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Strategies & Market Trends : Rande Is . . . HOME -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Joe Smith who wrote (30949)	7/31/2000 7:23:51 PM
From: Rande Is	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 57584

RE: DSL. . .I agree with you Joe. But there is another factor that has yet to be discussed. WHY is it that the regional bells have not spent the necessary money for DSL buildout? Where I live, there is no DSL scheduled here in the future. Upgrading the nodes is an expensive proposition. And with fibre optics being strung at such a breakneck rate of speed, I would think the answer to our question is that the Regional Bells do not wish to duplicate service. So the real question is this. . . .Why spend money upgrading POTS, when fibre optics is scheduled to run through the very same area? There are competing fibre optics providers here, but no word of DSL in the area. Why would the phone company wish to install DSL here. . . when they could sell fibre and have less hassles. Now in major markets, it is important to be the first company to sell the customer. Meanwhile, the rest of the country waits. So to the Regional Bells in many service areas, investing in DSL is throwing good money after bad. It simply makes more sense to wait for the fibre to be strung through the area and just bypass DSL altogether. Now, when the discussion of DSL first began in the very first months of this thread. . . .I said that fibre would be the primary mode of delivery, wireless would be next and DSL would be a very distant third and limited primarily to dense urban areas. I agree with that original prediction. Only now I would add that mobile wireless would be second. . . everyone will have this on their cellphones and in their cars soon. . . . fixed wireless and DSL would battle for third. . . as they tend to target roughly the same dense market. Cable modems will fall away at the same rate as dial-up modems. But fibre optics into dedicated set-top appliances, so that users can sit at their sofa and access whatever they want. . . . THAT will be the clear winner! There are many stocks that will reflect this technology. Only problem is that it will STILL take years before the rollout is complete. In fact, it was to have started last summer and it didn't. . . and I'm not hearing anything about a rollout this summer either. No doubt the reason is that there is no ultra-broadband program material yet. . . . . . . . which leads us to a whole other group of questions. Rande Is

To: Joe Smith who wrote (30949)	8/1/2000 10:56:34 AM
From: Silver_Bullet	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 57584

I agree that the probable conclusion is fibers to each home. But, I ask you this. How long will it be before fiber is to even a small percentage of homes in major metropolitan areas? They are just now laying the trunk lines of fibers and it is taking many years. You have to build a foundation before you can build the 300th floor and the last mile is the 300th floor. The home will be the last thing to be fibered. I easily see fiber into the homes taking 10 or more years to really get started. I see the infrastructure taking 3 to 5 more years(connecting of cities and countries) and then each city has to put fiber lines in the streets so there is something for each home to connect to. After that you can begin to think of connecting the individual homes. The fiber will slowly start making it into each persons home because of expense and logistics. Who's going to pay for this upgrade anyway? Is the homeowner going to be charged? I think not. There are many people still just discovering the net believe it or not, and they sure aren't going to pay for something they don't understand or use. The number of people not connected will decrease over time of course, but you are still talking hundreds of millions of people in the US alone. The amount of people not connected will change exponentially when Broadband is really available for everyone and easy to get up and running so the more available DSL or equivalent BroadBand the more will want to connect and use the net. I see DSL being the major staple of "last mile" technology for the next 10 to 15 years minimum. We haven't even discussed the possibility that the DSL technology achieving download speeds of 5Mbs that would possibly make it unnecessary to even think of fibers going into the home for the next 20 to 25 years or longer. Just my take and my reason for still staying very bullish on DSL. FT.