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Technology Stocks : Westell WSTL -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: SteveG who wrote (8738)	1/2/1998 7:12:00 PM
From: Ed (IT Consultant)	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 21342

< ...I have no doubt that in certain markets there may be some competition. Let's see how the services compare over the next 6 months, and in different markets...> Steve, Actually, the recently announced Ameritech plan only costs $49.95 per month during 1998 with the ADSL "modem" included (along with the one-time $150 setup fee). Also, no additional charge to an ISP will be necessary, so this is actually only $30 more a month than what I pay now for 28.8 BPS (bullshit per second) access... The Bell Atlantic ADSL trial in Virginia only costs $30 per month, although I think you also have to pay $19.95 for your ISP, bringing it to a total of $49.95. There is no setup fee or "modem" cost. This is very competitive pricing already, and one would have to be naive to think that the RBOC's wouldn't match whatever the cable offering is (and vice versa) within the same market. I think it's actually quite obvious that price is a total non-issue in the cable versus RBOC battle. Also, anyone under the delusion that the RBOCs will sit there while the cable companies offer flat-rate high-speed Internet services should hop into the shower and wake up (by the way, many of them--RBOCs and cable companies--are my company's clients). Personally, I think that the RBOC's will win hands down over the cable companies. Most of the smoke and mirror arguments about infrastructure issues, regulatory issues, etc. which seem to dominate this thread are in many ways irrelevant. I think the best way to see through the fog is to assume that BOTH the cable companies and RBOCs offer flat-rate high-speed Internet access at the same prices, approximately the same time, and at approximately the same bandwidth. Which would you choose??? I can tell you right now that very few businesses would choose the cable solution over the telco solution, if for no other reason than that they already feel comfortable dealing with telcos. I think this reasoning will also translate into the mass consumer mentality. The consumer will feel comfortable with ADSL as simply "a faster modem." Switching to a cable provider would be a complete paradigm shift. I can see the RBOC commercials scaring the relatively uninformed consumer: "DO YOU WANT YOUR NEIGHBOR TO BE ABLE TO SEE THE WEB PAGES THAT YOU DOWNLOAD!" Whether the cable security is bullet-proof or not, I'm willing to bet Joe consumer sticks with the way he gets his Internet access now: via the RBOC infrastructure...