Frank,
Your statement above, by the way, is, in my opinion, flawed in one important way. And that is, it assumes that the MSOs, when given the option of who they would prefer to carry, and vice versa, will always elect to have @Home as a tenant. And therein lies a precept that cannot, should not, be the basis for architectural design.
I view ATHM in the present form as a facilitator of cable broadband. I agree that ATHM should move away from this position and that the MSOs would be smart to have multiple options. Picture yourself as the CEO of a narrowband ISP. Your stock is in the tank and you need a cable story. Your cable story can't include building out infrastructure to begin providing cable broadband. No way you get away with that. Your only option is to strike a deal with the MSO who in-turn will engage ATHM in facilitating the access. Backbone, HA servers, caching, DHCP, news, mail, autoprovisioning or only parts of those services.
That and content distribution via ATHM Optimized is where the munnee is at right now. That's where profitability and growth are in the near to midterm.
In the future ATHM should move away from one last mile option. Just like you said. One vendor solution is no place to be. I've lived that way and I don't like it.
KB |
