[RBOC chat]
Walter,
<<Bob, are you long lucent? I think the RBOCs will do everything they can, from
Congress on down, to do what lawyers do...delay, obfuscate, confuse, and mislead.
Unless they see the big bucks, they will fight ADSL to their dying breath. We may
see sooner employment of adsl in Europe and Japan.>>
Not in on Lucent..wish I were (although $50 is tempting). The RBOC
issue is a "tough read". I think you need to look at the efforts and
agenda of each RBOC/GTE.
Each day, a new vendor (usually small) agrees to resale with an RBOC.
To this point, most Major Long Distance companies have struggled with a
local offer to consumers. These offers can be broken down across business
and consumer. MCI,Sprint & AT&T are offering local service to businesses in
a number of cities. I'll offer my opinion on both:
Consumer
----------
Competition will be the driver for new product roll-out. The more
cable companies, long distance companies in local the better. The
delays between the RBOC's and LD companies is expected and only
furthers actual competition for local service. ADSL is a will be a
product diferentiator for an RBOC..however if it is required to
"resell" then everyone will have access to it. This may not be bad.
A ld company may have "content" to package with ADSL. Hypothetically,
one can imagine, AT&T or MCI offering video services, video on
demand. This obviously would force the RBOC's to offer the same..if
not better.
Business
--------
Competition is here. MCI/AT&T and others provide direct connection
in many cities. Therefore, ADSL may be deployed in business before
residential. Now ..when an RBOC/GTE offers ADSL to businesses ...a
consumer could question why not residential? It may depend on how
it's tarriffed (product spec and pricing filed with FCC). Should be
interesting.
My guess is the RBOC's/GTE will try to position ADSL as "their product"
and not made available for "resale"...all in an effort to lock-in customers
from the inevitable LD competitors.
Just thoughts...
Bob |
