Eric,
>I wonder how big ISPs that bought into ASNDs prediction (and their WAN hubs) are feeling right now. I'd worry about them more than my shareholders...<
If I remember right, the big ISP's that aren't firmly in the x2 camp have hedged their bets by saying they will have equip to support both the 56KFlex and x2. Netcom and CompuServe have said this, if I remember right.
The smaller ISP's that already have ASND equip are going to avoid the subject of 56K for as long as they can, and they are in a tough spot. From a business perspective, I can see it from their point of view that it doesn't make any sense to rip out all their equip and replace it, as long as 56KFlex with software-upgradeable chips eventually gets here.
Case in point: The main local ISP (in fact, I don't know of any other) in my city has ROK based 28.8 modem racks. They have been expanding at a rate of several hundred new accounts/month, and lately have said that at a specific number reached, they are going to stop taking new dial-up accounts, and start focusing on web-site consulting. So if this is the case, this means that providing 56K access is way down on the priority list for them, from any equip source.
Unfortunately for me, right now it's a seller's market for internet access.
However, the new ISP's for my general area (but outside local-access range) that I see listed on USR's web page are USR based and do/will support x2. At one of these ISP's web-sites, I saw that the web counter said I was visitor number 1,200+. I think it's safe to say that this ISP is either fairly new, or they just re-set their counter. -G-
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