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 : COM21 (CMTO) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: OverSold who wrote (422)	5/25/1999 9:36:00 AM
From: Charlie Smith	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 2347

Candace: These regulatory factors will increase cost burden on DSL providers and slow the whole process down for DSL. So yes................ this does help CMTO. RBOCs are hiding behind canard of "regulatory" issues. Real reason they're slow in rolling out DSL is because it cuts into second line growth (residential) and high-margin T-1 (business). Cable building a solid lead as a result. Short-termism at its worst.

To: OverSold who wrote (422)	5/25/1999 12:42:00 PM
From: lml	Respond to of 2347

Candace, sorry, your logic escapes me. Sure, such standardization issues will put a crimp on providers of SDSL. But therein does not lie competition with the core market for cable modems. Most cable access is asymmetric; the download bandwidth is relatively "fat" compared to the upstream bandwidth. This is the model that has been designed to accommodate typical consumer Internet access. Most individuals just point & click on the upstream side & in response receive graphics, streaming audio and/or videos or retrieve large amounts of data from a central database on the downstream side. OTOH, SDSL, or symmetric DSL, as the name implies, provides the subscriber with the same bandwidth upstream & downstream. This model is designed to accommodate the needs of most businesses who rely heavily upon the Internet not for only the receipt of information, but also for the distribution or transmission of large amounts of data. In other words, unlike typical residential customers, they need much more upstream bandwidth. The issue raised your referenced article pertains to SDSL & the broadband access to the business market. Internet access over cable is primarily focused on the residential market, which as I described is asymmetric & competes more directly with ADSL. At Home is named "At Home" for a reason. It is marketed only to residential customers. In fact, it will not offer its service to a non-residential addresses. If you're a SOHO, you probably can circumvent this prohibition, but if your business begins to clog the co-axial pipe, they'll nail you. This is also the policy of most cable providers. They don't want home users operating web servers from their homes & sucking up all the bandwidth in the neighborhood. In certain markets, cable providers do permit deployment of cable access to business addresses. At Home offers another service called "At Work" in these particular cable markets. I believe this cable access is also asymmetric. The bottom line here, is that the issues concerning SDSL as related to cable modems is at most tenuous. Sure, there may be some latent impact, but its anything but material.