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

To: Frank A. Coluccio who wrote (10834)	4/2/2001 4:03:50 PM
From: MikeM54321	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 12823

Frank- You know I, of all people, really hate to admit it but I've been on a cable modem for about two years. There is really nothing more I can do on my cable modem than I could do on a dial-up. It's not nearly as nice as the advertisements paint. Nothing is instant. And as you know, I've swapped back and forth between two providers with little difference. Not to say it's not better than a dial-up, but only marginally. Video is terrible most of the time. Starts and stops like a dial-up. For example, I just wanted to watch a little clip on the Sprint broadband site. As soon as I hit the video button, I swear at least 50% of the time, it doesn't work. This time it didn't. Also I can't listen to CD quality Internet radio because it's maddening to hear the skipping of the music. MP3s do download nicely but I don't bother with that much. Digital cable radio music that's pumped through the STB and into my stereo is nice. Now that's an advantage a digital HFC system offers that works. As you know, that's not a discrete channel. It's broadcast. And as we talked about upstream, digital delivery of TV signal is no better than analog on Time Warner's system. Quality on GTE's Americast system was markedly better than their analog signal. But most people on this thread report no difference in digital cable quality over analog cable quality. Another false advertisement by the MSOs. All in all, it's pretty frustrating. When the cable modem does work well (which is about 5% of the time I'm online), it does make me understand the potential. BUT I'm afraid there is nothing compelling about it. I'm really afraid that some CM users will give up on the service because of this. The real advantage, IMO, only comes because I don't have to dial-up and make the connection. Are users willing to pay an extra $20/month for this feature? BTW, when I pull up TV guide or movie theater listings, it's a painfully slow process. So it makes me wonder exactly what advantage I have. I can dial-up and get the movie or TV listings just as quickly as my cable modem will allow. In other words, not only is the local loop of poor quality, the Internet IMO is plain broken too. But what new technology hasn't been when first rolled out? I expect the Internet is not an exception. Someday it will work reliably. At least that's my hope as I pour tons of investments dollars into the telecommunications black hole. Ouch. -MikeM(From Florida)