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To: Mkilloran who wrote (4292)	1/14/1999 10:54:00 PM
From: Jay Lowe	Respond to of 29970

>> 640kb doesn't match up to cable service Couple of issues: 1. What matters is the actual performance, not the signaling rate. 2. A 640 kbps DSL line might or might not outperform a cablemodem ... it all depends on what's upstream of the last mile. Events of the last week shift mid-term focus from the last mile bugaboo inward to the headend, switches, carriers, NAPs, etc, etc. DSL has some advantages over cablemodems ... I can upload at a real 768k to my ISP all the time, regardless of what my neighbors are doing ... the DSL architecture just has somewhat different loading dynamics than cablemodems. 3. DSL can, on average across configurations, keep up fine with cablemodems ... the bottlenecks are inward. 4. ATHM has a strong lead in building an overall network structure that can support pervasive broadband. 5. SBC, BA, etc have not bit this bullet yet ... they are more likely to create "very high speed waiting" than ATHM, although there are lots of unhappy ATHM users whose cablemodems are little better than 56k when they need it most during peak hours. ATHM is intimately familiar with the problem, SBC and BA only know it by name. ;-) It's almost as if the "last mile" issue is over for the near-term, although the claimed offerings have yet to play out in practice. The focus will shift to "effective performance". It remains to be seen whether ATHM can (1) make this clear to Joe Surfer, and (2) leverage their head start into market and mind share. The DSL .vs. Cable dialog will be wonderful for both parties ... both camps will sell more service, sign up more subscribers, add more value to the net experience ... both camps will benefit from the expanded market. Heck, everyone from box-makers to mousepad designers will benefit from the furor to come ... the entire spectrum of the computer industry stands on the threshold of new levels of end-user value. Fat pipes are bullish for the entire PC industry ... and after several years of waiting, it's great to see the vendors tripping over each other in haste to make (stake?) their claims.

To: Mkilloran who wrote (4292)	1/14/1999 11:57:00 PM
From: ahhaha	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 29970

PacBell sets their basic DSL service at 256/64 @ $60/mo. This is a realistic speed. If they thought they could pull 640, do you think they wouldn't offer it? Well, they do offer the higher speeds, but then the price starts getting way outside of what marketing claims people will pay. In a way it is a ploy by PacBell to discourage the higher speeds which play the devil with their circuit switched networks. They have gambled that they won't get much business interest which would opt for the higher speeds. If the gamble fails, they have one helluva mess, because they can't deliver even a 1% penetration of the business market without blowing out and shutting down POTS. That is like criminal. PacBell didn't want to get into this can of worms, but their parent sees that the only way to avoid being forced into competition in local telephony by the nascent advent of cable would be to blunt the advance with a False Dmitri. Edsel front running by the people's ISP, AOL, will keep the public pacified, they think. This puts off having to acknowledge the true Tsar, thus sparing them the horrible losses that Fisher's competition inevitably brings. The problem is that this strategy won't work. DSL is not a viable technology for the application RBOCs have in mind. You don't discover this until you try to scale. Then you discover what previous assessment revealed: the existing copper circuitry can't support much more than what it handles today. High speed Internet must have its own network, a cable network, the true Tsar of all the Russias.