Modem wars: Re Mom & Pop ISPs....
Peter Piper said, "Contrary to what I've read, it seems that its the ROK boys who have more of the mom & pop shops. x2 has AOL,compuserve,prodigy,IBM, Grid. Yes I know k56 has Ascent and Uunet but we're still waiting. The Boardwatch lists more than 17,000 ISPs."
Sure, there are a lot of small ISPs running ROK-chipset-based product. But, as various observers are commenting, they have to do a hardware upgrade to take advantage of K56, where as those ISPs who have Total Control can just to a software upgrade to X2.
This gives USRX-based ISPs an advantage over ROK-based ISPs. Isn't this the whole point of modem wars: USRX-based ISPs get more customers, and buy more Total Control product, and non-USRX-based ISPs buy some Total Control in frustration over losing market share because their customers want X2. And, as we've seen from the financials so far, it seems to be working.
Now, we have seen some announcements of exchange programs from the ROK-based hub vendors... but you can't take back hardware and give out new hardware without somebody encurring cost.
"Aren't they suppose to come out with a new generation providing more ports per slot?": That's right... it was mentioned in USRX's Q2 conference call. |
