My personal preference would be for the satellite guys to win, primarily so I could tell my local cable TV provider to go to hell, have one dish on the roof, and get video/internet signals with zero dependency on the wired world.
I feel the same way. I think this problem is the biggest one facing the "information era" right now. I see three possible viable options:
1- Two way sat trans using GEO or LEO sytesm (teledesic, cybertar, etc.)
2- Local, regional wireless comm. using dedicated bandwidth (Metricom, Winstar?)
3- Something running over copper that is decent (xDSL, Level 3)
The big holdup is the cost of last mile infrastructure. In this situation, 1 and 3 might be the cheapest. But, I really don't see 3 happening because the local telcos are glacial. It costs them little more to run an ISDN line out, but they don't want to do it unless they can extort huge sums. I don't see their attitude changing for xDSL. Level 3 is the wildcard here, as they want to run fiber (!) the last mile. I question if they can afford to do this for anything other than large businesses.
For #2, there is the significant advantage that one company (or multiple competing, non-monopolies) can control the infrastructure and sell receivers at consumer level prices. The downside is you still have to "wire" up each city. Metricom provides great service here in Seattle... but its gonna be awhile before they have a nationwide network.
Which leaves #1. And for #1 there are a finite number of companies with the capabilities. And they get nearly instant nationwide service. And compared to what was spend to wire the nation with cable TV, the sats are really cheap. (At least, I think this is the case, I could be wrong.)
So, if the next tornado is high bandwidth internet, and Intel is the gorilla of CPUS, Microsoft the gorilla of OSs, Cisco the gorilla of routing, who's the gorilla of high bandwidth last mile solution?
Again, I see three: Teledesic, Celestri and Cyberstar. If these three provide real service at consumer as well as business price levels in the next 5 years, they could end-run around the terrestrial solutions that are still building out at higher cost. I think AT&T has shown that you can be a successfule nationwide ISP at consumer level prices.
It remains to be seen how many of these three end up profiding the solution... but the potential for upside surprise here is huge.
Dragonfly |
