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Technology Stocks : COMS & the Ghost of USRX w/ other STUFF -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: David Lawrence who wrote (12055)	1/26/1998 9:22:00 PM
From: jhild	Respond to of 22053

I think they probably are just getting out of the business of access. After all long term this is probably a very low margin business. Not their cup of tea. I particularily liked how they charactrerize the problem as being with a "few" people that use over 100 hours a month as spoiling it for everyone else (words to that effect). They still are not offering any kind of unlimited plan at any price. I would venture to say that internet usage is only increasing. Everywhere for everyone. I am unsure now what their plan must have been in the first place, if all they are doing is to withdraw step by step. I bet they expected to turn a profit this year. :^) Our research showed that while only a small percentage of our customers regularly exceed 100 usage hours per month, these customers consume a significant percentage of our capacity. ibm.net It's been good while it lasted, but now I guess I've got to find another service.

To: David Lawrence who wrote (12055)	1/26/1998 10:47:00 PM
From: drmorgan	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 22053

I think this is noteworthy -- INTC to drop chip prices news.com

To: David Lawrence who wrote (12055)	1/27/1998 10:18:00 AM
From: Moonray	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 22053

Convergence drives 3Com's plans Eric Benhamou, CEO of computer networking company 3Com, says the world is on the verge of a technological revolution driven by the convergence of voice, video and data technologies. Benhamou gives the keynote speech Tuesday at the networking industry's ComNet conference in Washington. He shared his thoughts with USA TODAY's Doug Levy. Q: What do you mean by ''convergence''? A: The major driver for our industry for the next few years will be the convergence of voice and video on data networks. These are the data networks that have been built in the past decade, mostly by large corporations but increasingly in small businesses and consumer environments. A large corporation can easily slash its phone bill if it can move its voice traffic on the data network it has already laid out. And the reason this will happen now is that the data networks we have built have very wide bandwidth and can handle the additional traffic. Q: What do you expect will happen this year? A: I expect we're going to see very rapid expansion of telephony over data networks in 1998. We will have telephone, fax and Internet service on one network. Now that Internet service providers (ISPs) have reached a critical mass of users, they'll be able to differentiate between high-quality service and basic service. You could have one telephone line to your home and access America Online or CompuServe. Then you could click on a telephone icon on your screen and have a telephone conversation via the computer. You would speak into your computer and your voice would travel along the same paths as your keystrokes. The difference is that the network would know that the data contains voice. It will be smart enough to know this is the stuff that has to move fast. Q: Where does that leave phone companies? A: It is a major threat for the regional Bells and long-distance carriers. They have a massive infrastructure that might be obsolete sooner than they expected. The way they are reacting to it is they are trying to get out in front of this wave. Pacific Bell has an ISP division: PacBell Internet. All LD companies also have a division that is an ISP. They are going to make sure their ISPs can offer voice service. Q: What technological advance enables this? A: There's been a lot more intelligence added to the software behind the modem. Network manager programs allow ''policy-based networking,'' in which different types of traffic move at different speeds. A converged network has to have enough intelligence to differentiate between voice and data. Within the past year, the industry has agreed on standards for differentiating between voice, data and video traffic. Q: What kinds of new services would be possible on a converged network? A: When you browse sites on the World Wide Web and want to ask questions of a live human being, you could click on an icon and have a telephone conversation with a human being. The person on the other end would know exactly what Web screen you are viewing. Q: If ISPs start offering Internet telephony, what will consumers have to pay? A: I would expect telephony to be a small extra charge. Technically, the ISPs don't have to make any investment to do this. It's all software. To handle voice, it's only a software upgrade in many cases. There would be no reason to have an increase in fees. Q: On another subject, the PalmPilot hand-held computer has been enormously successful. What new capabilities are you building into it? A: Increasingly you'll see the convergence of different levels of information on it. You'll be able to use it as a pager. Two major telephone manufacturers have licensed the PalmPilot system and are incorporating it into handsets so that the handsets will have data capability. Eventually you could have a PalmPilot for every member of the family. You will have the devices connected to the network, your TV, your stereo. Q: What is the most pressing issue for 3Com today? A: Since the Telecommunications Act of 1996, there has not been true deregulation. The implementation has been mired in very complex regulation and tremendous lobbying by everyone. At some point, you just have to do it. I don't believe SBC and AT&T need to be protected from one another. The Federal Communications Commission has made it too complicated to get to a point of true, open competition. It has an opportunity to do this, and all of a sudden you would have an incentive to create converged networks. Consumers would have lower phone bills and richer services. Q: And how would that affect 3Com? A: Our equipment will be in great demand. We're going to be involved in creating all these new networks. By USA TODAY o~~~ O