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In-Reply-To: Message from Greg Lehey <lehey.pad@sni.de>  of Tue, 19 Mar 96 
 17:07:17 +0700.
Reply-To: gjennejohn@frt.dec.com
Subject: Re: ADSL 
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lehey.pad@sni.de writes:
> > ISDN was obsolete before it ever got started.  How long will people be
> > willing to pay for a 115kb link once commodity 2nd-gen ADSL modems
> > give them a link at 1-8Mb for the same price?  
> 
> First, ISDN BRI is 128 kb/s, not 115.  Second, it's obvious that,
> under those circumstances, the prices will change.
> 

the ADSL modems also seem to be amazingly expensive ! $ 2500 ! Gimme a break.

> > PairGain modems come out in June, and the Willtel CAP offering comes
> > out in October.  You may argue about the relative obsolescence of
> > ISDN today, but come Christmas time, any further arguments will be
> > silly.
> 
> OK, let's have a bet about it.
[deletia]
> I consider it extremely unlikely that it will find much following in
> mainland Europe.
> 

there was a short blurb in one of the European rags recently (c't,
Spiegel ?) regarding cable modems. The Telekom (in Germany) claimed
that they could see no market for such a thing and had no plans to
introduce it. You have to know that the Telekom owns just about 100 %
of the cable TV connections in Germany.

This "it's available everywhere" and "ISDN is obsolete" and "by Christmas
ADSL will have won the battle" (to paraphrase a little) stuff is very
US centric. Wake up ! America is not and never was and never will be the
world. For most of the rest of us ISDN is the only viable alternative
to POTS.

---
Gary Jennejohn				(work) gjennejohn@frt.dec.com
					(home) Gary.Jennejohn@munich.netsurf.de
					(play) gj@freebsd.org