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Technology Stocks : Texas Instruments - Good buy now or should we wait? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JMD who wrote (3058)	2/13/1998 7:52:00 PM
From: pat mudge	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 6180

[Cable vs. DSL] Mike -- I used to think there was a war, now I think it's a matter of the guy with hip boots taking the river and the guy with army boots taking the ridge. Cable is shared bandwidth. In the evening when one neighbor is downloading Playboy centerfolds and another video games and yet another a browser upgrade, your speeds could become unacceptably slow. And because it's shared, cable is also insecure. An amateur hacker could break into your files and do whatever hackers do. In addition, older cable lines don't have two-way capacity and will require a phone line for upstream transmission. ADSL will be offered primarily through telcos and competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs) and will be attractive because of the quality of service they provide. The bandwidth will not be shared and access will be secure. Also, it's "always on" --- 24-hours a day. Right now cable has the advantage of being more readily available, however, once DSL is deployed, I suspect it'll be the preferred service. At that point I don't think price will be a differentiator. If you're interested in what MCI's doing, mark your calendar for March 11 when they're holding their annual shareholders meeting in Iowa to show-case their rural highspeed service --- in this case, in conjunction with a power company. (Do subject search on MCI's home page under "ADSL" and can read about their trials.) Back to the comparisons, cable is targetted to the residential market because many business environments aren't wired, and ADSL to the business market because copper's already there and they'll be more likely to pay the early-adapter prices. Being an avid ADSL fan, I've cheered the deployment of cable simply because it's the only way telcos will be pressured to move a little faster. People warned me RBOCs were slow but I had no idea what that meant. I guess I thought it was like pulling building permits at the City Hall. Agonizing but in the realm of days and perhaps months but not years. There are lots of other issues involved, for example who'll own the equipment and who lease from whom --- telcos, ISPs, CLECs --- and so on, but that's not really the issue. The main issue is between the RBOCs and the FCC and who pays what when service is unbundled. Discussions for another night. Later -- Pat