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

To: EJhonsa who wrote (9943)	12/26/2000 5:44:39 PM
From: MikeM54321	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12823

Eric- I like to kick around where the MSO is going to take their subs. Where TV land is heading, in general, is a favorite subject of mine. 1 billion worldwide TV households always get my interest. So here's a couple of points to ponder. "Since cable operators generally subsidize the cost of a set-top box, no direct hardware purchases are required on the part of the cable subscriber." IF the MSO does end up rolling out those spanking new CM in in the STB boxes, it won't be easy to justify it because what about current CM users? Does the MSO have to pay for both CMs?! One was hard enough at $40/month. You think they want them to add another for a few dollars more? At this point they barely have 3 million homes signed up for standard CM service over PC and it's already a strain for them to upgrade the network to do this. I don't see them wanting to tackle CM via TV for a long time. And you haven't addressed why anyone would want to surf the TV? It's already a strain reading web pages off my SVGA .28 dot pitch, non-interlaced, 21 inch, 1280 x 1024 resolution CRT monitor for any length of time. I think it would just about kill me to read a standard web page on the super cheap TV set for more than a couple of minutes. So people like your Mom may sign up for the free service, but my guess is it will be so useless viewing standard web pages, they won't want to pay an extra $40/month for long. "...an operator could easily offer free trials for these services, in order to get "the other half" to enter into uncharted territory without any financial committment on their part." Good point there and it does make sense to get the other 50% of the population online. But not for the MSO or PC maker. Maybe the ISP would like the other 50 million US homes to connect using the TV, but that's about the only party that would be interested. And we all know how much money they have to roll this out(subsidize it for a MSO). Traditional TV advertisers would hate it and I know the MSO's don't want to lose them. "How it'll exactly play out could prove to be one of the most interesting stories to unfold over the next few years within the consumer electronics industry." Well IMVHO, I don't see CM access over the TV set ever playing out(But I also predicted Madonna was a one-hit wonder). There's little incentive to turn the sub loose onto the Internet. I can see slightly more incentive in a 'closed garden' Internet approach by the MSO. But sounds like the government is going to kill that one fast. I know you can point me to all those press releases out of SFA, MOT, Toshiba, etc. saying how incredible their new mind blowing digital age STBs with built-in CM are going to take the world by storm. But show me one PR where a MSO has committed to turning their subs loose onto the Internet over the TV's STB(Keep in mind, i-TV and Internet surfing are different subjects). Now i-TV, well that's an entirely different idea. IMO, i-TV may become a reality. But that is entirely different from turning a sub loose, surfing the web, from his TV at his own free will. To many entrenched interests against this idea. -MikeM(From Florida)