Cable or DSL? (Anyone following BRCM? Looks like a great company)
I will bet my farm on DSL over cable.
>>>Monday April 26 11:11 AM ET
Plugged In: The Future Belongs To Broadband
By Scott Hillis
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Are you among those Web surfers bored with endless pages of scrolling text and fed up with
pictures that take ages to download?
Take heart, because tomorrow belongs to broadband.
Broadband, or high-speed, connections are hailed as the future of the Internet, delivering high-quality video and audio to an
audience growing hungrier for richer content.
Using cable television lines or dedicated wires carrying digital signals, broadband technologies attain speeds up to 140 times
faster than traditional systems.
That translates into faster download times for Web pages as well as gargantuan video, sound and graphics files that can easily
swamp the analog modems used in most computers today.
Moreover, the new technologies keep you plugged in to the Internet 24 hours a day, eliminating dial-up times and pesky busy
signals.
Entertainment companies are rubbing their hands in anticipation of the day when their wares can be readily sold and delivered
to the online masses.
''When broadband is a reality and you have a decent pipe into the home, people can download my product,'' said Bobby
Kotick, chief executive officer of California-based video game-maker Activision.
Analysts say the growth of online music offerings will help fuel the broadband market as more customers insist on the ability to
grab CD-quality songs off the Internet in a matter of minutes.
''The availability of this kind of content is going to drive demand for high-speed access,'' said Paul Bandrowski, chief executive
officer of Reciprocal, a music rights clearing house partly owned by Microsoft.
But the road to a broadband world is bumpy. Companies must overcome lofty prices, spotty availability and a Congress wary
of anticompetitive activities.
While there are several broadband technologies, it is now essentially a two-horse race between cable and digital subscriber
lines, or DSL. Those that don't seem able to cut it for the mass market are costly satellite systems and ISDN, which is much
slower than the alternatives.
The cable camp pairs local cable television companies with national cable Internet firms such as AtHome Corp., majority
owned by AT&T, and RoadRunner, a joint venture child of technology heavyweights like the MediaOne Group, Time Warner,
Microsoft and Compaq.
Cable boasts the ability to zip signals around at up to 4 megabits (Mbps) per second, 70 times faster than the fastest current
modems, through which data trickles at a mere 56 kilobits per second.
But all that speed doesn't come free.
Subscribers have to pony up for a pricey cable modem, which can cost several hundred dollars. Internet access is also more
expensive -- expect to pay at least double the typical $20 monthly bill for regular telephone deal-up services such as America
Online.
Nonetheless, the cable Internet business is booming. Bill Ruehle, chief financial officer for Broadcom Corp. (Nasdaq:BRCM -
news), an Irvine, Calif.-based maker of chips for cable and DSL modems, said he expected cable modem sales to double or
even quadruple last year's 500,000 units.
And the editors of PC Magazine landed on the side of cable in a comparison of high-speed services in the April 20 issue.
''In most cases our tests showed cable modem services to be a better deal for the residential user today than DSL,'' they
concluded in their ''Editors' Choice''.
''Cost per Mbps on our performance tests was generally the lowest for cable modems, and though our cable modem reviewers
had a few more installation and customer support problems than DSL ... reviewers, they found performance in general to be
excellent,'' the magazine said.
So a clear victory for cable? Not so fast. DSL has a few tricks as well.
While the 60 million homes that have cable television hookups are a fertile field for cable Internet to take root, DSL's reach is
potentially even greater because it works through common telephone lines.
DSL service can run from $50 a month for homes to hundreds of dollars for a business connection, but many phone companies
are waiving the hefty installation fees for the modem or offer rental plans.
Speed varies depending on how far the subscriber is from a phone company central office, but data transfer can attain rates of
up to 8 megabits per second.
DSL is being pushed by established Internet providers such as America Online and EarthLink as an alternative to cable.
Pasadena, Calif.-based EarthLink earlier this month unveiled its plans to wire southern California for DSL by this summer.
''We're beginning to satisfy the demand for high-speed Internet connections,'' Richard Edmiston, EarthLink's vice president of
research and development, said at the time.
The cable companies' lock on cable infrastructure has also sparked concern among lawmakers, who have called for a federal
study of the broadband market.
''This is a crucial issue of the future of this nation,'' John McCain, an Arizona Republican who chairs the Senate Commerce
Committee, said at a recent hearing on the subject. <<<
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