Stardate 20010831.1610 (On Screen): What with the sudden crisis that Excite@Home is in, facing imminent bankrupcy, I think it's important to understand just what it is, and what it isn't. This is not the same as when
DSL companies like NorthPoint went OOB. Those companies were actually responsible for the broadband connections their customers were using, and those customers were left unconnected afterwards. That's not what will happen to cable modem users if Excite@Home bites the big one. Their connections are being provided by local cable companies, none of which are in trouble financially. What Excite@Home was providing was the central server which held the proprietary content. In addition to providing broadband access, it's been a fixture of this business for a long time that there needed to be some sort of proprietary content available for users. That's because they were patterning their business on AOL, which also provides a lot of proprietary content. But AOL doesn't provide broadband, and the proprietary content on cable modem has never been compelling -- or commercially necessary. Without it, with net-news and email and little else (which can be handled by a couple of local medium-sized servers) but still with high capacity connection, cable modems will still be valuable to subscribers. The demise of Excite@Home will have little effect on the cable modem business.
(discuss)
