I fully understand the sentiments here.  I ordered DSL service about
seven weeks ago.  I installed it over the weekend, which included opening
up my computer and installing a network interface card. The special modem
always smelled as if it was burning and on Sunday it died.  they are
sending another one but it won't arrive until the weekend.  As they say,
it was great while it lasted.

Kelly



the Chicago Tribune

Broadband dream hits snag

Most Americans unwilling to pay premium for high-speed Web access

By Jon Van
Tribune staff reporter

November 12, 2001

Those in the computer industry who devise high-tech gadgets for mass
markets are confronting what to them is an unthinkable possibility: The
average consumer
may not want a super-fast connection to the Internet.

After years of extolling the nirvana awaiting us once American households
get so-called broadband connectivity to the Web, telecommunications
executives
have become deeply frustrated that a lot of Internet users are saying no
thanks.

In recent weeks such major phone carriers as Sprint Corp., AT&T Corp. and
SBC Communications Inc. have pulled back from aggressive broadband
rollouts. And
two trade associations have warned that waning consumer interest in
high-speed networking will scuttle chances that new technology could
ignite America's
sputtering economy.

While no one is ready to abandon broadband's future yet, the general
indifference by consumers has alarmed the industry.

Matthew Flanigan, president of the Telecommunications Industry
Association, sent a letter to President Bush appealing for tax credits,
rule changes and
other actions intended to promote broadband deployment to American homes.
Flanigan suggested that if nothing is done, a potential $500 billion
stimulus
to the economy will be lost.

"If we don't have an overarching position by the government to say we
want this, it's never going to happen," Flanigan said in an interview.
"At the present
rate of deployment, we're talking something that's 20, 30 years away."

Another industry group, the Information Technology Association of
America, has also sounded the alarm that broadband deployment is
foundering. The ITAA
is concerned that most Internet users seem content sticking with dial-up
connections because broadband proponents haven't offered compelling
content to
attract a mass market.

"We've believed that `If you build it, they will come,'" said Harris
Miller, ITAA president. "That turns out to be wrong. The industry will
have to convince
people that this is a nice highway to drive on."

An ITAA report estimates that about 70 percent of American households now
have access to cable modem broadband service and 45 percent have access
to high-speed
connections using DSL technology. But the majority--so far--prefer their
dial-up connections.

While some 8 million customers have broadband service, more than 61
million still access the Web using dial-up services, the report found.
Contrary to what
technophiles believed, most people don't want to pay extra to make their
Internet go faster, Miller said.

"Zippier e-mail and faster Web surfing just don't appeal to the mass
market," he said.

The ITAA wants the industry to get behind a campaign to promote the value
of telecommuting, electronic education, home health care and other
applications
that broadband can deliver. To date, the industry has spent too much
energy focusing on whether DSL is better than cable modems and wrangling
over regulatory
issues, he said.

"We've turned most of our attention on the supply side of broadband and
given almost no attention to the demand side," Miller said. "I know that
the supply
side issues won't go away, but the industry needs to address the demand
side too, so we can grow the pie and everyone will benefit."

The ITAA assessment has much merit, said Joe Laszlo, a senior analyst
with Jupiter Media Metrix.

"It really does have to be more than faster e-mail and Web surfing if
you're going to pique consumer interest," said Laszlo. "Promotion of
broadband does
tend to bash cable modems versus DSL to the point where a lot of people
think that one technology is going to win out over the other--like VCRs
over Betamax.
Consumers worry they'll pick the wrong one.

"Really it's more a Pepsi versus Coke thing, where you might like one
better than the other but both will still be around."

Installation woes abound

Another problem facing broadband concerns horror stories from customers
who waited for weeks or months to get the service only to find it works
only sporadically--or
not at all.

Scott Bender, a Chicago-based consultant with Bain & Co., said his firm
buys DSL for its employees' homes and has seen the problems first-hand.

"Typically, our folks had to wait three months and it cost a fortune,"
Bender said. "The service experience is bad and everybody knows it. The
further you
go into the mass market, the better your value proposition has to be, and
there are a lot of gaps right now."

A decade ago, when telephone carriers hoped to extend the ultimate
broadband--optical fiber--to customer homes, they searched for a "killer
application"
that could lure customers to spend more each month so the carriers could
finance fiber service.

Interactive television and video-on-demand were offered in test markets
and generally failed to excite much consumer enthusiasm.

When the Internet became a popular consumer medium in the late 1990s, the
telecom people believed that would be their "killer app." But the latest
trends
raise questions whether that's the case.

Most fanatic Internet users have already gotten broadband connections to
their homes, said Greg Mycio, director of broadband analysis for the
Chicago-based
New Paradigm Resources Group. Others with an easily recognizable need for
broadband, such as those who work at home, also have been among the first
to
embrace it, he said.

"When you get beyond the first movers, people begin to ask, `What are we
getting for our money?' with broadband," said Mycio. "We've been slow to
realize
that not everybody cares to spend 10 hours a day on a high-speed network
connection."

One study cited by the ITAA found that among customers who now have
dial-up Internet connections, only 12 percent were willing to pay $40 a
month for broadband,
which is at the low end of today's prices. Indeed, only about one in
three dial-up customers said they would pay $25 a month for broadband,
which is just
a few dollars more than what dial-up service costs.

Carriers step back

If customers won't pay more for broadband, carriers can't afford to
provide it. High costs, few customers and some technology glitches were
behind decisions
by Sprint and AT&T to back away from the fixed wireless broadband
services they have launched.

SBC Chairman Edward Whitacre said his company has put the brakes on its
DSL expansion because of what it sees as onerous regulations imposed by
state and
federal authorities. But Mycio said a more important reason may be that
SBC has found its return on investment in DSL is too low.

Bain's Bender said that SBC and other incumbent phone companies jumped
into DSL a few years ago because the technology had excited public
interest and the
big companies thought having a DSL strategy would boost their stock
prices.

"It's not tremendously surprising now that they're ratcheting back,"
Bender said.

Even though carriers have tempered their enthusiasm for broadband in
recent weeks, experts believe the chances are very good that industry
forces will regroup
and renew the push to sell broadband to the masses. Efforts such as those
advocated by the ITAA or others are quite likely to find a sympathetic
audience
because so many companies have so much riding on making broadband
networking a mass market.

"We've been tracking the slowdown in consumer broadband adoption," said
Ford Cavallari, an e-commerce expert with Adventis, a Boston-based
consultancy.

A lot of the waning interest is related to legal troubles that have
plagued online free music services like Napster, Cavallari said. Some
very big firms
will be hurt if that trend takes hold, he said.

"If broadband continues to slump, it will prevent many services built
into Microsoft's XP operating system from being useful," Cavallari said,
because Microsoft
programmers assumed a growing adoption of broadband networking when they
designed XP.

"They're in for big problems if broadband continues to sputter," he said.


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