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Technology Stocks : AUTOHOME, Inc -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: E. Davies who wrote (18034)	12/18/1999 2:38:00 AM
From: GraceZ	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29970

"It's all just a scheme by the evil cable companies to take control of the internet" is more along the lines that your average person can grasp. Are you saying that it isn't a scheme to take control of the internet?

To: E. Davies who wrote (18034)	12/18/1999 5:51:00 AM
From: Jay Lowe	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29970

>> After all- IP is just IP isnt it? Why should it matter >> how you get it from the user to the headend? After >> that its just standard "net stuff" right? You and Frank are doing the apples and oranges thingy-bob. There are two basic ways OA can be achieved. IP-level sharing. This is where the new supplier gets IP address space which maps to their servers somewhere "closer" to the cable segment head end (CMTS) than they are currently able to get by virtue of IP global addressing. For example, MSPG might strike a deal to co-locate servers (or routers to MSPG subnet) somewhere within the ATHM hierarchy: in the local head-ends or within the regional super-pops where there are already routers onto other Tier 1 backbones. This would allow such a provider enough architecture leverage to offer broadband service as good as ATHM's. The accounting and provisioning issues are standard. The key difference here is that a customer would have the option to select from more than one ISP ... which typically means also the home page of that provider. Wire-level sharing. This is where the provider "somehow" gets the ability to share the frequency bandwidth on the cable segment itself. This immediately breaks the DOCSIS specification and all the things that go with it. I absolutely do not see this happening anytime soon ... if ever. It would lead to a very ugly technical situation. The most probable scenario is that a small subset of providers will get to co-locate routers in the head-ends or super-pops. As pointed out in humorous dialectic above, the compelling technical question is how to achieve the many-to-one mapping of 6,751 provider wannabes onto either: (1) within one cable segment - essentially impossible, or (2) one hop from the CMTS - essentially unfeasible. So the 6,751 are going to be sub-setted somehow. Perhaps there will be a three layer solution: Level 1 partners (6,730) - get to colocate a router in one or more super-pops Level 2 partners (17) - get to colocate a router in selected head-ends Level 3 partners (4) - get a slice of bandwidth hacked off for them to play with ... or jointly share a slice in geographical distribution. The REAL OA question is what the marketing looks like. What does the user see? ... that's the question. Really doesn't matter. What AT&T is doing is pushing the issue far enough into the future that ISPs won't WANT to share HFC plant anymore ... they'll be clamoring to share fiber plant by then.