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To: Raymond Duray who wrote (2819)	2/10/1999 7:39:00 PM
From: Frank A. Coluccio	Respond to of 12823

Ray, thanks for the interesting contrast. I think that the efforts by quite a few service providers, and eventually the vendors themselves in this sector (the cable modem sector, that is) were already brought before a forum (CableLabs). What resulted, in part, was the DOCSIS model. The problem is this, I believe: The basic assumptions were such that only a single provider [the cable operator] was thought to be the only one responsible for administering their own facilities at the physical layer, and at the data link layer. Things become untenable beyond a single point of administration, when there is more than one provider attempting to mediate the distribution of bandwidth and other resources (effectively, OAM&P) ...using today's existing assumptions and the model as it now stands, that is. At least that is my take of the matter. This translates into a curious set of circumstances, and dubious, at best, when there is contention for the same cable plant spectrum and other resources among multiple service providers. Especially if one of them (TCI or TWX) has a vested interest in ATHM or RR, in the face of the others, such as AOL or Mindspring. To net it out, so to speak, most HFC cable modem plant architectures do not lend themselves to the same kind of discrete link provisioning at the physical level (for each service provider) as that which is afforded by telco twisted pair, or even channelized DS0/T1/T3 services over digital subscriber carrier systems. To change this, it will require time and effort, even before the DOCSIS effort has seen any rewards to speak of, yet. Regards, Frank Coluccio