Bob,
>>and not only are they losing the 2nd phone lines, but they appear to be losing the overall 'fat pipe' battle to supply the whole shebang...TV, phone, video on demand, internet and whatever else that can shoved into the home thru a single cable, with a single bill.<<
You have succinctly described why the Bells and an increasing number of independents and cooperatives will be looking very seriously at deploying fiber to, or nearer to, the home over the next couple of years. Assuming, of course, that they still want this business. Which is to say, if margins are trashed due to heightened competition with the cable ops (dare I even mention wireless last milers anymore?), they just might chuck the whole shebang, in favor of concentrating their capital in more lucrative commercial markets where cable finds itself excluded (which is why such attention is now being given to Narad).
One point, however, that needs to be stated. And that is, the ILECs do not have a vested interest (yet) in content as the cable ops do. And this may allow them to look the other way, when deciding what is and isn't permitted on their systems. I believe that this may become a deciding factor in the future, if the cable ops follow through with enforcing strict copyright safeguards and throughput rate caps that are keyed to type of service and the type of content that is being carried over their systems.
If the ILECs come around and provide adequate piping to the home they would be far more favorable to allowing streaming content and gaming, and other erstwhile billable services, than the cable ops would. The cable ops will be seeking revenues for this on the set top box spectrum, as opposed to cable modem spectrum where they are ill-prepared to support it at this point in time, anyway due to limitations in their current shared-last mile configurations. Yes, they can cut down on the number of homes per black coaxial segment and improve this, to a point. But they are very hesitant to do so after already having spent billions on the last round of upgrades. Besides, they would be cannibalizing their value adds from the set top space in the process, to boot, if they worked vigorously to unclog future congestion by improving on cable modem speeds.
Right now, as everyone here has been stating, the Bells are taking it in the neck. But in the future I think we'll look back and realize that this may be nothing more to them than a mosquito bite on their collective butt.
FAC |
