBA USA is not a start-up. We have been making headway in this industry since more than 9 years now. It is true that we don’t generate revenue, but that is bcause I chose to focus instead on the bigger picture and the planning. It would have been easy to become a consultancy firm of sorts. It would have been easy to start generating revenues. It would have been very easy to pull a fiber wire and slap a wireless node on a pole somewhere. But what’s so special about that? Such projects are and have been underway since ages. Nobody has yet figured out how to make good money with large-scale projects. We have. Look at this multi-part introduction about our history.

Another major thinking error everyone makes is that they view us as a FTTH company. We are much more than that. We are as much about Fixed Wireless/Mobile Access as about FTTH.

This is part of the response that I wrote to the analyst.

This industry not being an easy game is what we have been saying since years. That’s why we pride ourselves in the development of the FiberBroadband Strategy.

Of course I understand that everybody wants to see steak with the sizzle, but what we have learned from our nine years in this industry is something crucial and money-saving: being the first mover (or even among the first ones) is not a good thing. We learn from everyone’s mistakes, we benefit from technological advances, we see the competition bleed dry of money. The only thing I want to do is something big. We are not interested in launching for the sake of launching. There is no historical feat when you want/are able to roll out a network to a few thousand units or to a dozen cities.

However, this being 2009, and this era being of a major economic crisis, we feel that most likely the serious ones are left. The competition (including the threat of new entrants) is much less than say 1.5 years ago.