Eric,
"All Band, All Device, All the Time"
Where did you get this motto from? You've read too much into Bell's
statements, IMO. The first time I read the multichannel news article
in your link, I received the impression that Bell was agreeing with what I
had stated, but upon some further scrutiny, I failed to see where he is
willing to go with any broadband media, any speed, any device, all the time.
Except for the inclusion of Excite's current dial-up subscriber base in a
focused marketing campaign to move them over to the cable regime.
In fact, the article leaned expressly against what I was saying, save for
the attempt to capitalize on the dialup stragglers in the Excite base.
He stated,
"What we're hoping is that over time we're moving more and more of
our [Excite] users into what is now the narrow end [cable modem] of the
funnel, because at the narrow end of the funnel we participate in more
diversified revenue and very nice margin."
Note: bracketed [ ] inserts are mine.
It still appears to me to be NIH. Maybe you can point out where I'm
missing the boat. Granted, the narrow part of the funnel obviates the need
to pay another service organization for access, but if you ain't got it in a
certain area, leasing it is the next best thing, and certainly better than
nothing. And one should also keep in mind that the partners also extract a
healthy pound of flesh as well. After the division of revenues, who knows?
But it goes beyond this. Cable is going to choke for some interim period if
they absorb the numbers they're aspiring to. As a content service, ignoring
the proprietary needs of the MSOs for a moment, ATHM needs
robustness to the end user. Notwithstanding Bell's not being overly
concerned about congestion factors going forward. What is that about?
How did you like the casual way around the congestion problem? By citing
the backbone upgrade by T, they rationalize their way out of any future
congestion? But the problem is not in the backbone or in the core. It's in
the last black-coaxial mile, and in the RF channel plan at the head end.
Please enlighten me as to where Bell states, or even implies, that he
would be amenable to riding over a Bell South flavor of PON or wireless.
In a later post you stated,
I wonder how much AOL gets in $/month for narrowband access
after paying WCOM for the dialup network.
One must, at the same time, ask this very question of ATHM and
their MSO Partners... and AT&T's Backbone Role, as well.
Regards, Frank Coluccio
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