reprint of an old article, in the EBN rag, but should stir interest
Cable-modem sales boom predicted
Silicon Valley
Despite the hype surrounding the rollout of 56-Kbit/s dial-up modems for
the Christmas season and the emergence of viable xDSL equipment, cable
modems are going to play an important role in regard to Internet access
in the future, according to Gerry Kaufhold, who tracks multimedia
markets for In-Stat Inc., Scottsdale, Ariz.
"The exponential growth of Internet users at home and in offices has
turned the World Wide Web into the World Wide Wait," Kaufhold said. "It
takes far too long to download graphics-intensive Web sites as it is
now, and once you start adding in streaming audio files, Shock Wave and
trade animations, and low-resolution video clips, download time becomes
a critical issue."
The key to success for cable modems, Kaufhold said, is that dial-up
modems won't be able to deliver the bandwidth demanded by emerging
applications. By comparison, cable modems will use cable-TV systems to
deliver access speeds of up to 20 Mbits/s.
But cable-modem equipment entails substantial up-front investment by
cable-TV operators, and that is slowing growth to a
neighborhood-by-neigh- borhood introduction, Kaufhold said. "The rollout
is going to be incremental."
In-Stat forecasts that cable-modem sales will jump from 171,000 shipped
units this year to more than 10 million in 2001. Revenue from
cable-modem sales is expected to grow from $79 million in 1997 to $2.1
billion by 2001. |
