[10848] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Two-way Internet service from Continental Cable?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Martin L. Schoffstall)
Sat Mar 12 11:28:54 1994
Date: Sat, 12 Mar 1994 09:13:56 +0000
From: "Martin L. Schoffstall" <marty@psilink.com>
To: sundar@ai.mit.edu (Sundar Narasimhan), fidelman@civicnet.org
Cc: jmm@merit.edu, com-priv@psi.com, schoff@psi.com
Actually the PSICable/Individual service supports upto 3 IP addresses in your
home. Faxback information is available at 1.800.79fax79.
As discussed in the roll-out meeting as this scales up we expect the price
for individual service to go down; however, ther are two points that need to
be made here:
(1) first generation PC's didn't cost $1,000, and first generation VCR's
didn't cost $250. General expectation is that the two important curves for
broadband CATV Internet access will mimic those of the PC world, price goes
down, and performance/functionality goes up over time.
(2) While the target marketplace for the individual service is information
workers (who are possibly subsidized by their companies) and net-weenies
(like myself, who might substitute more carbohydrates and beans in their
diets over meat to afford it) the real short term impact is SMALL BUSINESS
(and possibly Medium size business's) who want meta-Broadband connections
today. If you consider what kind of $/month you need to do with your LEC or
CAP for them to install broadband fiber into your business - no small
business started in your home or in some class C wharehouse space is going to
get it in the first N years of business. Yet every survey seems to point out
that small and medium business's create almost all the new jobs in the US.
Given the growing distributed information economy there is the capability to
even the playing field a bit with respect to the small business have-havenots.
I had the opportunity to discuss this with the Mass. Undersecretary of
Economic Affairs (Steven Wallace) who found the argument compelling
especially for a technology area like Eastern Mass.
Marty
As discussed
> But I was disappointed with the pricing. 100$/month for metro access (
> read other CCTV customers) 125$ for internet access. However, this is
> just for ONE computer in your home. If you have a little subnet running
> at home (now -- let's see now, how many of us are there), the price
> jumps to 1K$/month for routing stuff.
>
