🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <2vtces$q80@smart1.svi.org>, HSaal@svi.org (Harry J. Saal) writes:
|> In <ccmillerCssy3w.HDt@netcom.com>, ccmiller@netcom.com writes:
|> >The difference in who provides the infrastructure may be significant.  Telephone companies would charge customers for the additional cost of installation of new fiber-optic cable networks.  If provided by the power companies, the consumers would be savin|> g
|> > money, due both to increased power efficiency and to discounts from the power company for sacrificing power to their air-conditioners, for example, during peak times.  The amount of construction work necessary to install these fiber-optic and co-axial n|> e
|> >tworks also plays a part.  Minimal impact on all environments is obviously preferable.  Digging up roads, diverting traffic and affecting local environments should be minimized.  
|> >
|> 
|> What do you think the "unfair advantage" of a superior infrastructure provider is likely to be?
|> Are they all equal, except for their costs to go from their present levels of cabling in the
|> ground, to some future level? I suspect that this is not the likely differentiator. There is a lot
|> to being successful in this business than digging trenches, and those factors I think will
|> play a big role in the eventual role of the alternate players. Lastly, of the total investment
|> from now to the year 2000, how much of a "headstart" do you really think the utility cos.
|> have, nationwide? In fact, what is the evidence that they have more installed capacity
|> than other providers? If you are trying to protect local environments, I think that the cable
|> company has the highest bandwidth into my house (from the pole), telco next, and the
|> power utilities companies have a 60Hz unshielded line. What am I missing in this picture?


Yeah, it seems to me that since a lot of people have cable anyway, and it offers so much
bandwith, it would be easier to use the cable system, and it would be upgraded over time.
The phone system is in every home, as is the power system, but the cost of re-wiring all the
phone lines (finber to the home), or doing whatever to the power lines (I'm not sure what would
be necessary), would seem more complicated than using what looks like the best in-place
medium for all this super-highway crap (sorry, I am just getting kind of tired of all
these "multimedia" and "info superhighway" buzzwords, usually used by people who don't know
or care what the immense results this can have on society).

-- 

Charles Godwin                             voice phone: (415) 390-3828
Network Operations Center                  email: cgodwin@corp.sgi.com
Silicon Graphics, Inc.

"We don't have to eat your stinking tacos!"  -Beavis

Disclaimer: I speak for only me, not Silicon Graphics, Inc....