AHhaha, have you considered writing for Forbes? The Economist? Harpers?
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I've been involved in the franchise process on numerous occasions. I've had an opportunity to see it from the vantage points of prospective principal, and on another occasion as a consultant, and in the case of a large municipality I did pro bono in the capacity of architect. I can only tell you that running your own strand throughout any major market is not something that comes about overnight, nor is it always possible for multiple additional players to do, in the first place.
As regards your reply, I ran on at length about architectural issues in the delivery of open access and ISP services over Cable, and your reply focused on some new methods (which surprised me) to leverage a buck out of DSL, and the ills of socialism. My premise was entirely centered on Cable.
Anyhow, the following is courtesy of JDM over in the RCNC Thread.
Enjoy! Frank
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forbes.com
Moving beyond early
adopters
For the past few years both the cable companies
and the telcos have been spending billions of
dollars to upgrade their plants and lines in order to
provide consumers with high-speed connectivity
to the Internet. In the past year they have even started to
offer broadband to some but not all of their customers.
"The cable companies have moved faster than expected
to roll out their high-speed modems," says Mark Winthur
of International Data Corp. "The telcos have been
slower, but they're going to have to start moving fast
though because they're in real jeopardy. If they don't
upgrade their connections quickly, they'll get bypassed."
Regardless of whether cable or DSL technology is
superior, both the telcos and cable companies are quick
to point out how committed they are to upgrading their
lines. They like to talk about how much money they've
spent, and how many communities have been
test-marketed, but when it comes to the really important
numbers, they are reticent about saying how many
people they are expecting to sign up. "We're ahead of
sales projections," says Larry Plum, company spokesman
for Bell Atlantic (BEL). "But we plan to pass 14 million
homes by 2000." But "passing a house" doesn't mean
that the house is going to want the connection, however.
In the current rush among the telcos and cable
companies to be the first to provide broadband, the
companies that fail to keep up could find themselves cut
out completely.
"By 2000 a majority of
people in the U.S., could have
high-speed connections of
some kind, either through
cable, DSL, wireless or
satellite."
Nevertheless, people who live in certain areas shouldn't
be holding their breath for broadband. For example, areas
that have newer central offices, plants and
infrastructures can expect to get it sooner, but it may take
a while for other areas, specifically large cities with older
infrastructures. For example, RCN (RCNC), a
Manhattan-based cable provider, has recently started
offering high-speed access--but not to all its buildings.
While the company also plans to roll out service in
Boston, as well as in parts of New Jersey, people who
live in buildings that had been serviced by Liberty Cable,
a wireless cable provider that RCN bought in 1997, can
only get an inferior one-way cable hook up.
"By 2000 a majority of people in the U.S. could have
high-speed connections of some kind, either through
cable, DSL, wireless or satellite," says Cynthia Brumfield
of Bethesda, Md.-based Broadband Intelligence Inc.
"We are talking about 39 million homes being passed by
high-speed cable and 27 million homes by DSL lines. But
that doesn't mean people are going to automatically start
signing up for it. You'll get the early adopters and the like
but the average person probably isn't going to be willing
to spend the additional money [anywhere between $30
and up per month depending on which service is
selected] for high-speed access on top of their current
cable and phone bills."
The proposed fee for high-speed conncections is now
about $30 per month and up. With cable and telephone,
people could easily end up paying at least $100 each
month, which may be too much for many households.
Because more and more people can go online at work
these days, they may just opt not to do so at
home--unless the fees become more affordable. In the
areas where high-speed cable access is currently
available, market penetration is only 2 to 5%. "Initially
people were banging down the doors to get them but
then it stopped," says Brumfield. "The technology
adoption market runs on a curve: the early adopters who
come in first and spend, and they're a fraction of the
population, and then there's everybody else and they
haven't started buying yet."
While it is possible but not likely that these high-speed
connection rates could come down--when was the last
time your phone or cable bill came down appreciably?--it
is more likely that they may go away altogether. That
there's a limited market for people who want high-speed
access is the unspoken truth of the current broadband
business. What the broadband providers are betting on,
however, is that new forms of content will crop up, such
as interactive video games, e-commerce and video on
demand, which will require high-speed connections and
set-top boxes. Inspired by the recent surge in Internet
commerce, which Cambridge, Mass.-based Forrester
Research estimates will reach $1.3 trillion by 2003, up
from $43 billion in 1998, broadband providers seem
willing to suck up short-term losses in order to get a shot
at this potentially huge payday.
"People are attracted to content not technology," says
Broadband's Brumfield. "The mass-market TV-centric
version of the Internet is coming on the heels of the more
elite subscriber-based version. What I think we'll start
seeing in the next few years is that hyperlinked channels
over digital television via set-top boxes with cable
modems offering games, videos, commerce, whatever, are
going to become so valuable that they'll pay for
themselves. At that point the broadband providers could
start giving away Internet access for free."
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