Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 16:14:50 -0600 From: Tony Kimball <alk@Think.COM> To: garyj@frt.dec.com Cc: hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: ADSL Message-ID: <199603192214.QAA13071@compound>
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From: garyj@frt.dec.com Date: Tue, 19 Mar 96 18:01:48 +0100 Subject: Re: ADSL the ADSL modems also seem to be amazingly expensive ! $ 2500 ! Gimme a break. Prototypes. The first production models come off in June < $1k. What would you have paid for a codex modem in 1990, $2k? What would you pay today for the equivalent, $150? How many modems are there? How many TVs are there? We're talking about 100 million plants over the next 3 years. What kind of economies of scale apply? I'll give you a hint: Eniac cost more than a hundred million to build in constant dollars. I can get dozens of them in a birthday card for $1.50. Even if every telco in the US were to devote all of its upgrade capacity to ISDN, it would be 20 years or more before ISDN was everywhere. ADSL is everywhere *now*. 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. Cable modems are a joke. Cable companies can't plant enough fiber, they don't go out of the urban areas, and they run in a bus, so you share one ethernet with 1k other customers. This "it's available everywhere" and "ISDN is obsolete" and "by Christmas ADSL will have won the battle" (to paraphrase a little) stuff is very US centric. Worse than that, I only care about Fergus Falls, Minnesota! It's still true, whether you are in Europe or Podunk, that if you can buy a dry pair to your ISP, you can run ADSL as soon as the price curve hits your payback level. It hits mine in June. SDSL might hit before year's end.
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