Hi Pat, thanks for the link to the Last Mile thread. I'll have to start following that. One important point to realize is that the cable modem as a data connection (i.e. internet access) and as a digital video connection are different animals at present. They may stay that way in some cable systems. Personally, I have no desire to get a data connection to display on my TV. The resolution of a TV (as they exist today anyway)doesn't approach even a mediocre computer monitor.
As for the bandwidth and demand re: cable modems, I'd disagree, but I should qualify that: As a DATA modem, the performance POTENTIAL of the MODEM is high, but reality is not the same as potential. I know my posts get lengthy, so I probably bored you to sleep during the part where I linked to an old post I made regarding the real end-to-end, round-trip bandwidth. All the numbers in that post still hold and I'm still using cox@home and the performance remains as noted.
On the demand side, I still don't believe "mainstream" demand is even close. The demand from technophiles is high, but that's only the first step in the natural progression in the life of a new technology. Demand may appear widespread because of our narrow universe of data-hungry folks here on SI, and the cable companies may have more high-speed-data connection requests than they can handle, but the numbers (the absolute numbers, not the growth rates that are referenced to practically nil so they WILL look large) are still small. Mom and Pop ain't interested yet. They're still struggling to understand just what this thing called the internet can really do for them.
I also think mainstream dialup-ISP users need to become completely comfortable with, and frequent users of, secure transactions before sporadic extra bandwidth will interest them. Mom and pop don't download multi-megabit files very often, if at all. The way to get them using their dialup connection frequently enough that they start to complain about speed is to get them looking on the internet before every significant purchase. Pretty soon they start to order more on line, rather than just using it as a reference. Then they may become interested in paying for a higher bandwidth connection because they're now spending a significant amount of time using (waiting for) their dialup-ISP. Security and bandwidth are joined at the hip. Neither becomes a mass market phenomenon without the other (just my opinion). SSL has its limitations and won't be the ultimate solution. Parts of the security system that is eventually adopted will be in hardware. Wonder what BRCM has going on in that area..
As for Kinetic Strategies, I didn't mean to sound like I was directing my dislike of hype at them. Just technology forecasts in general, especially more than a year or two out. We all love to speculate on which technology will win, and by how much, but let's face it, at such an early stage in the game, any long-term forecast of actual quantities and revenues is at best with about 20% confidence. BTW, Kinetic Strategies in fact has an excellent publication called Cable Datacom News that I would definitely recommend if you haven't checked it out.
dh
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