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To: ahhaha who wrote (9262)	5/7/1999 10:07:00 PM
From: E. Davies	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29970

Let's be clear on content. Content doesn't even start until you have a 3 mbps feed. 1.5 barely makes it. This is the heart of it. If this is true, everyone predicting the demise of AOL will be right. Have you ever considered though that AOL might have a better insight into the mind of the average person than all us futurists and technologists might think? Any forward thinking person would never have predicted that AOL would survive this far, much less thrive as it has. Who needs AOL and its closed system with constant barrage of advertising when you have the whole web at your disposal? Who would be willing to pay extra for that? 17 Million people, thats who. Maybe we wise are not so wise. Maybe 33.6/56k will be fine for the masses for several years to come, with DSL more than enough to fill in the gap. I dunno. Eric

To: ahhaha who wrote (9262)	5/8/1999 5:25:00 PM
From: RocketMan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29970

Again, we are in agreement, but the devil is in the details. By the time the cable industry has laid enough fiber, servers, routers, etc, to support 17M subs, 1M simultaneous (AOL's current capacity), at 3mbs, AOL and other ISPs might have some fairly rich content with DSL, though nothing comparable to what can be done at that speed. When will cable have that capacity? 2005? 2006? Let's be conservative and say 2003. That gives AOL three years, and by then they might have 50M subs and be taking in $4-$5B per quarter, again conservatively. With AOL's management being loaded up with TV guys, and with their digging dirt on their new AOL-TV facility, I suspect they are not stupid enough to think they can compete in that market with DSL in the long term. And with the costs of laying infrastructure and providing content, I don't think the cable industry is stupid enough to think they can successfully pull off the entire TV/data convergence thing, even aside from the question of government regulation. I also am not convinced that the future will totally belong to whoever can provide 3mbs feeds. Portable devices might play an increasing role, as indicated by their success in other countries. This summer's rollout of web-capable cellular phones will be interesting. I think what we are seeing is a poker game right now, not necessarily being played very well, because the cards are semi-transparent.