Grace has proved there is a great delay in getting At home to Home. We are back to the question can wireless perform? The answer appears to be no from akin to radio and sort of from CDMA.
Here is the story I suggested reading. This proves why T does not have time to waste and why Athome better dawn speed skates or prepare for the long haul latter.
The Competitive Squeeze
By KC Neel and Alan Breznick
Although cable operators re-mained outwardly confident about winning the broadband race at last week's Western Show in Los Angeles, a foreboding sense that competition is closing in from every quarter hung in the air like an anvil waiting to fall.
Indeed, after thriving for years in a monopolistic world and comfortably watching an endless stream of wanna-be video providers go belly-up, cable operators clearly are becoming increasingly edgy over emerging competitors.
Key among those competitors are the telcos, which are forging ahead with fixed wireless and DSL technologies. Aggressive overbuilders are cherrypicking some of the nation's best markets and DBS providers, vitalized with the addition of local broadcast signals, and are adding customers hand over fist. Just
last week, EchoStar Communications Corp. said it had added a record 137,000 customers last month - up 36% from last November - while DirecTV Inc. gained 150,000 subscribers for a total 11 million DBS universe.
Indeed, one cable industry player predicted last week that cable could lose customers in 2000. "Rather than see the 2% gains we've seen in recent years, I think we'll see a drop of 2%," he said. Noting that many DirecTV customers kept broadcast basic service on cable to get their local stations in the past, he predicted "a blood bath next year when all those folks drop their basic service."
Then there's the technology that hasn't even been fully developed yet. Liberty Media last week said it's investing in a company that'll build and deploy a Ku-band satellite capable of delivering fast wireless Internet access. The business is at least three years coming, chairman John Malone said. But it could pose a significant threat to the status quo.
"The business 10 years from now will be defined by the race going on with data today," Malone said.
Other experts agreed. "Cable has to be careful it doesn't become the Betamax of VCRs," said one insider. "They've got a quicker, better delivery method but they're taking so long to deploy it that other technologies like DSL could supercede it."
Indeed, it's taken the cable industry four years to sign up 1.6 million high-speed data customers while the telcos have signed up 500,000 DSL customers in just six months. "I think we've got a significant competitive response coming," said Paul Bosco, VP/GM-cable and wireless product and solutions for Cisco Systems.
The key, according to Broadcast.com founder Mark Cuban, is taking advantage of opportunities - particularly risky ones. Speaking at the Dec. 16 general session, Cuban stressed the risks of staying put are greater than the risks of investing in new technology. He cited RCN Corp. as a good example of a company that's willing to stomp into new territories. "RCN ? appears to be doing a lot of the right things," he said.
Malone, who's made billions of dollars taking advantage of sliver-thin opportunities, believes wireless, DSL and satellite will give cable a good run. That, he said, is why "I'm simultaneously betting on a lot of technologies."
The show was, in a way, an indication that industry technology had reached a plateau. As one vendor explained, "We introduced what we were going to do at the National Show, now we're showing how it works."
Unlike past years, it appeared that this year's emphasis was more on "can do" than "will do," with vendors and booths emphasizing capabilities that are now, or will soon be available, such as IP telephony, home networking and digitized return path transmissions.
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