CABLE Modem's prospect (from CNET)and I trust Steve Case's
judgement:
Cable broadband still slowed by
other issues
Cable broadband services are not
going to magically appear as a
result of today's announcement.
About 520,000 households now
subscribe to a cable modem
service. That compares to around
15 million customers of America
Online's dial-up modem service.
Leading cable providers include
@Home and RoadRunner.
However, Dataquest predicts the
cable modem market to 2.4 million
by 2002.
Those subscription numbers will
start picking up with the
deployment of standards-based
cable modems, but a number of
issues remain in getting high-speed
service to consumers.
For one, cable companies are still
building out the links between
homes and the cable company's
offices. According to Kagan
estimates, TCI, the largest cable
operator, will only have between 50
to 60 percent of homes in its
service areas ready for two-way
communications by the end of
1999; Time Warner Cable, the
second largest cable operator,
expects to have 85 percent of its
homes ready during that same time
period, with overall industry
numbers pegged at around 40
percent by other analysts.
Once two-way networks are in
place, there is still the matter of
putting more equipment in place in
the cable plant so that service can
actually be turned on to customers.
"There's a lot more work ahead,"
Leslie Ellis, senior analyst of
broadband technologies at Paul
Kagan Associates.
news.com |
