Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : AUTOHOME, Inc -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jay Lowe who wrote (5585)	2/19/1999 3:16:00 PM
From: ahhaha	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29970

Some of the veterans and I discussed this in the past and we stopped because we didn't want to alarm ourselves too much, but I guess we should get Dave, Frank, Jing, Franz, Bob Zacks and some of the technical others to start considering this. I'm sure we will be hearing plenty from the field, but we should try to insulate ourselves by anticipation.

To: Jay Lowe who wrote (5585)	2/19/1999 10:07:00 PM
From: ftth	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29970

Hi Jay, re:<<Think of all the human factors associated with an always-on PC ... PCs themselves aren't ready for always-on primetime. At least MINE aren't! Damn noisy fans, high-freq whines, etc, etc. My phone doesn't whine ...>> Remember.......future, future, future. This is only an issue with CURRENT generation PC's (and internal modems), since they weren't designed with this always-on application in mind. TV's didn't used to be 'always on' either, but you'd be hard-pressed to find a house without an IR remote controlled TV (which is always sucking a small amount of power to keep the IR receiver circuitry alive). Same basic idea with the always-on modem. Two years from now (maybe less) you won't even be able to buy a PC without platform and OS power management features to support always-on communications devices. It's not a big deal. Wake-On-LAN already exists as a baseline. Probably the hardest part will be getting MSO's to change (i.e. reduce) the frequency of their periodic modem polling which is sometimes so frequent it defeats the whole awake/drowsy/asleep concept. Hardware and software manufacturers will (are) respond to this in a flash. MSO's still have to approve the technique...and that requires a group to make a decision! Politics will be the roadblock, not the technology. Still, you don't HAVE TO keep it powered on all the time. If you shut it off, you just have to wait through the full initialization procedure each time you turn the PC back on. Much more time consuming than a telco modem initialization because it is doing much more (even longer once there are security implementations), but we're still talking less total time than it takes NT to come up :o). That's something you'd just have to accept until you got a "multiple states of consciousness" PC that implemented an MSO-approved method. MSO's will have to bend though. Internal modems will happen and people will just shut them off when they're done (there have been rumblings about Internal CM's for at least a year and a half). This wreaks havoc on the MSO's network management model. It's in their best interest to agree to an always-on compromise of some type, and quickly. In general, it seems the internal modem is the inevitable (I hear the "loud sucking sounds") platform of choice since it provides such a cost and service reduction potential, and provides the all-important pre-configured OEM-modem bundling. This was such an important factor in the mass-market proliferation of PC-internet use via telco modem, but it is seldom mentioned. It was absolutely vital. Sure there are forces fighting it, but once they see the service not taking off the way they had hoped (simply because Joe consumer can't afford to buy a $300 modem, or lease one for $20 a month on top of monthly subscription fees), the mass-market value of a sub-$99 broadband modem will be forced upon them. The customer service and truck-roll concerns will be solved. If we can put men on the moon we can sure as heck solve the OEM-bundled broadband modem issues. dh

To: Jay Lowe who wrote (5585)	2/20/1999 8:51:00 AM
From: Dana Merrill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29970

And that's not the least of it. Think of all the human factors associated with an always-on PC ... PCs themselves aren't ready for always-on primetime. At least MINE aren't! Damn noisy fans, high-freq whines, etc, etc. My phone doesn't whine. I get the feeling that that there is a general assumption on this thread that you have to have a PC for VoIP. While this is technically an option, I don't see that it is feasible for primary line phone service to depend on a PC. Instead, I see IP phones with a digital connection to the cable modem (eventually). Alternatively, (and/or transitionally) an IP to POTS converter between the cable modem and existing in-house wiring will convert (or interface) existing phones (and in-house wiring) to VoIP service. No PC required - or desired. -dam