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

To: duke-nukem who wrote (44171)	12/27/2000 12:02:23 PM
From: Rande Is	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 57584

I saw cell phones with 15 frames per second and 60 million colors video display. . . where you see the person you are talking with. . . .in use. . . today. I now know what I want for Christmas next year. . . A Dick Tracy watch!! >VBG<

To: duke-nukem who wrote (44171)	12/27/2000 12:03:18 PM
From: Tradelite	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 57584

Duke, only think I know about the future of dial-up services is that mine (CAIS) has not sent me any bill to renew for 2001. I'm waiting breathless to see if they will simply cut off my Internet and email access. In which case/CAIS, I will probably be forced to think about signing up with Earthlink....or (omigod) AOL. Smiling now....won't be smiling of CAIS cuts off my service without notice. I'm not calling them, however....will wait for them to call me as long as the service stays intact. Also, I thought I heard a news bite on TV recently that NetZero was no longer going to be free. Anyone know if that's correct? As a lark, I tried to download their software a year or two ago, but it didn't work.

To: duke-nukem who wrote (44171)	12/27/2000 1:21:48 PM
From: maverick61	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 57584

Duke - on ISPs - my opinion: Questions about ISP's for the thread which may have already been covered: 1) What does anyone else think about the long-term potential for free ISP's like Juno and Netzero? Both offer free service to all, with a price for their unlimited "premium" services. The "true" free ISP is disappearing. Some have closed or are in the process of closing up (like CMGI's service which ran many sites free ISP service). Others have implemented a fee for bigger users like Netzero - netzero.com From a stock perspective, my opinion is none of these are worthwhile plays. My guess is we will see one or two survive - but not really prosper based on their business models. From a user perspective - I think at best they make a no-cost backup for anyone who has a high speed connection or an ok primary connection for the occasional inet user. 2) What does anyone/everyone think about the viability of all dial-services for the future? With DSL and cable modem service becoming available to most people, albeit at a price, will dial-up services go the way of the dodo, or will they continue to survive as a niche sort of market? I think dial in services will still be around even with DSL and cable. First off, DSL and cable have slow rollouts and installation problems are prevalent. Many DSL providers (go look at www.dslreports.com ) have gone under recently - from poor management and underpricing their services. Cable is still slow to roll-out, and there have been problems during peak hours due to shared bandwidth. So, I expect dial-up to always be an option and the choice for a very large number of users. From an investing perspective - really the only dial-up ISP I would consider oqning is AOL - for a number of reasons. If someone has a very long time horizon (I am talking a couple of years) - then now would be the time to pick up and lock away some ratdog shares in cable and dsl providers (like athm, covd, etc.) Long term, these technologies will play out well IMO and their will be some stock winners from them. SHort term - we are just too soon in the roll-out / build-out process to see big returns from these stocks (which is why they have been whacked down to ratdog levels now). However, that said - it appears that ultimately it will be the local telco's and not the CLECs or DSL ISP specialists that will ultimately prosper from DSL roll-outs Lastly, from a user perspective - once people switch to reliable hi-speed ISPs - I don't think they will go back to dial-up except as a backup - but it will take time and loads of occasional users will not see the benefit of getting a high speed connection. And for anyone pursuing hi-speed access, do your homework in advance. Personally, I tried to get DSL for 8 months, via 4 different ISPs before I was successful. It was a hassle - but now that I have it - I wouldn't change. And remember you get what you pay for