If you provide Broadband, business plans will come.
[ Posted by Dan on March 28, 2002 | 0 Comments ]

Last week I was talking to my CFO about wireless tech and how I am unable to get any broadband connection at my home. It's really a pathetic situation since there are several bandwidth suppliers within 5 miles of my home. They include Exodus Communications, AOL, WorldCom, PSI Net, Adelphia Communications and Verizon. None of the above can offer me high speed access, but Adelphia seems to be working to fix that situation by laying fibre and upgraded cable lines right in front of my house (which means it is still going to be a while until I get anything).

Ok, back to my CFO. I was trying to express to him how I thought the lack of last mile solutions (the 'last mile' being that mythical last step to the actual consumer's home) was hurting the networked economy. I argued that there are countless business plans out there that can't be viable until there is wider (not necessarily wide) spread adoption of consumer broadband. One way of doing that sort of thing is by setting up Wireless networks (based on 802.11).

My CFO argued back that I am not a typical internet user (which is indeed true) and that most people are still struggling with email. His point being that lots of bandwidth doesn't mean a new business opportunity is there. And this may be true, but even if most people are still struggling with the basics, there are lucrative markets out there that could be serviced by business plans that leverage broadband connections. To wit, GameSpy has been interviewed by C|Net where they cite the exact dynamic of meagre broadband adoption hurting the viability of more lucrative online gaming.

The video game market is huge, and online games are FAR more compelling that Solitaire to people like myself. What fuels my argument is that there are many people like myself out there playing these games. When I start up Tribes2 (a year old game) and logon, I typically see about a thousand servers. I don't play Quake, but it's market penetration is better than Tribes. Now, add more multipliers, like Unreal, Everquest, Ultima Online, Diablo, et al. Suddenly you have a market that could benefit from the Fat Pipe.

 

Comment posting has been turned off because I don't have enough time and will to deal with the constant comment spamming. I'm very sorry and will fix this sometime soon (soon = before 2004 ends).