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To: JDM who wrote (4923)	1/31/1999 12:22:00 AM
From: ahhaha	Respond to of 29970

It is where cable can't reach. There seems to be a penchant to conclude it's either this or that with the mutually exclusive "or". All technologies have niches. Some are broader, some are deeper, some are cheaper, some are dearer. When you are talking about most of the consumer and small business market, everything else takes a back seat to cable. It is a matter of cost and economies of scale arise to create a categorical difference between what can be locally delivered on a price/performance basis in cable versus all other deliveries. At full scaling after economies stabilize cable costs are lower. As a function of scale cable costs are linear in area^n where n = 2 while all others scale at some n > 2 and n < 3. The error rate of transmission is six orders lower in cable although all of them can get around this problem adequately. There are plenty of disadvantages to wireless like line of sight requirements. Others don't think two are significant, but I think they make the consumer access argument moot over the long term: wireless requires satellites and is vulnerable to the solar constant. However, there are many sub-markets that can't be served by cable or even copper. Also, WCII and ARTT are good companies and can do fine regardless of what is happening in the melee in cable. They might outperform ATHM. A company doesn't need a rising tide, it can raise its own boat in any market circumstance. It's only a matter of execution.