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Technology Stocks : Applied Materials No-Politics Thread (AMAT) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Proud_Infidel who wrote (9324)	4/1/2004 6:27:29 PM
From: Dale Knipschield	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25522

Brian, As an ex-telephone engineer, I can tell you that a lot of what Mr. Lucky is true. Without a deep-pockets Sugar-daddy, Bell Labs is but a shell of its former self. Furthermore, the continued technological and regulatory assaults on the Baby Bells have left them reeling and wondering what they're to do, since they are responsible for the "last-mile" of wireline connections. The FCC has basically socialized the use of this part of the network, but leaves the cost of it privatized, to be paid for by the Baby Bells, yet open to phone rivals at regulated rates that come nowhere near to covering the costs. I always likened it to forcing GM to allow Chrysler to use their production lines to build cars. Very little incentive to build new production lines...... As far as the next big technology is concerned, I always thought it would be switched video. That is, universal video service, providing real-time color, and perhaps 3D video service into every home. Everything would ride in a fiber-optic pipe. Voice, data, video......everything. This would gobble up gobs of bandwidth, using up all the existing fiber-optic facilities and creating the need for a lot more. It would also re-ignite the network equipment industry with the need for muxers(routers if you prefer)and lots other equipment to to get the signals to and from the home. But alas, it seems that is not to be. All the money is being poured into wireless, which will never be as reliable, secure and feature-rich as wireline facilities could be. Lack of vision is a good description of what is going on, and it certainly describes our good-old-boy attitude toward the wireline business. State regulators want to keep their jobs, FCC regulators too, so they have to have something to regulate. And besides, the lobbyists and lawyers need the work also. What better than a chunk of the Baby Bells to regulate, regardless of how it ties their hands behind their backs when it comes to developing the local loop. Sad, but true.