Gary,
Yes you will need a special modem. The whole point of investing in Amati is that they will build these modems and make money doing it. As with all electronics goods, the price of the modems will drop over time depending on the volume of sales. The phone service will probably be as expensive, if not more, as current ISDN fees. I think that's the only longterm drawback.
As for ADSL's impact on fiber and cable, I think (1) it will blow away cable and (2) it may lessen the immediate need for broad band via fiber. I think ADSL will blow away cable because I believe most people will prefer to hook up via their phone lines (which they are used to) than through cable owned by Malone. Besides, who wants to rearrange their living rooms or studies to access via cable? As for fiber, I don't think it is realistic to think that over 100 years of copper wire installation is going to be replaced with fiber in the next couple of years if ever. I mean, think about it. fiber has been being installed for how long? Personally, I think broad band wireless will kill fiber, not ADSL.
As for current info about broad band wireless, check out the March edition of the Red Herring and this week's edition of Fortune. I think in five years, it will be passe to be "WIRED."
Why is this relevant to CSCO and the other networking companies? Because faster data speeds to end users will dramatically increase the demand for the internet and intranets, and, thus, increase the demand for high performance networking hardware. I think we've just scratched the surface so far. |
