Vladmir,
You raise some good questions, thanks for your post. Adding to Pat's response in:
techstocks.com
From your post....
<<Why did he (Andy Grove) feel the ADSL is better then cable modem ?>>
My recollection on Andy Grove's statement, which was comparable to that of Bill Gates, was that the cable modems still had a lot of problems to work out. Cable companies don't understand two-way communications, translating to they don't have a trained workforce to deal with the installation and maintainance problems, to Cable modems are not standardized, and there are estimates that anywhere from 60-80% of the cable lines will not support two way communications. Requiring, in effect, that the cable companies lay all new cable ... something that they can ill afford to do in a rapid way. All solvable problems, but requiring time .....
From your post: <<The quotes for ADSL I have seen are in the $1000 and above.>>
There is a pretty solid indication that this isn't true any longer. There is the recent release (Ref: telechoice.com )
<<Performance Telecom Ships 7 Mbps Modem to Four Continents; Full Rate Adaptive Version Expected in January
December 24, 1996 --
The Champion is presently shipping both as standalone modem and as a line card modem for service providers. According to Performance, price per modem ranges from $500 (U.S.) to $1,000, based on volume-- price points that prove ADSL could be dropping beneath the $1,000 per line cost in the near future.>>
While this represents a CAP product vs. a DMT product it does set the price points. There was also the announcement in October .....(Ref.: telechoice.com )
<<JPC Consortium Selects Alcatel Telecom
Negotiations For Rate Adaptive DMT System To Be Finalized This Year
Oct. 4, 1996-- .... While some details surrounding the announcement remain to be seen, sources close to RFP indicate
that Alcatel is aiming to supply ADSL equipment that will enable per line costs of about $300. The order is expected to be
worth up to $300 million....>>
There hasn't been anything (from Alcatel or the JPC in particular) to confirm the $300/line cost. I suspect that the "sources close to the RFP" were reflecting the forward pricing of the bid. I'll GUESS that the bid from Alcatel might have looked something like ....
Year 1: $1100/line
Year 2: $ 800/line
Year 3: $ 550/line
Year 4: $ 300/line
From your post:
<<I also think that the recent Baby Bells demands for ISV to pay them the way long distance companies pay (abot $4.50 an hour) shows that their priority has shifted from ADSL and Internet supporters to Internet advesaries as far as ISV are concerned.>>
I think that I agree with both you and Pat. The RBOCs I think are simply looking for a source of revenue to help pay for infrastructure upgrades and put the ISVs at a competitive disadvantage, i.e., increase their costs. On the other hand, the FCC had a preliminary ruling (whatever that is) that the ISVs won't have to pay for time. We'll have to see if they stick to the ruling.
One other issue about cable modems that I'm curious about is to what degree shared bandwidth will be a problem. In the majority of cases I don't think it will be an issue. But if you have a neighborhood sharing 30Mbps, on Superbowl Sunday, or someother high interest pay per view broadcast (NOT the Presidential debates) is their going to be a bandwidth contention problem? Perhaps you have some insight here?
Hope everyone is having a happy holiday.
Best regards,
Jim Nickel |
