Hey Pat,
Short term on Amati is like trying to play that game where you press the botton to find out "The Meaning of Life" and everytime you press it, the botton just moves to another part of the screen. :-) Good luck, I say.
As for the long term, I believe there aren't too many worries for a select group of xdsler's. That list I'm sure varies to each investor.
I have been lurking, but haven't had anything to say as of late. Too much time downloading animations.
I did call and talk with PacBell today and will give my singular northern califonia ADSL take. I apologize if this is old news to anyone here...
ISDN Service.
To get it up and going, One needs--
$34.oo for the new line
$125.oo for the installation
$85.oo for the jack (may not be needed)
$29.5o/Month for ISDN service + possible extra per minute charges between 8am -5 pm everyday
$49.95/Month for ISDN ISP service
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~$323 bucks to get up and running. And ~80.00/Month for ISP ISDN service.
ADSL Service (starting in September in only about 11-13 Central Offices (COs)near Silicon Valley, like Sunnyvale, Mountain View, Danville, 3 in San Jose, Santa Clara and others).
To get up and going, One needs--
$125.oo installation fee
~$60.oo/Month for ADSL service
~$60.oo/Month for ADSL ISP service
A yet undefined number for leasing/ or buying the ADSL modem.
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$245.oo bucks + the modem to get up and running and then $120 bucks/Month for ADSL ISP service.
I talked with a nice lady, named Beth, at PacBells FasTrak ADSL division. She seemed to be only one person I could find that could answer some of my questions.
Pac Bell plans on having ADSL service in a small number of CO's (~11) by September, just as their FasTrak Web says. They are targeting two peoples--1.)customers like me who want high speed Internet Access and 2.)corporate end users
They will be using Alcatel's modems that they have there and have tested and she says work.
She says that PacBell says they want to see the demand and if ADSL works, and then she said later that they plan to connect up ADSL in a much larger fashion (more COs) in the Jan-March time frame in 1998 (that would say 'confidence', then, I assume).
In the january-March time Frame, Pac Bell has plans in
-more cities
-newer technologies
-more advanced modems
-more advertising
marketing launch
I asked about the more advanced modems and she said that Alcatel is working on modems that should work over longer distances and pump in more bandwidth. She said they will also then look at other vendors of modems. I asked if she had heard of Amati, Orkit, or Westell and she replied that Westell has been trying to 'get other business' for awhile and we have heard good things about them and that she thinks that they may become a second vendor.
I asked if she had heard anything about Cisco. She said that all she had heard was that they might want it for their employees.
She mentioned that one may need to tweek ADSL lines bc they need to be able to handle digital traffic and they are connected all the time (one needs to simply press an icon to be online). Unlike ISDN (as most of us know), if power goes with ADSL, the voice line still works.
She also said PacBell plans to have a 'One Stop Shop' service to set up ADSL. This is a 'one' place where someone will go to order and get ADSL up and running. One will lease/buy a modem, figure out what ISPs offer ADSL service (PacBell Internet isn't the only one...there will be several others as part of this...Netcom, Best, and Earthlink are other possibilities). This one stop shop will be able to tell you which ISPs have an ATM backbone, which is what is needed.
Well, this is soley my humble opinion.
I do not mean to mislead people into actual believing ADSL service is possible without Amati or that ADSL service is coming by any means.
:-)
Unfortunately, I may lose a bet with a friend that I will be able to get ADSL by the end of the year. Just another month or two! We've heard that one, but I believe lady beth at Fastrak did sound like things were happening and going to happen. She was very pleasant to talk to.
ALL IMHO
pigboy |
