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Technology Stocks : MindSpring Enterprises (MSPG) Another ISP. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sauron who wrote (413)	8/7/1998 9:14:00 PM
From: Mr Bones	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1434

I am interested, thanks for the info and I hope you will continue to keep us updated. I disagree with a couple of points in your post. > What does this mean for MSPG and its hopes to offer > high speed access to residential subscribers? > It means that they won't be able to offer high speed > access over phone lines or over cable lines > (because the cable companies also have no > requirement to resell). I think the phrase "won't be able to" is incorrect. I would change it to "are not guaranteed to be able to". As in msg #407, Internet Ventures is selling cable access through existing ISPs. According to a May article in the Raleigh News & Observer, xDSL offered by GTE and/or BellSouth in the Durham, NC area will be resold to ISPs at what seems to be a reasonable price. This news is a bit stale now, but the point is still valid. MSPG is not locked out of the high-speed access market -- yet. It could happen, but the owners of the high speed access (currently cable or xDSL) have to want to be ISPs and have to want to lock everyone else out of that market. This seems like a possible scenario, but not at all a sure thing. > I wouldn't bet there will be a thriving dial up ISP > market in a couple of years!!! The August issue of Wired has an article about ISPs (Bit Players, p92). Here are a few quotes from that article. - "These days an ISP can expect to sell each dialup customer for $150". (p94) - "During the last two years the number of ISPs in the US has exploded from almost 1500 to 4500." (p94) - "If the ISP market doesn't consolidate, it will be unlike any market in history." (p95 Eric Paulak, Research Director with the Gartner Group. He is noted by Wired as "the author of an oft-quoted report that projects that within five years, only 400 to 500 ISPs will remain in the US.") - "...Paulak and other consolidation advocates have their vociferous detractors. 'They're morons,' says Jack Rickard, editor of the industry bible _Boardwatch_ magazine." (p95) - "William Schrader, PSINet's president and founder, seconds him: 'I can see there being three to four times the number of ISPs there are today.'" (p95) - Bob Mahoney, BBS "pioneer" runs "one of the most successful [ISPs] in the country [with] 68,000 dialup customers." Bob says, "I have one theory that says dialup will last another five or six years. I have another theory: In two or three years the small regionals will die." (p96) Clearly, there are as many opinions about the ISP business as there are opinions about religion, and almost the same dogmatic timbre in both. Good luck to all, Mr Bones