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Technology Stocks : LAST MILE TECHNOLOGIES - Let's Discuss Them Here -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: MikeM54321 who wrote (1584)	7/18/1998 9:22:00 PM
From: Geof Hollingsworth	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12823

So far the two are approaching different markets. Cable is primarily going to the consumer, DSL going to business (either SOHO or telecommuter), essentially replacing ISDN. The 10Megs which are promised by the cable guys is much more than you will experience, since they use a shared-media architecture. Remember, most businesses are not served by cable, but all have copper.

To: MikeM54321 who wrote (1584)	7/19/1998 7:12:00 PM
From: Ray Jensen	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12823

Mike, even more interesting is that for a cable operator, a monthly cable modem bill of $40 to $50 is more than they get from most of their video customers (except for those who get lots of premium channels and order lots of pay per view). Each 6 MHz of spectrum allocated by the cable system for cable modem service can support at least hundreds of customers, yet uses up less than one percent of the total cable system bandwidth. So, it sure makes sense for cable operators to set aside a tiny fraction of their bandwidth for a service where they can get a good revenue flow, and not have to pay out substantial programming fees like they do with video channels. BTW, when you have cable modem, you won't get the full 10 mbps for yourself. Cable modem is like a 10 mbps ethernet bus, shared with all the others who might be using it at the same time. Of course, not everyone is mega-downloading at the same time, but you will probably average in the 1 to 2 mbps download with most well designed cable modem services. Light years better than my 56 kbps dial up! Ray.

To: MikeM54321 who wrote (1584)	7/20/1998 3:28:00 PM
From: DenverTechie	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 12823

There are some fundamental differences between how DSL delivers service vs. cable modems. Some can explain the differences in price. I'm new to this thread and haven't read all the posts yet, so excuse me if this has already been covered. DSL is a dedicated service technology. If a 1.5 Mb/s service is offered by your phone company, you have 1.5 Mb/s dedicated to your line, guaranteed availability at that speed. Cable modem technology, on the other hand, is a shared service and as usage in the network goes up, the speed goes down. Cable operators are generally very careful about engineering their access service networks to prevent a total meltdown. However, a 30 Mb/s service may only deliver 1 Mb/s or less to your computer when all is said and done. There have been early trial scenarios with systems like RoadRunner where the throughput to the end user was measured at 30 kb/s -- making a normal dial up 56 kb/s modem look pretty good. Today's cable modem networks don't let things slip that badly. However, the general public does not know that the wonderful 30 Mb/s service advertised sometimes is not the individual throughput, but the network throughput. Not so with ADSL, where 1.5 Mb/s advertised is 1.5 Mb/s always. Another big difference is the cost of the equipment. ADSL, and especially RADSL, the rate adaptive version, is much more expensive than a cable modem. The ADSL service requires dedicated modems at both ends of the circuit, not just the subscriber end as in cable modems. Telephone company also has to install splitters in front of the central office switch to send the data on its way instead of going through a voice port on the switch. I'm a professional engineer working on "last mile" solutions for telecommunications companies nationwide. I would be more than happy to answer technical questions the thread would post to me.