Taking an infrastructure approach to the last mile is a natural development for enterprise networks. As the US aims to bridge the digital divide between rural and urban areas we should look at this natural progression of business models: Middle-mile and enterprise networks have long understood how to build a fiber infrastructure and with a wholesale approach partnered with a wide range of Service providers/ISPs (Internet Service Providers).
For those looking to accelerate growth and improve return on investments on fiber assets by fully monetizing their network, owning the infrastructure to the home and wholesaling to ISPs at the home is a natural next step with keeping full control of the asset and significantly improved margins.
In Sweden and many other countries in Europe, this business model has evolved over the past 10 years whilst fiber penetration has gone from around 50% to around 95% of all households having access to fiber-based broadband. It has been a natural development given that infrastructure investments are normally shared and the large number of service providers in the market. It has not only proven to be successful but also improved fiber asset operators’ financials and valuations for the last 10 years!
COS System’s CEO Mikael Philipsson was himself part of a Nordic network’s journey expanding from building and operating a backbone and middle mile network addressing the Enterprise market and other operators to adding FTTH with a wholesale approach to the existing business lines. Over 7 years revenue grew 500%, and EBITDA margins were over 80% which led to the enterprise valuation increasing 15 times.
Here are his top three reasons why you should build and stay in charge of the last mile:
1. Lower risk and full control
If several ISPs operate on the same network you’re not dependent on one single service provider to be successful (or only your own ISP-service). This also lowers the risk for overbuilds as well as the competition with other technologies such as Wisps, cable operators, etc.
Ideally, instead of competing with them, you partner with these Service Providers so they can use (and pay for) your infrastructure in order to reach their customers with their own services and technology. The important part is that you keep control of the fiber termination in the house and the speeds/services available, and let the ISPs take care of the WiFi and in-house experience.
Takes rates for this business model are normally above 80%, whereas the average take rate on a single ISP network is somewhere around 30-50%.
2. No churn due to the great variety of services on your network
If customers connected to the fiber network are unhappy they can easily switch providers and you would still get a wholesale fee, hence no churn.
The barriers are low for new service providers to enter the network as no capex needs to be spent and less networking competence is needed. This will fuel the Service Provider market and the assortment of services and providers will grow. This makes your network more attractive and in the end, improves customer satisfaction! Moreover, you stay in control of your fiber network with available services and can focus on optimizing the wholesale business and expanding your footprint.
A real-world example is a network built and operated by an electric utility that after 10 years of being their own service provider had managed to get a take rate of very respectable 52%. They decided to shift to a Wholesale FTTH model (and implement COS Business Engine), partnered up with all possible ISPs in the area, and sold their retail service revenue. As a result, they could focus on wholesale revenues/margins. After only three years their total revenue increased by almost 40%, their staff decreased by 25% and their Ebitda margin increased from 6% to 57%. Today, 10 years after the shift, the figures have been further improved.
3. Higher valuations
With this strategy, the business dynamics are similar to a long-term infrastructure asset instead of a regular telco operating in a competing market. This generates valuations two-three times higher than a traditional telco and attracts infrastructure funds/investors.
The time to drive fiber deeper into our society is now. Federal and state funders have an obligation to create public-private partnerships and the open wholesale model drives more fiber to more homes. So make sure you don’t give away the gold!
COS Systems and netElastic Join Forces to Deliver Next-Generation RADIUS Solutions to Open Access Broadband Service Providers
Santa Clara, California, and Umeå, Sweden, August 22, 2023 – netElastic, an innovative software company providing high-performance routing solutions, and COS Systems, a leading provider of network management and billing solutions for Service Providers and Open Access Networks are excited to announce a strategic partnership. This collaboration brings together two industry leaders to revolutionize the delivery of RADIUS (Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service) solutions for service providers worldwide.
This partnership between COS Systems and netElastic addresses the growing demand for BSS solutions for Open Access networks. By combining COS System’s unique open-access billing solution with netElastic’s pioneering vBNG routers, the companies will provide service providers with a powerful, future-ready RADIUS platform.
COS Systems Business Engine, a proven network management solution (BSS/OSS) supporting Service Providers and Open Access Networks with an automated end-to-end solution to streamline fiber network management will integrate seamlessly with netElastic’s virtual BNG, a software-based solution that enables service providers to deliver high-performance broadband services. This integration will empower open access service providers to efficiently manage subscriber access and authentication through a centralized RADIUS solution, allowing them to choose virtually any RADIUS-capable BNG solution to manage subscribers.
“We are thrilled to collaborate with netElastic Systems whose disaggregated approach to BNG makes it an attractive solution, creating a wider overlap with fiber operators using COS. This collaboration brings key L3 functionality to enable automation in forward-thinking, unique business models.” said Mikael Philipsson, CEO of COS Systems.
“While programming an OLT directly is good enough for many ISPs, open-access networkers need fine-grained subscriber control to provide services that allow them to differentiate in the market.” said Tom Mitchell, VP of Strategy and Business Development at netElastic Systems. “RADIUS is the open standard that enables this and netElastic’s virtual Broadband Network Gateway (vBNG) is the ideal router to bring it all home.”
COS Systems and netElastic are committed to helping service providers around the world deliver exceptional broadband services with unmatched reliability and performance. The partnership will focus on providing best-in-class RADIUS solutions to meet the evolving needs of service providers and their subscribers.
About COS Systems:
COS Systems is a leading provider of cloud-hosted network management and billing solutions for service providers. COS Business Engine is a proven network management solution (BSS/OSS) supporting Service Providers and Open Access Networks. The end-to-end platform provides subscribers self-service and digital sales and marketing through an online marketplace. Service orders will be automatically activated within a minute and billing follows with no operator interaction. It offers a great user experience, increasing take rates and revenue. COS Systems has a global customer base and serves a wide range of service providers, including municipalities, utilities, network operators, and fiber ISPs. Learn more about COS Systems at www.cossystems.com
About netElastic:
netElastic is an innovative software company providing high-performance routing solutions for broadband providers. netElastic developed one of the first software-based broadband network gateways (BNGs) and has been a leader ever since. netElastic vBNG brings greater scalability, flexibility, and lower costs to BNGs. netElastic’s software-based CGNAT solution provides the most important CGNAT features at a fraction of the cost of traditional proprietary CGNAT solutions. For more information, please visit www.netelastic.com
Meet us at Fiber Connect 2023!
One of the most important events in the industry is taking place and of course, we’re attending.
Are you planning, building, or running an FTTH network? Let us help you run your FTTH project as efficiently and profitably as possible by automating your processes from pre-sign-ups to billing your customers.
Visit us at booth 529 to discuss how COS Systems can help your project excel, meet the team and learn about our latest product developments and integrations.
Or if you can’t attend – book at meeting with one of our experts.
Meet our latest addition to the team – Sajan Parikh
Accelerate Growth and your Valuation – Expand your Middle Mile Network with Wholesale FTTH!
Taking an infrastructure approach to the last mile is a natural development for enterprise networks. As the US aims to bridge the digital divide between rural and urban areas we should look at this natural progression of business models: Middle-mile and enterprise networks have long understood how to build a fiber infrastructure and with a wholesale approach partnered with a wide range of Service providers/ISPs (Internet Service Providers).
For those looking to accelerate growth and improve return on investments on fiber assets by fully monetizing their network, owning the infrastructure to the home and wholesaling to ISPs at the home is a natural next step with keeping full control of the asset and significantly improved margins.
In Sweden and many other countries in Europe, this business model has evolved over the past 10 years whilst fiber penetration has gone from around 50% to around 95% of all households having access to fiber-based broadband. It has been a natural development given that infrastructure investments are normally shared and the large number of service providers in the market. It has not only proven to be successful but also improved fiber asset operators’ financials and valuations for the last 10 years!
COS System’s CEO Mikael Philipsson was himself part of a Nordic network’s journey expanding from building and operating a backbone and middle mile network addressing the Enterprise market and other operators to adding FTTH with a wholesale approach to the existing business lines. Over 7 years revenue grew 500%, and EBITDA margins were over 80% which led to the enterprise valuation increasing 15 times.
Here are his top three reasons why you should build and stay in charge of the last mile:
1. Lower risk and full control
If several ISPs operate on the same network you’re not dependent on one single service provider to be successful (or only your own ISP-service). This also lowers the risk for overbuilds as well as the competition with other technologies such as Wisps, cable operators, etc.
Ideally, instead of competing with them, you partner with these Service Providers so they can use (and pay for) your infrastructure in order to reach their customers with their own services and technology. The important part is that you keep control of the fiber termination in the house and the speeds/services available, and let the ISPs take care of the WiFi and in-house experience.
Takes rates for this business model are normally above 80%, whereas the average take rate on a single ISP network is somewhere around 30-50%.
2. No churn due to the great variety of services on your network
If customers connected to the fiber network are unhappy they can easily switch providers and you would still get a wholesale fee, hence no churn.
The barriers are low for new service providers to enter the network as no capex needs to be spent and less networking competence is needed. This will fuel the Service Provider market and the assortment of services and providers will grow. This makes your network more attractive and in the end, improves customer satisfaction! Moreover, you stay in control of your fiber network with available services and can focus on optimizing the wholesale business and expanding your footprint.
A real-world example is a network built and operated by an electric utility that after 10 years of being their own service provider had managed to get a take rate of very respectable 52%. They decided to shift to a Wholesale FTTH model (and implement COS Business Engine), partnered up with all possible ISPs in the area, and sold their retail service revenue. As a result, they could focus on wholesale revenues/margins. After only three years their total revenue increased by almost 40%, their staff decreased by 25% and their Ebitda margin increased from 6% to 57%. Today, 10 years after the shift, the figures have been further improved.
3. Higher valuations
With this strategy, the business dynamics are similar to a long-term infrastructure asset instead of a regular telco operating in a competing market. This generates valuations two-three times higher than a traditional telco and attracts infrastructure funds/investors.
The time to drive fiber deeper into our society is now. Federal and state funders have an obligation to create public-private partnerships and the open wholesale model drives more fiber to more homes. So make sure you don’t give away the gold!
Meet our new student employee and Digital Marketing Coordinator – Intira Wongla
COS Product Improvement – Areas
Demand Aggregation made easy!
Our latest update in COS Business Engine makes it easier to track the progress in your network. How large is the demand for buildout in a specific area? Compare different areas in our new area page, both as a sortable list and in a map where areas can be shown color coded depending on their current phase or with a gradient indicating their take rate. Show the distribution of individual surveys or signups within an area. Is demand heavier in the northern part than in the southern? Just split the area in half and start connecting the northern part while you continue to gather interest in the southern part.
Areas can be added as a layer in all maps, your imagination the only limit.
Customer Case Interview – WideOpen Networks
COS Product Improvement – Save Queries to Build Your Own Report
We constantly strive for improvement!
In COS Business Engine there are tons of filtering options and you can build your own queries to filter out exactly the data that is of most interest to you.
The updated function makes the daily work on our platform easier and allows you to effortlessly
Watch our CRO Isak Finér on Beer and Broadband
How much bandwidth do subscribers actually need? And can the digital divide be closed even in a country with one of the most unequal distributions of wealth and income in the world? Watch the latest episode with these exciting guests
🇿🇦 Steve Briggs, CEO of Isizwe from South Africa
🇨🇦 Bradley Fisher, CRO of Distributel from Canada
🇸🇪 Isak Finér, CRO of COS Systems from Sweden
and their host
🇺🇸 Nick Dinsmoor, CMO of Bonfire from the United States
or listen to the episode on Spotify.
Welcome our new customer Cityside Fiber!
We’re pleased to announce Cityside Fiber as our new customer and are very excited to help them bring fast, reliable fiber to businesses and homes in Orange County!
Experience the future of fiber connectivity with Cityside Fiber and COS Systems. Join us in transforming Orange County into a hub of technological innovation and limitless possibilities.