A very good point, Eric... but why stop at 15? Try several hundred in the larger urban areas, and potentially thousands if you want to reach into the realm of virtual extensions afforded by the 'net.
"I wonder what would happen if there were 15 ISP's instead of just one."
You should also add the other complications that will ensue, like having to do router administration at the MSO's routers. What does this entail? Subscriber table entries such as miscellaneous notations on end users specifics [see note below], static and dynamic IP administration, permissions, inter-domain (read: cross ISP) security firewalling, upstream route definitions for each provider's own peering relationships, accounting hooks, etc.
Note: What does an MSO do about an offending modem from an unafilliated ISP service that is causing problems fo an entire segment? One that is either delinquent or malfunctioning in some other way, causing problems for eveyone else? In a less sinister scenario, what if that same individual needed help getting set up after buying a new PC, or had a problem with their modem setup that was caused by a system wide upgrade initiated by the MSO? How does the cooperative troubleshooting effort take place?
These are just some of the things that will need to be performed when the other ISPs sink their hooks into the head ends. These are in addition to the more obvious head end issues such as the RF splitting functions coming off the HFC, channel alignments, and the downstream modem provisions that will need to be modified at some point.
Regards, Frank Coluccio
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