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Broadband Is Dead (Or At Least Very Ill)
Thornkin writes: "Broadband is dead. That is the proclamation of tech pundit Robert Cringely. With Excite@Home turning away new customers and going bankrupt along with most of the DSL companies, things are bleak and will get worse. The icing on the cake could be this bill which would remand the requirement for local phone providers to open their networks before competing in the long distance market." And at a different scale, apparently the DSL circuits in Blacksburg, VA (a place which liked to claim it was "the most wired town in America" not long ago) are now full, and turning away residential customers.
Believing what a pundit says is about like giving change for a 3 dollar bill. Tech pundits can't tell their ass from a hole in the ground. If you listen to Bob Cringely predict the future you might as well read PC Magazine's John Dvorak. God, I hate these morons, they think they are "on the edge", or "ahead of the trend", or "with it", or "legit", or "hip", or "knowledgeable about the industry", or "into the scene", or "not completely moronic" because they used napster or once saw a NeXT box or somesuch. Bah! They know nothing. They are about as disconnected from the trends and about as ill equipped (informationally as well as mentally) to predict future trends as is possible outside of living in a tribe in papua new guinea that still eats human flesh.
Keep in mind that these are the same morons who thought vrml, push technology, and internet advertising would be the "next big thing".
The fact is that broadband still has a substantial customer base that is willing to pay premium prices *AND* still has a large base of potential customers who do not have broadband but wish they do. The number of broadband users will only *increase*. Now, the number of small broandband ISPs may do all kinds of gymnastic activities and will most likely be much much smaller in the future. Nevertheless, broadband is still a viable technology, a hot commodity, a viable business, and a profitable enterprise. Broadband will not go away, not now, not ever.
second that...
yet another example why USA foreign policy may still kill us all...
Ah... I guess Broadband would be dead then...