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To: E. Davies who wrote (17517)	12/5/1999 8:56:00 PM
From: Frank A. Coluccio	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 29970

Eric, It is quite clear that we differ in our opinions on where consumers' (and content providers') appetites for bandwidth are headed. In a matter of three or four short years, users have gone from being satisfied with 28.8 kb/s (nirvana compared to their prior 14.4s and 9.6s) to now experiencing 1.5 over adsl and 2 to 10 Mb/s over cablemodem. The applications which could begin to leverage the latter speeds haven't even been fully written yet. Are you suggesting that this trend in increasing bandwidth delivery has reached some sort of limit? I don't necessarily look at this in straight line (heck, that would require fiber to the home, and we all know that that's not in any of the service providers' interests at this time as long as they can continue to squeeze copper/cable metrics for all the revenues which are still left in them), but even a slightly declining knee trend would still suggest that there is a lot more demand, hence need for capacity, to come. If, in the end you are correct, however, and I fully concede to that possibiliy, then there will be no differentiating advantages to having cable modem over either wireless or dsl services, since the latter will each, on a par, equate to or be better than cable when it becomes fully subscribed, if measures are not taken at this time to free up spectrum. Worse, the infinite levels of bandwidth reserves which reside in the HFCs will never be fully tapped, unless there is some bypass surgery in the deep. This is not a point and click affair, as it takes years to make these changes in the outside plant, from the time that they are first acknowledged as being needed. Why else would T be making so much fare over the SLC trials? And while we're on a roll, kindly provide me/us with your views relating to ATHM's reticence, on and off, to allow full streaming content and telecommuting applications as things stand today, over their associated MSO cable modem facilities. TIA. Regards, Frank Coluccio