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Technology Stocks : CAWS - Wireless Cable (New and Improved) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ken Turetzky who wrote (5811)	2/8/2000 11:20:00 AM
From: Luce Wildebeest	Respond to of 5812

Hi Ken how's it going? I hope the market's treating you well. Check this out. This is what's happening with MMDS. I get 'sick' whenever I see the letters MMDS. I didn't bother to file for those pennies. Calvin forbes.com Kiss that Duopoly Good-Bye By Scott Woolley JUST HOW MESMERIZING IS THE prospect of owning a capacious connection to America's living rooms? Enough to prompt America Online to fork over $158 billion for Time Warner. Enough to get AT&T to spend $116 billion on cable systems and to prod local telephone monopolies into spending billions to upgrade copper phone lines. All of which would seem to leave MCI WorldCom, mucking through a $115 billion acquisition of long distance rival Sprint, without a broadband strategy of its own. Not so. The two are about to roll out a "fixed-wireless" strategy that could reach 60 million homes in 190 cities in the next couple of years. It is a crucial but little-known reason behind their pending merger, and it may offer a far cheaper way to get around "the last mile" that cable and phone lines have into the home. MCI WorldCom and Sprint will use a slice of the spectrum formerly used for snowy UHFTV signals. The design is called MMDS (for multichannel multipoint distribution service). A single transmitter can reach a 35-mile radius, if perched high enough. Sprint already has one on the Sears Tower in Chicago and on South Mountain in Phoenix. Fixed wireless has been around for 30 years or so, but has struggled with technical hurdles. Now it is finally fast and cheap enough to pose a viable challenge to cable modems and the Bells' digital subscriber lines, or DSL. For captive consumers it means a fresh breath of competition. For phone and cable companies it may mean an end to their duopoly. For long-distance carriers it means relief from the $18 billion they pay a year in access fees to local telcos. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------