Interesting People mailing list archives
re: adsl
From: David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>
Date: Mon, 13 Dec 1993 09:52:39 -0500
Posted-Date: Mon, 13 Dec 1993 08:51:42 -0500 Date: Mon, 13 Dec 93 08:50:16 -0500 From: shap () viper cis upenn edu (Jonathan Shapiro) To: farber () central cis upenn edu Cc: interesting-people () eff org Subject: Re: ADSL The scary thing was that the Pac Bell plan for fiber is not a data highway, but a CATV plant! At least according to the person I talked to, it will be 500 channel delivery system with relatively little back channel capability. They are blinded by the Video on Demand market (even though 500 channels is not enough for that even). Robert J. Berger InterNex Information Services, Inc. Pac Bell is a strange case. You would think that they would have among the highest demand for such services because of Silicon Valley, but just the opposite is true. There are several things going on in Silicon Valley that reduce demand: 1) Presence of BARRNET makes telco provision of service redundant for now, and most customers do not plan ahead on facilities. 2) Largest potential customers (HP, DEC, IBM) have internal private networks. 3) Ease of access to ADN means midrange customers have no need of the telco-provided service. 4) Incompetent implementation of ISDN (lots of islands) has led customers to conclude that the best service is to be had by cutting the telco out of the loop, or by using ISDN to a local POP provided by their company. Also ISDN cost is still prohibitive. 5) Ample supply of expertise for companies that wish to go their own way means people do. The valley is an area where *individuals* have sufficient expertise in sufficient numbers that offering dial-up IP to end customers can be a profitable business. Also, the availability of dial-in POPs, and the cheap cost with which companies can install company-specific POPs within the valley essentially means that the demand is nil. So there is less demand for backbone infrastructure in the computing community in the Bay Area than anywhere else, and a Telebit running V.42 is quite a satisfactory way to run an X terminal or a (slow) dial-up NFS link. Jonathan