A6 and A7 are only partial responses to the questions asked. What they omitted stating concerning the collateral work that must be done in the head ends and DOCSIS provisions in the CMTS and STB levels, and to a certain extent in client desktops, speaks louder than what they did state. Furthermore, if the solution was as simple as merely integrating the ISPs deeper into ATHM's own core network (i.e., the ATHM backbone), then they could very easily do that much sooner than the two years they've referred to, beginning almost immediately.
[I'm not saying that the deeper integration fix wont work, only that it is non-intuitive and will result in ATHM being in the driver's seat whenever those unavoidable arbitration issues arise, such as arbitrating over bandwidth resources. Not a very good solution, nor very open, as Internet-related affairs go, unless we're talking about the ISPs looking to outsource their bread and butter differentiating qualities, and I doubt that that is what they want to do.]
If you examine the answers in 6 and 7 carefully, you see that it really isn't T/TCI or Cox et al who are going to allow colocation and resource sharing within their hard infrastructure elements.
Rather, it is their surrogate in this whole affair who will be doing that for them, if the answers in your post hold true. And if they do hold true, then the surrogate will be ATHM. |
