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Technology Stocks : George Gilder - Forbes ASAP -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bill Fischofer who wrote (1002)	3/14/1999 11:57:00 AM
From: John Stichnoth	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 5853

Seems that the three technologies, Cable, DSL and FBBW are going to coexist for a long time, with different ones being dominant in different areas. Cable is leading the rollout, as you note, but has some inherent limitations and costs that DSL does not. Also, Cable is simply not available in some areas, and never will be. DSL is leading FBBW in rollout, and has an advantage over cable in cost (a twisted pair costs a lot less than a coax strand), and an advantage in capacity. But DSL's got some real achilles heels as well, not least of which is that the version being installed is not broadband but instead mid-range at best. Bell Atlantic's rollout features 90kbps upload speed. Not great for the early adopters who want to be able to transfer megabit-sized spreadsheets between their home and office. I have also read one estimate (can't remember where) that only 70% of homes will be able to have dsl service, because of all the filters and other crap the telcos have sitting on their lines. I still don't have a feel for the timing of FBBW's rollout, or the expected costs, bandwidth and capacity limitations. I would think that once the basestation costs can be brought into line this would be a real world-beater. But by that time both Cable and dsl will be entrenched technologies. Just my thoughts. JS