OT for this thread, but on topic for Jacalyn's post. Hopefully, some useful background information for those with too much time on their hands.
The economics and the challenges facing the access industry obviously differ in each country. While XNSI can thrive in the UK, primarily because they receive a cut of the revenues generated by the telecoms, the issue of broadband access is probably the greatest perceived challenge facing the U.S. ISPs. At the same time, if I am not mistaken, there are a number of Canadian ISPs that have access to cable connections. Different strokes...
Even though they are growing their subscriber bases by 10-15% per quarter, the public U.S. ISPs, not including AOL, are all off at least 50% from their highs. AOL and a number of ISPs have formed the OpenNet Coalition to deal with the cable access issue at the Washington level. While it is not easy to feel sorry for AOL, I don't think that any of us want to be totally dependent on our cable companies.
Anyway, the demise of the dial-ups is probably overstated. All of the national and many of the regional ISPs have signed contracts for DSL access, which in many ways is preferable to cable. Additionally, there are large sections of the country that do not have access to cable. For those that are interested in this subject, here are a number of CNetNews.com articles that deal with this issue:
"Broadband push may trample dial-up ISPs"
news.com
"AOL works its way around Cable TV" (5/11/99)
news.com
"Congress takes aim at cable Net access" (5/6/99)
news.com
OpenNet Coalition
opennetcoalition.org |
