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Technology Stocks : LAST MILE TECHNOLOGIES - Let's Discuss Them Here -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: lml who wrote (3468)	4/27/1999 3:15:00 PM
From: MikeM54321	Read Replies (5) \| Respond to of 12823

"IMHO, the ILECs may be sitting back a bit, permitting the CLECs to invest in their infrastructure, establish a pricing structure, only to come in later & undercut them with pricing." lml, If what you say above happens, and the ILECs just go head to head with the DSL Providers, I think we know who will win that battle if a pricing war broke out. Then I suppose the ILECs could pick up the DSL Providers at bargain prices. So maybe the plan of attack by the ILEC's is to just let the DSL Providers come in and then outright purchase them later on, after they establish their networks. This kind of plays into the reasoning that there simply isn't the technical labor expertise for the ILECs to do all the installations and de-bugging required themselves. They will let others do it for them who may be more efficient? But this is not a new investment philosophy. Because from what I recall, on a CNBC interview, the CEO of Covad was outright confronted with this buyout candidate scenario. He really didn't want to answer and said he didn't have a comment on that. He said was just doing what was right for his customers. I think the stock evaluation of COVD has this worked in. I have to check out the other DSL Providers mentioned. I think one of the toughest issues that the ILECs (and DSL Providers) have to deal with is the bandwidth issue. How are they going to compete with AT&T and it's cable pipe? I understand a DSL-lite rollout is the least costly for them, but what will a customer do when he can pay $40/month for 10meg service or $50/month for under 1meg service? Are the ILECs really going to roll out DSL-lite when they know soon they will be competing with a fat cable pipe? I don't think the ILECs took the cable phenonomon seriously before. But now with AT&T attempting to gain local access to 70% (I think?) of the US homes, it's a huge threat to them. Maybe the ILECs know they have to roll out VDSL (with about 6-10meg service) and that is the delay? As you may recall, I did a post on GTE's VDSL trial here. It sounds like it may almost be ready. But then there is that distance from the CO problem to deal with. It sure is tough to evaluate investments in the DSL sector. Thanks for everyone's comments. They have been very informative. MikeM(From Florida)