qdog, you sound very bitter. I have often encountered this attitude from people in the telco industry. It may well be that you have reason to be bitter. I'm sorry if the regulatory environment has made your life difficult. I'm sorry if you are overworked and under-appreciated.
But I am not trying to determine fairness here. The whole shebang may be rigged. I don't care. I'm just trying to pick the winner, both from an investment standpoint, and from a service standpoint. Well, a service that doesn't exist yet isn't going to win the latter, at least for now...
(BTW, "from an investment standpoint", I may just sit-out ATHM itself. I think I like HLIT better. It *will* be a long time until ATHM makes money. HLIT is gonna sell them - or, rather, their cable partners - a lot of stuff along the way, though...)
On telephony - Cox already has approval to provide local access. California is open to local access providers. Cox also operates the Sprint PCS franchaise in San Diego, BTW, and routes the signals over their own fiber. Should one choose to, it will be possible by this fall for an individual consumer to obtain all of their communication needs from Cox. There is no other company (in this market, anyway) that has access to all of the communication markets.
From Cox's web site:
"When and Where?
Cox plans to begin roll-out of wireline telephone service early in 1997 in our largest markets, including New England, Hampton Roads, New Orleans, Phoenix, Omaha, Oklahoma City, San Diego and Orange County.
Cox has conducted successful telephony trials in San Diego using Tellabs switches and in Hartford, CT, with Northern Telecom (Nortel) switches. Cox has already obtained a certificate to operate as a CLEC (Competitive Local Exchange Carrier) in southern California and has signed an interconnection agreement with Pacific Bell, the region's incumbent LEC, to interconnect the two companies' networks to ensure seamless service.
Certificates for Cox to enter other markets have been issued or are currently pending."
FWIW, my cable is aerial, as is my phone line. Not sure which one gets uglier on a hot day after it rains... |
