Colin, Nothing MISLEADING, other than your slanted commentaries and innuendoes, that you so skillfully execute on other threads and Prodigy. It seems obvious that your thoughts and actions are governed by your vindictive instincts, rather than logic.
You continue to try to make mountains out of mole hills. To any reasonably adept person, with a sense of business and marketing awareness, you would understand that Franklin will launch "FNET's introduction" with a campaign to garner cash flow, this in turn would help to financially support a sales and marketing campaign geared towards it real target audience, Corporate America.
My original response, was in reply to what separates and makes FNET special from all the other ISP's. I stated that the technological infrastructure that FNET is built upon, was geared towards corporate services. I also stated that as an individual you would be able to subscribe to FNET. But the real difference, (POINT OF REPLY) was to distinguish that FNET was designed FROM THE GROUND UP, for high end use , that, which serves Corporate America and itÆs willingness to spend MAJOR DOLLARS for access to these "PREMIUM" STATE OF THE ART facilities.
Consider the following for further confirmation of what I stated:
The most recent press release (slated to run Monday), where Frank Peters states;
"FNet has been working to build an infrastructure which will set us apart from most ISP's.
We have installed an AT&T SLC 2000 Optical system capable of handling 800 T1 circuits, ISDN, ATM and Frame Relay. In addition, we are in final development of various systems which will offer ten new applications to FNet customers next year, including Voice, Fax , Voice Mail and others. As access to the Internet continues to expand, FNet is committed to a policy of pursuing and refining the technology that will keep our customers 'one-step ahead.'"
To further emphasize the superior capabilities of FNET, that which rivals or exceeds the capabilities of most ISP's today, not to mention the Telcos, you would have to look no further than the October 28th issue of Communications Week, an article titled "ISPs Jump to the Majors." Excerpts follow:
It starts by stating, NETWORK MANAGERS (uppercase emphasis my own, to illustrate the corporate point) are peering into the future of voice and data services, and seeing the "ISP" before their eyes. It's becoming clear that Internet service providers will play an increasingly strategic role - akin to today's telephone companies - in corporate communications networks. Al tough as the new kids on the block, ISPs must make a giant leap in infrastructure and service capabilities to garner credibility.
That they are under consideration at all, underscores the blurring distinctions - and heated rivalry - between ISPs and telephone companies. For their part, the phone companies are tailoring their networks to support more data-centric offerings, including Internet access, in addition to bolstering long distance and local exchange networks. Inevitably, telephone companies will find themselves up against ISPs in offering integrated services.
A Jeff Fritz , communications engineer at West Virginia University, states, "Telephone companies have been very good providing voice service, but they just don't understand data. I'd consider ISPs for a variety of telecommunication services, if they could demonstrate their advantages". Fritz adds, "first on his wish list are reliability and affordability."
Why the big buildup? A major portion of the traffic that will be carried over those new facilities is from COMPANIES expanding their use of the Net and corporate intranets. Along the way, the traditional distinctions between ISPs and phone companies are disappearing, particularly as these companies enter each others stronghold.
"The ISP of the future will look an awful lot like a very sophisticated data telephone company. The services they'll offer are different gradients of data, virtual private networks and telephone service " as stated by Guy Cook, the CEO of a Denver based host of over 1,500 corporate web sites. "ISPs have a very good chance of grabbing a significant portion of telephone traffic that happens in this country." Cook says.
Ten years from now, data is going to be nine-tenths of what we do and voice is going to be one-tenth of what we do. (The Internet has) an architecture that enables you to interleave vice traffic, video traffic, or any kind of traffic and treat it just like data, because that's all it is" Cook says.
BUSINESS Internet use is moving toward higher data content, like audio and videoconferncing, for which BUSINESES require high speed access through ISDN, leased lines or frame relay connections," the Infonetics study says, "The larger ISPs such as the telephone companies , already have rolled out frame relay access. The larger telephone companies still lead the way for ATM services.
"The large guys are adding (45 megabit-per-second) OC -8 routers and other things to bump up capacity. It doesn't matter if you add bandwidth" says Chuck Davin, chief technical officer at PSI NET, "The telcos are convinced that bandwidth will give them an edge" Davin and officials at other ISPs say that knowing how to manage that bandwidth is key.
Arguably, the prototype of the next generation telephone company/ISP may be WorldCom/Uunet/MFS whose long distance and Internet services, respectively are merged into a single entity according to analysts. When the mergers are finished, a single person will sell the complete package.
The article has a chart indicating the various HIGH END CORPORATE Internet services that are provided by the big ISPs and the leading Telcos. There is a caption that is titled: VYING FOR HIGH SPEED SERVICES, it contains this statement: Traditional local and long distance telephone companies, MCI, Sprint, and Pac Bell - are ahead of the ISPs in high speed service offerings such as ATM access and audio conferencing. The larger ISPs however, are gaining ground in frame relay and other areas.
Funny Colin, how all the high end services are geared for CORPORATE USE, and what is even more amazing is that FNET has already installed OC-24 capacity while the other giants in the industry are just now getting around to 0C-8. By the way the leaders in the industry according to the above referenced chart are distinguished by their offering of T1, T3, ATM, Frame relay, Lan connections, ISDN, besides audio and video conferncing. Seems FNET has already addressed these CORPORATE services, in fact they have many already in place.
So as it is clearly defined, FNET is a lot more then just another ISP, in fact, if investors, such as YOURSELF would take the time to do the research, you would clearly understand that FNET is about to become a major competitive force as a National ISP, with a focus on providing high end Internet/telecommunications needs to CORPORATIONS, after all, that is where the money is. That is where FNET is!
Colin, on Prodigy 10/21/96 you state: Doug, I'm not a maven on FTEL. That's apparent. On 10/16 you make reference to only following FTEL because of the DCTC involvement regarding the IPO'ing of FNET. Four days later you state " I DO NOT FOLLOW FTEL, per se" of which you will state that I am putting it out of context. Yes, I would agree. About the same as your misleading statement of 54% of households was out of context.
Unlike Prodigy, we are trying to have an honest, informational, and intelligent dialogue, that is without barbs and tainted innuendoes, that are apparently meant to be disruptive.
I would hope that you would honor my request that any further differences that we may have, be taken to private email. So that others can enjoy constructive commentary on this thread.
I also hope, this finally answers your questions, and anyone else that may have become confused or somehow mislead.
However, I must add, that if you wish to contribute meaningful information to this thread, you may want to try some lengthy due diligence, to catch up. 1.800.FRANKLIN would be the obvious place to begin, or the web site at www.ftel.com, is rich in content, of which I have yet to interpret as misleading, what-so-ever.
Sincerely,
RB |
