In San Diego there is a DSL war going on among providers. It's interesting because most of them simply resell Pac Bell's service.
With cable, so far, this is not the case since the cable cos. still have an exclusive on the wires (not for long). When cable is deregulated like the phone cos., the story will change. You will be able to shop price on cable just like you can now with DSL. Just something to chew on!
These series of statements erode your thesis. If in a deregulated environment only the RBOCs are making money, then by analogy, only the owners of the network will make money in a deregulated cable environment.
It appears you do not have a clear idea about the physical structure of ATHM's network and its relationship to the MSO's last mile infrastructure. I suggest you do some research before you provide any further guidance to ATHM.
ATHM is a lousy content provider, but they do own a nationwide broadband network. You suggest they should become a better content provider. This idea has been thoroughly discussed on this thread for over 2 years. The consensus opinion is that it's a bad idea.
An alternative idea, which seems to have withstood the criticism of many, is for ATHM to become experts at facility. In other words to directly connect content providers to their backbone. The CC indicates they may be moving in this direction.
ATHM should provide the means to deliver content in a robust manner. Thus, content providers win because they get some measure of QOS and end users win because they do not have to cross the Internet peering points to get to content. The peering points are the bottleneck of the Internet, and as BB subscriptions rise this will become worse. Everyone, who has studied the problem, knows this to be true.
Why compete for the fickle attention of the public, when you can help others do it. You win when they win, and you win when their competitors win. |
