Cha2,
You and I dialogue often about data services (and I thoroughly enjoy the dialogue).
Like you, I'm a data communications junkie and have been since the early seventies.
A lot of our conversations have to do with data communications, wireless wise.
I thought you might find the following article interesting.
It discusses the relative costs and availability of high speed wireline access, and I think it has a bearing on how soon and how great the takeup of wireless data services will be in the "highly wired" United States.
This, I think has a direct bearing on the speed of adoption and penetration of "wireless" data services in the United States.
While we all might like to think about HDR wireless speeds there is a real question about how much we will be willing to pay for service that at least initially will supplement wireline, cable, or satellite.
I've just replaced V.90 dialup ($19.95/mo unlimited + $12/mo for dedicated line) with 640/128 ADSL for $55/mo unlimited with the line.
It finally reached my doorstep. Cable is still a few miles away, but I trust my great local ISP and Verizon copper more than Comcast and @Home. Comcast already gets $55 a month from me for digital cable entertainment (including EPG & some limited IPG).
I passed on 1048/256 kbps ADSL because I'll be darned if I can figure out how to justify an extra $30/mo for speed I won't use.
I pay $105 per month for 900 minutes of mobile wireless voice and data (including all national roaming and LD) to Verizon.
"Data Communications" is starting to add up. <g>
Interesting to see how 1xMC and eventually HDR will play in my communications future and what bandwidth I'll be offered at what price.
I doubt seriously that I'll be trading wireline for wireless in the near future.
It seems to me that the real competition for W-CDMA, 1xMC, & 1xDV, is not so much GSM/GPRS, as it is broadband in its various flavors.
>> U.S. Broadband Race To Heat Up In 2001
Reshma Kapadia
Reuters
27 December 2000
If you build it, they will come - that's the hope of U.S. Internet service providers spending heavily to convert users to high-speed access. But the higher cost of high speed, or broadband, access may keep consumers hanging on to their old, slow modems despite the promise of rich streaming video, online music and eventually the ability to interact with television.
In 2001, big-name Internet service providers such as America Online Inc., Microsoft Corp.'s MSN, EarthLink Inc. and Juno Online Services Inc. will spend a lot of money and time on high-speed access plans.
Consumers, however, may choose to wait with current high-speed access costs of $40 to $50, or more than twice that of conventional dial-up access.
"The No. 1 reason given by households that we surveyed for why they haven't gone to broadband is price ... with most indicating that they want to pay what they pay for dial-up now," said Dylan Brooks, an analyst at Jupiter Research.
For now, dial-up is still king, with 48.4 million households, or 91 percent of total households accessing the Internet, according to Jupiter. About 4.8 million households have broadband access, mostly via cable or digital subscriber line service that uses regular phone wires.
While most analysts do not expect high-speed access to reach the levels of dial-up access until the middle-to-end of this decade, 2001 is expected to be a crucial year for Internet service providers to begin rolling out the first parts of their broadband, or high-speed, services.
PLANNING FOR BROADBAND
"2001 is going to be the year of a lot of planning and getting ducks in a row," said Rob Lancaster, analyst at Yankee Group.
The number of households accessing the Internet with dial-up connections is expected to peak at about 53 million in 2003 and then decline to 51.4 million in 2005 as faster connections gain converts, according to Jupiter.
Broadband use is expected to grow sixfold in the same time, rising from 4.8 million to 28.8 million in 2005.
On the traditional dial-up side, the average cost paid will continue to slide on a monthly basis and the number of consumers who are getting some kind of bundled access with a PC or a long-term contract for rebates will continue to increase, said Brooks.
"We've seen a continued drop in the average pricing consumers have been paying for dial-up," Brooks said, citing promotions by the big companies and low-cost offerings by rivals.
As they seek to expand broadband use, the service providers are likely to focus on providing high speed access through existing phone lines with digital subscriber line (DSL) service rather than satellite or cable TV lines.
"In general, for most of these ISPs, their broadband plays are going to be about DSL first and satellite relationships second and cable relations, if any, are really not going to be coming live in a measurable way in 2001," Brooks said.
He noted that DSL prices have fallen substantially.
"If you have been looking at the industry in 2000, you had to be pretty surprised at how quickly and dramatically DSL prices fell," Brooks said. "We've seen over the course of the year, standard pricing drop from $50-plus to below $40."
INSTALLATION PROBLEMS
While DSL service is growing quickly, high-speed cable access through AtHome and Road Runner, in which Time Warner Inc. has a 38 percent stake, still have more subscribers. Cable access has about 6 percent of households now, and digital subscriber line service about 2 percent, according to Jupiter.
One of the biggest problems holding DSL service back is difficulty with installing it. Message and review boards on sites such as dslreports.com are littered with comments such as "Long wait for hookup. Tech support stinks."
Once they have gotten DSL hooked up, however, users on the review boards seem mostly satisfied.
While AOL, the No. 1 dial-up Internet service provider with 25 million subscribers, has made very little inroads in broadband, that is expected to change once its purchase of Time Warner - the nation's No. 2 cable operator - is completed.
Last week, the FTC approved the AOL-Time Warner merger with stringent conditions that require the combined company to allow rival Internet service providers access to its cable lines.
EarthLink Inc., the No. 2 U.S. Internet service provider with more than 4.6 million subscribers, has taken the lead among pure-play Internet companies with several DSL partnerships and existing cable pacts in place, analysts said.
Atlanta-based EarthLink has about 30,000 modem Internet customers in Charter Communications Inc.'s cable TV area and about 10,000 fixed wireless customers using Sprint Corp.'s high-speed wireless service in several cities including Houston and San Francisco, Brooks said.
EarthLink also has signed a deal for a pact with high-speed satellite service with DirecPC, a unit of Hughes Electronics Corp., which also owns satellite TV company DirecTV. Juno Online Services Inc., which has about 3.7 million subscribers, has signed a tentative deal with Time Warner Cable and another with Comcast Corp. Earlier this fall, Juno also said it will offer DSL service in 39 markets.
Microsoft Corp., which is trying to build its MSN Network into a serious rival to AOL, has a pact to offer two-way broadband over satellite and also has a relationship with a DSL provider, Brooks said. It does not yet have a cable relationship. Microsoft's Internet access service has about 3.5 million subscribers.
Some analysts think 2001 will be the year for MSN to narrow the gap between itself and fierce, long-time rival AOL.
"The one to watch is MSN. They have got the money and resources and power of Microsoft behind them. They don't have to make money because there is value in (Microsoft's) contact with the customer," said David Smith, an analyst at Gartner. <<
- Eric - |
