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

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (2391)	11/26/1998 11:44:00 AM
From: Frank A. Coluccio	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12823

Hi Ken, >>Nortel's 1-Meg Modem, a high-speed access technology that integrates into a DMS-100 switch, also is being offered as part of an integrated voice and data strategy under the Extreme Centrex marketing banner. << Sounds good, and similar to an initiative that LU currently has in their # 5 family. The 1Meg option may be limited, however, due to a dependency on metallic loops. Most large centrex users derive their services from on-site channel banks and remote switching modules /concentrators which are fed by T1s. Unless, of course, the vendor hopes to convert these, too, to DSLAM-enabled devices. Hey, they've come this far, why not? I would look to this 1 Meg feature to be more widely accepted in the residential last mile where the DMS is the switch of ILEC choice, in other words, than I would in the Centrex mode. My local BEL CO in Brooklyn, for example, uses a DMS 100. I could see this possibility, real well, as a potential knock-out punch to Time Warner (who, I might add, are dragging their feet, unforgivably). I wouldn't mind being among those beta-testing this for BEL in my residential area, in fact. Beyond the raw transmission power enabled by the 1 Meg feature, a lot would also depend on what kind of back-end (towards the cloud's core) provisions the DMS allows, and much, if not all, of this is an ILEC-determined marketing call. The transparent wirelss feature I'd have to look at more closely. The look and feel of this, packaging, in other words, may be a difficult nut for them to crack. The IP roaming capability seems to be more relevant, but this too will require a large degree of orchestration... lining up the stars and the planets just right... and not forgetting to include every asteroid and meteroite in the process. The concept has been discussed for a long time (in Internet Time terms). If it could be implemented with significant numbers, in order to consider it a success, it would indeed portend to blur the lines, i.e., make the VoIP and PSTN seem more whole, for certain applications. But given the time for acceptance, digestion, and eventual implementation by the largest ILECs [that so-often-spoken-about chasm ] where this would be pertinent, I would look to other similar capabilities coming from smaller startups [perhaps ISPs and ITSPs} to come across the finishing line first. And whose service would this be? The ILEC who sells the centrex, or the ISP or ITSP or the remote ILEC's? When the less significant forms of service providers (ITSPs and the majority of the aspiring next gen telcos) have almost bled to death bringing home this proof of concept, then the big boys will be ready with the much larger and more robust LU and NT solutions. IMO. Of course, this all assumes that centrex will continue to survive the test of time that this will take in order to come to widespread fruition, and that centrex itself will not be replaced or supplanted by new modes of voice services by then. -------- Happy Thanksgiving, Ken, and to All here in the "Last Mile" Thread.

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (2391)	11/26/1998 2:51:00 PM
From: Frank A. Coluccio	Respond to of 12823

Ken, and All, here's an early perspective on the Last Mile and Internet communications, written over one-hundred and fifty years ago. Seems to me that it was just as mysterious then, as it is now. ================== ''Thank you,'' said Monte Cristo, ''and now, please allow me to take leave of you. I'm about to go see something which has often made me thoughtful for hours on end.'' ''What is it?'' ''A telegraph. I was almost ashamed to say it, but now you know.'' ''A telegraph ?'' repeated Madame de Villefort. ''Yes, that's right. I've often seen those black shining arms rising from the top of a hill or at the end of a road, and it has never been without emotion for me, for I've always thought of those strange signs cleaving the air for three hundred leagues to carry thoughts of one man sitting at his desk to another man sitting at his desk at the other end of the line. It has always made me think of genii, sylphs or gnomes; in short, of occult powers, and that amuses me. "Then one day I learned that the operator of each telegraph is only some poor devil employed for twelve hundred francs a year, constantly occupied in watching another telegraph four or five leagues away. I then became curious to see that living chrysalis at close quarters and watch the comedy he plays for the other chrysalis by pulling on his strings." ''What telegraph are you going to visit ?'' asked Villefort. ''Which line would you advise me to study ?'' ''Why, the one that's the busiest now, I suppose.'' ''That would be the line from Spain, wouldn't it ?'' ''Yes. But you'd better hurry; it will be dark in two hours and you won't be able to see anything.'' ''Thank you,'' said Monte Cristo. ''I'll tell you about my impressions when I see you Saturday.'' ============================== From "The Count of Monte Cristo," published in 1844. ============================== And so it goes. Regards, Frank Coluccio