Say goodbye to Speakeasy

[Anthony Gabrielson]

At 01:33 PM 8/7/2005, Jerry wrote:
>On Sun, 7 Aug 2005 11:15:23 -0400 (EDT)
>
>In the strictest sense, ISPs, like Speakeasy, Earthlink, and AOL among
>others could be frozen out. But, this also leaves them open to state
>and local regulation. We'll seen how the broadband operators (eg. cable
>and phone companies) react to this as well as the ISPs, like AOL and
>Speakeasy. I suspect that there is going to be a lot of legal
>scrambling.

I thought the point of redefining DSL is to make broadband+ at max a four 
horse race.  From what I have read it looks as if the government would like 
to see more companies looking into power lines and long range 
wireless.  I'm sure AOL has seen this coming for some time since they are 
departing from the ISP market and are in transition to become a portal 
service provider with income based solely on advertisement.  Other ISPs, if 
they have any hope of survival, will have to start getting more in to long 
range wireless infrastructure if they would like to continue in the ISP 
market.  I'm sure at the same time the speakeasys are tooling up the power 
company will begin to offer total convergence of power, internet, cable, 
and telephone; to much money will be lost if they don't.  Although this 
decision does hurt smaller companies it will help convergence and the 
customer in the long run.  I think in the end there will be one of two 
options available per home one bill to the power company and another bill 
to another company for the other three or just one bill to the power 
company.  The result in the long run, in my opinion, is better for the 
consumer as we will have more options for all of the services we would like.

Just my .02,
Anthony