[MCI, PacBell, and telephone wires:]
Pigboy --
I keep looking for signs of activity and there seem to be more each day. Last week there was an article in the IBD on ISPs I found interesting.
[After outlining the growth in the WAN market, the article says:]
<<<Cutthroat pricing and the need to invest heavily in their Internet network are the primary reasons ISPs have yet to make money. But no one doubts that, with the right business structure, ISPs will be able to turn a profit.
"When you're adding network capacity, expanding the support of that infrastructure and handling proper billing, it's very difficult to do all those things well when business is doubling or tripling every year," said Alan Taffell, vice president of marketing and business development at Uunet Technologies, an ISP and unit of MFS Communication Co.,
To survive as well as thrive in '97, industry players must go through a substantial transition, says Martin Pyykkonen, a senior analyst at New York-based Furman Selz L.L.C. "The key thing for ISPs in the next year is to deliver more services, ****build a more robust network and guarantee various levels of service, with different price tiers,"**** he said.
Saying that some ISPs retreated from the customer market last year because giants like AT&T and MCI were entering the market, they go on to say, "Networkers are responding to the Internet's intense demands with a spate of new products. . . for example, "tag switching" enables asynchronous transfer mode, or ATM, switches to perform some router functions. . . [they] add more lanes to the network highway while routers tell data which way to go.
Speed is the combined router-switch advantage. Tag switching boosts the top speed to 2 billion bits of data per second, up from 150 million bits per second. . .
ATM access multiplexers also will be strong sellers this year, says Don Miller, an analyst with Dataquest Inc., a San Jose, Calif.-based research firm.>>>>
Then an article on predictions for the Internet for 1997:
<<< Who could have predicted that '96 would see the explosion of Java and the Internet comeback of Microsoft Corp.? What will be the surprises of '97?
INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY asked two people with their pulse on the industry - one a senior analyst at International Data Corp., Framingham, Mass., the other a San Francisco-based venture capitalist focusing on the Internet - to gaze into their crystal balls for the coming year.
Their conclusions? Well, for one thing, might is right in '97.
IBD: What will be the computer industry's biggest growth areas this year?
Gens: Of course, the Internet will continue to boom, further replacing the PC as the engine of growth for the information-technology industry. The network infrastructure companies, like Cisco Systems Inc. (San Jose, Calif.), will continue to skyrocket in growth. But Internet software also will be a hot area - especially any software that has to do with (online) commerce.
Another very important area for start-ups and initial public offerings will be Web site analysis. Companies with programs that help companies determine if their Web site is effective, like Interse Corp. (Sunnyvale, Calif.), will do well.
IBD: Is there any bad news for this year?
Gens: Internet expansion will be plagued with major growing pains. In '97, spending on information-technology products and services worldwide will grow to more than $700 billion, a 12.3% increase - but that's a decline from '96's 14.1% growth. Worldwide PC spending will grow 15.5% to $182.5 billion, down from 20% growth in '96 and 32% growth in '95.
IBD: Will there be any surprises this year?
Gens: My No. 1 out-on-a-limb prediction is that Intel Corp. (Santa Clara, Calif.), under increasing pressure, will do an about-face and defect from the PC-centric camp. They will blink and embrace the whole concept of the low-cost Internet appliance. If Intel doesn't both aggressively participate in the Internet appliance business and help PC suppliers open up the mass market, it will miss the greatest growth opportunities in the decade ahead.
IBD: How will the Internet access and online service market shape up?
Gens: The Internet access market will have more action than a Stallone movie. It will continue its evolution to a low-margin, dial-tone business, for which public carriers are best suited technologically and financially.
Online service provider and Internet service provider acquisitions will be commonplace in '97, with top targets including America Online Inc. (Dulles, Va.). It will be a year of increasing market share for AOL, but it will be difficult for them to get that at a profit. IBD: What will be the hot areas for technology start-ups this year? Weintraut: Perhaps it's no surprise that the Web/Internet area will be hot. Particularly around Java (Mountain View, Calif.-based Sun Microsystems Inc.'s programming language). ''Push'' technology that feeds news and information to desktops - like PointCast from PointCast Inc., Cupertino, Calif. - will be important as well.
IBD: What will happen with Java this year?
Weintraut: We'll see the first Java applications with meat on their bones. Java is just as complicated as any other language. It takes a year to write a good program. That's why the best applications are just coming out.
IBD: Would you elaborate on Internet ''push'' technology?
Weintraut: It was PointCast that crystallized this. We will see a lot of major media companies embracing Internet (push) technology, because they understand this metaphor. All pre-Internet media companies are push-oriented. By the end of '97, we'll see some significant professional-grade content being pushed over the Internet. It's the mass media coming to the Internet.
IBD: Which companies will be the biggest winners this year?
Weintraut: Cisco Systems, being the biggest network equipment provider, and Microsoft (Redmond, Wash.), being the biggest software company, continue to be at the nucleus of this Internet opportunity. They will continue to benefit.
>>>>>
And one that puts a damper on wireless technology based on the public's dislike of all those towers.
<<<<<
They got rid of the wires. Now if they could just get rid of the towers.
This seems to be the attitude of Americans toward wireless technology. A new nationwide survey finds that 43% of 1,000 surveyed consumers oppose placement of wireless antenna towers near their homes. And 38% don't want them near their kids' schools, either.
Interestingly, the people most likely to use cell phones also are the most resistant to having the transmitter towers nearby. Well- educated consumers with annual household incomes of more than $50,000 were most opposed to local tower siting.
It is estimated that next- generation wireless - known as personal communications services - will require the building of 100,000 new transmitter sites.
The survey was commissioned by Illinois Superconductor Corp. of Mount Prospect, Ill. It claims to have technology that would reduce the number of towers required for personal communications services.
>>>>
Small signs, I admit, but they all add up.
Keep up the great sleuthing!
Pat |
