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Technology Stocks : LAST MILE TECHNOLOGIES - Let's Discuss Them Here -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: MikeM54321 who wrote (7788)	7/27/2000 6:33:53 PM
From: lml	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 12823

The MSO-DBS battle goes up a notch in LA. See latimes.com Some comments & issues: Only as cable operators have rolled out digital service, which offers a plethora of channels and higher-quality pictures and sound, has the competition intensified. With the rollout of digital services have not the MSOs merely the matched the "plethora" of channels already available from the DBS providers. Higher quality? Mike, you & I discussed this issue a few weeks. Presently, I am of the opinion that w/o a fiber upgrade to the plant, the improvement in digital quality is not going to comparable to what DBS offers. Also, when an MSO rolls out digital services, we still are not clear exactly whether the sub simply receives the additional channels over the newly available digital bandwidths & continues to receive previously provided channels via analog transmission, or whether ALL his programming is not delivered digitally. If the latter, than the MSO is transmitting the lion's share of its channel line-up both digitally, as well as via analog, which IMHO seems unlikely as its gotta suck up a lot of bandwidth in the coax in the streets. Digital has yet to be offered in my neighborhood yet, and I live in area populated by the high-end customer referred to by this article. So one can just imagine how ADLAC is suffering in LA . . . IMHO. To compare picture quality I offer the following. A friend of mine lives south of Century City and has UMG, formerly TCI, as his MSO. The plant is above ground and digital services are offered. Nevertheless, the picture quality on my friend's TV is awful, in some cases as good as my analog picture, in other cases worse. Similarly, a friend of my folks lives in Encino, just north of Ventura Blvd., an area serviced by TWX cable, and digital cable. Nevertheless, the picture quality is no better than I receive over analog pipes. So my question is . . does digital transmission alone guarantee a near perfect digital quality picture. My guess is NO, as I contrast digital cable to what the DirecTV picture quality I witnessed at the Fox SkyBox restaurant this year prior to attending a few Laker games. Quality of picture: unbelievably perfect. Adelphia Communications has signed up more than 1,400 former satellite customers in the Los Angeles area through its win-back program this year, said Lee Perron, the company's vice president of corporate affairs. As an ADLAC customer who has followed fairly closely what ADLAC has been doing & not doing out here for almost three years, I find the above comment highly suspect. First of all, ADLAC did not BEGIN to roll out digital services until six months ago, & in only limited areas where the fiber upgrade was complete. 1,400 subs seems like a helluva lot given the limited subscriber base that has been able to be subscribe to digital services. The article does not describe ADLAC's "win-back" program. I've been informed by ADLAC reps that they were doing the dish buyback program in Colorado Springs, but I was unaware of this program in LA. But if this program is available, it is recent, & may tie in to ADLAAC's offer this summer of free Showtime & The Movie Channel. But really, how easy is it switch back to cable if they pay you for the dish & don't require a subscription beyond a month? In sum, coverage of this issue is long overdue. And I don't think one can draw any conclusions right now as to which way this is gonna go. But I think the article is correct in pointing out how the MSOs have the advantage over DBS providers by providing broadband access in the mix. The question is how long is it going to be before the DirecTV & Dish folks offer 2-way access, and how good is it going to be. BTW, I came across this 2-way broadband DBS access provider last week. See tachyon.net Up to 2M bps downstream, but just a bit too expensive to make me bite on the upfront capital expense as well as month subscription rate. But the technology is there. The question is whether the DBS folks want to dedicate sufficient bandwidth to consumers to compete with wireline access, or do they just want to tease us with 400K bps downstream which, IMHO, is a spit in the bucket when it comes to true broadband.