Broadband Is Dead

[Suki]

Here's an article on it. I don't think this will coming true. If it is, cable broadband would be around.

 

[MaxDSP]

Im pondering about getting DSL or cable, as soon as I get a decent job.

 

[Koeppster]

Cringely has his moments, but this is not one of them. He's a pompous tw*t who's incorrect as often as he is right. But then again, he's a pundit, so that shouldn't be considered unusual.

Check /. from a few days ago, they thoroughly trashed his opinions there.

 

[khtm]

That guy is an idiot.

"Fiber to the home is years away in any volume, I'm told by the very folks who have so far invested hundreds of millions trying to provide it."
Some cities in Canada already have fibre optic cables running all over the city, with "fiber to the home", as this moron so intelligently put it.

"So-called 3G mobile systems are being scaled-back and cancelled like crazy the world over."
This is my favorite. Little does he know that 3G is becoming more and more of a reality everyday. Motorola, Erickssen, and Nokia are the 3 big players, and they are all getting many big customers all over the world as we speak. BTCellnet in Britain is setting up a 3G network care of Motorola, for one example. In Japan and Germany there's tons of work being done on 3G. Just because it hasn't hit North America yet, means jack sh!t. We're always the last to get new technology. Plus, there's not a need for it yet. Land lines are so cheap, and so is internet, so we as consumers don't need packet-switching wireless communication yet.
But in Europe and Asia, the population is so dense and cell phones far outnumber land phones, so there's a HUGE market.

 

[StageLeft]

Broadband IS dead, or certainly dying. By this, I mean that the industry for providing homes and individual users with Internet access at speeds in excess of 500 kilobits-per-second is not generally viable, and the current players in that business are likely to decline over time.

I can say right here and now and I'll back my statement to the death: The above quote is utter bullsh*t. This guy is a clown. I don't give a damn if these ISPs are not profitable now; if they are not their business plan will change.

I pay $40/month for my cable modem. Would I be willing to pay twice that? OF COURSE. Most people would not be, but many people including many people here and across the country would be. I can't think of anybody I know who has made the switch and would ever go back to modem. As long as there are people like me willing to pay 2X then the company now has twice the revenue (as long as the services and infrastructure are appropriately in place to serve less of the populous efficiently enough).

Morover with technology changing all the time (apparently successful tests have now been done delivering broadband over telephone lines - its not just on paper now) and bandwidth getting cheaper all the time there is no reason to believe this guy.

Its almost as dumb as those people who say that the internet is just a phase. A flash in the pan and in a few years we won't care anymore. Are these people really so blind?

So-called 3G mobile systems are being scaled-back and cancelled like crazy the world over. If broadband can't even make it to your handset AFTER the investment of tens of billions of dollars, why should we expect it anytime soon in areas where money has yet to be spent? We shouldn't.

Oh really? Thats funny. On Tech TV two days ago I saw a display in Japan of a video cellphone and they promised that by the end of 2002 the entire nation would have support for this high-speed wireless cellphones. I don't know what technology they use but it sure contradicts his phrase that mobile systems are being scaled back.

So there is a fall-off in demand, a fall-off in carrier incentive, a fall-off in participation and enthusiasm among content providers, AND we are entering a recession.

Ah, brainiac, perhaps all these things are happening BECAUSE we are entering a recession. Most industries right now are tightening the belt!

Even the cable modem users who are happy would be unhappy if their providers cut back their bandwidth to something economic or added users to the point where the service was profitable. Right now, cable modems don't have to be profitable, but if they became popular enough, they would have to show a profit, and then that service would suck, too.

If they became more popular perhaps they would start showing a profit? I would be willing to have my speed decreased. I don't need 500kB/sec downloads.

3 year old predictions, now proven wrong by time

 

[Soybomb]

Actually to some extent to do agree with him, in that in a tad rougher economic times like this some broadband companies are gonna have a rough time. Does that mean they will die? No. I will admit though that personally I don't feel as though DSL and WiFi are very viable broadband types except in very metro areas.

Lets face it, DSL is too expensive almost everywhere. Here for 512k/128 I'd pay a $30 line charge to verizon and a $30 service charge to an ISP. After tax on the verizon thing I'm talking about $65 a month? No thanks. Ohhh and thats if I'm not too far from the CO, they have enough lines open (they have none open right now), and then they still ask for a 3 month window for hookup. Sure, great service. A whole lot of areas of the country are like this too.

Wireless....its just too expensive for equipment on the ISP end. I actually wanted to start a wireless isp but after seeing equipment prices I changed my mind. Unless you're in a very densly populated area where you can get alot of customers on one node then costs to customers would have been as high as dsl.

This leaves cable modems, the one that will prevail in my eyes. Alot of american households already have cable running into their house, if not on a pole 100 feet away in the backyard. You don't have to worry about free lines, distance from the CO, etc. Line charge? Nope, just pay the cable company. I'm currently getting 512/512 for $29.95 a month. Now thats a true deal, if that keeps up broadband will flourish.

To me cable is just the most practical and if properly managed (not that I'd point fingers @home....) can be profitable too.

 

[StageLeft]

OH GOD this is great: Why Yahoo! is worth $30 Billion <- written 2.5 years ago.

 

[khtm]

Well said, Skoorb; on both posts.