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To: E. Davies who wrote (19043)	1/19/2000 8:49:00 AM
From: Frank A. Coluccio	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 29970

"How hard is it going to be for someone to duplicate what @home (not Excite) has so that they can access the customer over MSO wires without paying ATHM carriage?" Depends. Do you want to do this in a way that puts all of the "intelligence" associated with subscriber end points in the MSO's Head Ends? Or, do you want to KISS it nice and quick, delivering a high bandwidth platform with stupid network attributes without all the heavy lifting? The former variant with maximum intelligence in the head end could be very complex and expensive if the interconnects to the additional ISPs were to be done on the MSO's premises, less so if done upstream, under current analog HFC frameworks. The latter stupid modality is less cumbersome and less expensive, yielding higher throughputs (but less of the MSO's frills having to do with video program delivery at first, which may be a moot point on the horizon anyway if the passive opticals are put in place thus allowing digital video to supplant the analog form, sooner, rather than later) when using almost all passive optical transport techniques. The MSOs and ILECS alike are more than just casually aware of these potential cannibalization effects afforded by the simpler solution set. "Is it economically feasable to have 2,3 or 10 different networks connecting together the head ends throughout the country? (and all the other stuff that is @home)" You've just described the Internet, which has upwards of 6,000 networks connecting together using open internetworking standards. That's been my point all along about the proprietariness of home's and others' island networks. Keep it simple and open, and it's doable with minimum dither. Interconnect 2, 3 or 10 different proprietary nets, and your problems escalate exponentially. The old model stepped up to the plate too late in life, and it struck out. Now it's time for them to get out of the batter's box. How much would it cost to duplicate and more importantly how long would it take? Who has the skill set to do it? Does AOL/TWX? (this one I know: no!)" Done optically, it would take less time than through HFC means, taking some fraction of the time. You'd need to be more specific with the scope to even permit conjecture on time and cost, though. Who has the skills? Almost every major power company, MFNX, MTZ, and probably about a thousand other contractors, led by IFCI, DY, etc. "The bottom line everyone is trying to figure is whether people will simply be leasing access from ATHM or whether they will attempt to do it themselves." Increasingly, subscribers want speed and the option to go wherever they want go without binding terms, whether that's AOL, Home, or elsewhere. They also want the assurance that their delivery platforms are neutral to any of them. This wont be for a while where cable is concerned, because the MSOs are not providing neutral stewardship over their facilities like any ordinary carrier would. Instead, they hover guardedly over their cables like a protective mother bear over her cubs. And in so doing, with one hand they fend off additional revenue streams from other retailing opportunities, while shooting themselves in the foot on general principles, with the other. You raise an interesting prospect w.r.t. email addresses once the terminations of the exclusivities take effect. I can't comment on that intelligently at this time, since many of the dependencies and developments leading up to that time are still unclear to me.