It seems abundantly clear to me that all three: cable, xDSL equipped phone lines, and broadband satellites, will prosper mightily, and least for a number of years.
There is huge demand, and no one technology will be able to ramp quickly enough. With the possible exception of satellites, once they are up. But even there overall capacity will initially be limited, even if available to all (almost) geographies at once. If costs don't naturally cause the satellite broadband to naturally be relatively higher, demand can be rationed by making it so (with concomitant profit bonanzas).
In areas which already have, or can relatively easily be converted to two way (fiber optic trunk) cable TV, cable modems will likely be the fastest and cheapest choice. In other fairly urban US and European areas xDSL will be the ticket. In rural areas and much of the rest of the world, outside perhaps capital cities and the like, its gonna be satellites. (xDSL only works if the customer is less than about 10k feet from the first telco switch.)
However, all three systems can eventually compete with each other in most urban and suburban areas in the developed world, and will drive prices down.
The ultimate winner is very unlikely to be xDSL phone lines in my opinion. The pipe is just too narrow.
Doug |
