growthvalue at all, a good general article about TCI,with implications for HLIT/ANTC.
HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS. | Page 2 of 2
That demand will likely be established faster than previously thought, thanks to the remarkable news that AT&T Corp. of New York will acquire Tele-Communications Inc. (TCI) of Englewood, Colo. In their public displays of affection during the June announcement, AT&T CEO C. Michael Armstrong and TCI CEO John Malone said they'd complete TCI's upgrade for two-way digital communications by the end of 1999. "We're now seeing a massive competitive acceleration" because of this AT&T/TCI announcement, Doherty says.
In fact, analysts seem to agree that cable companies are way ahead of the telcos in deploying high-speed access. Paul Kagan Associates Inc. of Carmel, Calif., projects that by December of this year, 19.1 million U.S. homes could potentially receive high-speed cable services. An additional 9 million homes could, if they chose, receive DSL service. That's what will be available.
Actual subscribers will be far fewer--even over time. Here, Kagan projects that by 2008, the United States will see 15.2 million cable-modem subscribers and 7.5 million DSL customers. "Even though we're talking 10 years, this is incredibly fast," says Cynthia Brumfield, Kagan's analyst covering high-speed access.
The Gatekeeper
Intriguingly, Kagan divides its cable prognostications between those who will subscribe to cable-modem service for PCs and those who will subscribe to Internet services over a cable-TV settop box. This last group will reach 15.27 million by the end of 2007. And what will become of consumer settop boxes, à la WebTV? Remarkably, not much, according to Kagan. Such boxes will total 550,000 units by the end of this year, grow to nearly 2 million by December 1999 and level off at 3 million units by the end of 2003.
"We see appliance-based Internet TV service primarily appealing to the diehards who don't want a PC, don't have cable and like the idea of simple Internet access," Brumfield says. "It will never become a large market."
What will become a big market, obviously, is cable. Yet, even if cable does become the dominant conduit into the home, that still doesn't determine whether PCs, settop boxes or smart phones will become the controlling device. Consider the second generation of advanced settop boxes: Due out in fall 1999, these could handle packet-switched telephony and control TV viewing and even home security programming systems--at least that's what the leading settop box manufacturers, General Instrument Corp. of Horsham, Pa., and Scientific-Atlanta Inc. of Norcross, Ga., would have us believe.
upside.com
Tim |
