To: Frank A. Coluccio who wrote (2437 ) 7/12/1998 1:02:00 AM From: ahhaha Read Replies (2) | Respond to
Telephony on cable is still in the development stage. The cable MSOs think in terms of providing tv, internet, complex broadband services, and telephony. I can't see trying to swallow all of these at once. Eventually they will come over the cable, the fiber optic only cable, but for now, telephony will remain in copper. The MSOs need to concentrate on delivering the first two. T isn't compromised. A new company, ATT Customer Services, is being created with its own stock, to handle the cable aspect of T-TCI. There is no reason they have to make a headlong plunge into trying to get telephony coming over the PC. It isn't realistic because each owner of a PC must add new software and hardware to an already bloated box. Even if you don't have a PC, how do you detect the telephony signal coming in on the cable without new hardware expenditure? Who is going to underwrite that? The public would balk and stay with analog. Maybe DSL can own the telephony aspect operated by RBOCs granted local and long distance. Congress's concept of competition is protected under this regime. DSL gets dedicated to copper where it's king, and telephony doesn't have to be jammed onto the multimedia conveying cable. I never liked this telephony on my PC just like I never liked tv shows on the PC or the web on tv. Maybe some people are too poor to have three media devices. Hard to believe given falling PC and tv prices. I've always felt that cable, DSL, and satellite, are complementary technologies just like I believe the same with AOL and ATHM. To a certain extent all of these overlap so there is a competitive element among them too.
