>AT&T can't pay enough to lobby their way out of this. They should be happy with the cream and sign up AOL - this would hit the RBOCs and xDSL options for the consumer market in my opinion. So it isn't all that bad unless you own ATHM or ILEC equities. <
Mixed reaction to your views, Dan. I agree that this could be a win-win for all involved in the cable space, and the ISPs who attach themselves to it, but only if last mile improvements and re-engineering of the spectrum allocations and new segmenting takes place almost immediately.
And I would conditionally agree that it will be detrimental to DSLs and the RBOCs, but only if the MSOs and T do as I suggested in the foregoing.
If, on the other hand, T and the others lose their incentives to put in the additional provisions, then DSLs will see a major rise in uptake due to what will inevitably become a very poor cable modem performance rating. All IMO.
Of course, this all boils down eventually to funding and equity in the underlying system. Who will pay for it? In the 'net backbone space there are fees paid for peering, route overflows, etc., treating the use of bandwidth almost in a pooling fashion, as a result, and settlements (rough as they are) are used to take up the slack.
In the telco world there exists a parallel in the way of access charges paid by LD providers to the incumbent local exchange carriers. Do you suppose we'll see something like that here, in order to rationalize futher pooled utilizations? How would such a plan be adminstered? And yes... I agree with your original assessment: There is no more going home on this one. And if there is, it'll probably only be for one last, and short, stay.
Regards, Frank Coluccio |
