From: jim bell <jimbell@pacifier.com>
Date: Thu, 4 Jan 1996 13:23:15 +0800
To: Peter Monta <pmonta@qualcomm.com>
Subject: Re: Guerilla ISPs
Message-ID: <m0tXhdq-00092uC@pacifier.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 02:07 PM 1/3/96 -0800, you wrote:
>Thomas Edwards writes:
>
>> [ microcellular nets ]
>>
>> But how can these things compete with @Home, which is promising 10 Mbps 
>> in and 128 kbps out of homes with cable modems?  
>
>I'm skeptical about cable modems---few cable providers have adequate
>return paths, and everyone competes for the downlink bandwidth.
>Broadcast is not the right architecture.
>

Even admittedly with no evidence, I tend to disagree.  I think the world
needs cable-driven "mostly-one-way" Internet access for the same reason we
need both:

1.  Magazines/books (few to many) vs. snail-mail (1-to-1 communication).
2.  Television/radio (few to many)  vs. telephones (1-to-1 communication).

If, as I've heard, you could broadcast 28 mbits per second down a
6-megahertz cable line, that's a lot of "news, weather, and sports" to be
broadcast to EVERYONE, similar to newspapers.  Imagine the entire contents
of USENET,  plus a goodly supply of (encrypted) individual mail, etc.  The
contents of every newspaper in the country, transmitted a few times every
day, etc.

>Any systems in actual operation?  How many users do they support?


No idea.  Wish I knew.