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Technology Stocks : The *NEW* Frank Coluccio Technology Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Eric who wrote (19115)	1/25/2007 3:00:20 PM
From: Frank A. Coluccio	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 46821

Hi Eric. At first blush I mistook you as another Eric on SI who occasionally posts here, but then I glanced at your profile and saw that all four of your messages to this forum were posted today. Welcome to the board! You bring up a number of interesting and timely points, not the least of which being the position that service providers find themselves in. Consider, on the one hand, the cable and telco camps in their game of 'bandwidth chicken' each begrudgingly attempt to stay ahead of the other with increasing throughput speeds. As the article points out, the cable camp, now seeing that Verizon's FiOS (and to a lesser degree, AT&T's U-serve, as well) is a major form of threat to both their cable modem and video offerings, will be employing new techniques to stay ahead. At the same time each camp is maintaining the ability to use bandwidth caps as a lever to insure that users don't get too much of a good thing, not to mention as a means to protect their own vertical content markets from being displaced by Web-based TV and other forms of bandwidth-intensive multimedia attractions, as well. Ttraffic measurement and the limitations imposed on uploading and downloading have been administered very loosely by most North American providers, to date. But, one needs only to raise a finger into the air to sense that some things are about to change. The entire area of sustainable throughput speeds and total allowable monthly usage has been among the murkiest aspects of the "broadband" proposition, stemming partially from the intentional vagaries that have been incorporated into TOS (terms of service) contracts that users agree to when signing on to a provider's "High Speed Internet" service. Note, HSI is the term that I prefer to use, due to the marketecture implications of "broadband." Ultimately, however, if one were to look closer at the root causes of these uncertainties, they may find that the methodology employed in provisioning 'statisctically' multiplexed offerings is largely dependent on users' whims, habits and oftentimes ephemeral usage patterns. There are stark differences in the consequences found between occasional browsing and sending and receiving email, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the sharing of full-motion videos from Helen's sweet sixteen party with friends and relatives all around the globe. I recently brought the topic of total throughput capping up for discussion in an international forum, however, and found that many users around the globe are already being measured against broadband throughput limits on a routine basis, and are subjected to variable billings each month on the basis of the actual amounts of bandwidth they con$ume. What sometimes happens here in the States, in contrast, and depending on the size and business model of the service provider, is that the service provider may flag a bandwidth "abuser" (their term, not mine) and do one of two things. It may either issue a warning that advises the user to cut back on usage, or else, or it recommends that the user 'graduate' to the next tier of $ervice, sometimes citing TO$ infractions suggesting the user should be subscribing to a 'business' grade of service instead of a consumer grade. But such a wishy-washy form of administration is not sustainable. Like I stated above, all indications suggest that we're about to see some changes, probably over the next year, if not a little longer. FAC ------