Ted, thanks for that reporting. I'm sorry I missed the broadcast. I'll try to find the transcript if one was made.
You'll note that while T explained how one option would not work, they refrained from explaining how another one would.
>>If AT&T/TCI allocates a small number of channels for internet services and opens it up to all ISPs, the bandwidth taken by any single ISV customer would effect other customers in the same community that did not sign up for that ISP. If they allocate a separate channel for each ISP, and considering the number of ISP's [today], there would not be enough bandwidth left for any cable TV channels!<<
The option that would work very nicely, from a purely architectural perspective, would be the creation of an open standard for Layer 2/3/4 entry, as opposed to the delineation of spectrum at the physical level, or Layer 1.
But this would still not guarantee a fair weighting to all users, because, like you say, if the plant were to be overwhelmed by an individual service provider's offerings [fac edit: in a bandwidth limited HFC environment], the remaining population would be SOL. In other wrds, they would suffer the same level of degradation as the offending provider's subscribers... unless fair queuing algorithms, or prioritization techniques under automated policy management were used. And then this would be a cost-of-entry issue to be sorted out between the ISPs and the MSOs. Nothing new here. Or is there?
This could lead to a kind of commodity exchange with fluctuating values associated with bandwidth, determined by supply and demand metrics, for any given region or locale. Wow, I'm going off on a tangent here, way beyond the scope of this board. Suffice it to say that there is no shortage of ways to screw this cable modem thing up to a fair thee well, if regulators allow others to enter the limited environs of HFC.
Pure fiber? Well, that's another story for another period in time. But for the present, the only way to do it that I can see is to unbundle the upper layers, and relegate the cable operator to a facilities based utility. No one here wants that, of course.
In several other fora I've suggested -- in an off-hand way -- that perhaps a lottery, or some kind of auction similar to cellular/pcs (doles), might be a way out. Like I say, in an off-hand way, since this kind of approach would be bizarre in itself, and would involve meddling by the feds and municipalities. But it does serve to point out the type of dilemma that currently exists, and will continue to exist, until fiber or a more efficient means of access is afforded by the cable operators to end users.
IMO, it is illogical, and it runs contrary to the spirit of the open Internet, to think that MSO serving areas can remain monopolistic for very long. It just doesn't work that way in this society for very long. And I think that T is going to find that out, eventually, on this, their second time around. Frank_C.
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