Titans, Part II
The formation of the new group is one of the most significant early moves in what
promises to be a years-long battle between telephone companies and cable
television companies for control of how consumers get high-speed access to the
Internet. The group includes the two major local-phone companies in California --
SBC Communications, the parent company of Pacific Bell, and GTE Corp. -- and
three of the other four regional Bells.
The products envisioned by the consortium would essentially be new modems,
either installed inside a computer or sitting alongside one. Most important, perhaps,
they would plug into normal telephone lines but would remain connected to the
outside world at all times without the need to dial a service and without interfering
with normal voice conversations over the same line.
Such lightning-quick access to cyberspace has traditionally been possible only in
offices or over cable modems, which are available in few parts of the United States.
Giving home users such a fast on-ramp to the information highway could open the
door to new sorts of services, including video over the Internet that approaches
television quality.
''Once you get this stuff you will sell your first-born before you go back to a normal
modem,'' said Howard Anderson, managing director of the Yankee Group, a
technology consulting firm in Boston. ''It's such a better service.''
DSL has been under development in the telecommunications industry for years but
has been held back by a lack of agreement on technical standards.
'Baby Bells' sign on
Bell Atlantic Corp., which serves local telephone customers from Virginia to Maine,
is the one regional Bell that has shied away from the new Compaq-Intel-Microsoft
consortium. People close to the talks between the company and the consortium said
that Bell Atlantic was leaning toward a different sort of DSL. And while the
company has left the door open to join the group, it also has reservations about how
the consortium is run.
The consortium is strongly influenced by its founding partners, said executives who
have dealt with it. Compaq is the world's largest maker of personal computers; Intel
is the largest maker of the microprocessors; and Microsoft is the world's largest
software company. |
