Comments on: EarthLink, enemy of broadband, seeks Philadelphia deal this quarter http://breitbart.wordpress.com/2008/04/29/earthlink-enemy-of-broadband/ on media and technology Sat, 19 Jul 2008 04:18:35 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=MU By: earthlink http://breitbart.wordpress.com/2008/04/29/earthlink-enemy-of-broadband/#comment-33506 earthlink Wed, 07 May 2008 00:03:02 +0000 http://breitbart.wordpress.com/?p=265#comment-33506 [...] and Corpus Christi systems over to the municipalities and is set to shut down wireless servhttp://breitbart.wordpress.com/2008/04/29/earthlink-enemy-of-broadband/Earnings: United Online Q1 Revs Slip 6 Percent Classmates Revs Up 22 Percent paidContent.org via [...] [...] and Corpus Christi systems over to the municipalities and is set to shut down wireless servhttp://breitbart.wordpress.com/2008/04/29/earthlink-enemy-of-broadband/Earnings: United Online Q1 Revs Slip 6 Percent Classmates Revs Up 22 Percent paidContent.org via [...]

]]> By: A Public Forum on The Future of Philadelphia’s Wireless Internet Initiative « Civil Defense - a weblog by Joshua Breitbart http://breitbart.wordpress.com/2008/04/29/earthlink-enemy-of-broadband/#comment-33495 A Public Forum on The Future of Philadelphia’s Wireless Internet Initiative « Civil Defense - a weblog by Joshua Breitbart Thu, 01 May 2008 15:24:03 +0000 http://breitbart.wordpress.com/?p=265#comment-33495 [...] couldn’t come at a better time. Everyone is hungry to chart a new course, including EarthLink, as I laid out earlier this week. And MMP, which has been offering media trainings to many community and labor organizations in [...] [...] couldn’t come at a better time. Everyone is hungry to chart a new course, including EarthLink, as I laid out earlier this week. And MMP, which has been offering media trainings to many community and labor organizations in [...]

]]> By: Glenn Fleishman http://breitbart.wordpress.com/2008/04/29/earthlink-enemy-of-broadband/#comment-33492 Glenn Fleishman Tue, 29 Apr 2008 18:02:54 +0000 http://breitbart.wordpress.com/?p=265#comment-33492 Now, to be fair, EarthLink can't be called the enemy of broadband. At least 15 years of spectrum and telecom policy, regulation, and jurisprudence are the enemy of broadband. EarthLink cannot get the non-discriminatory wholesale access to wire or fiber that is mandated in, say, most of Europe and Japan. Look at what happened when BT was forced to turn DSL into an infrastructure subdivision that they can't control. DSL raw costs keep dropping. Many providers are in the works. Broadband access has grown enormously in the UK, even in remote areas. And you can get 8 Mbps ADSL for free when you sign up for mobile phone or satellite TV service, among other options. EarthLink's only option for survival was to add lines of business: MVNO (Helio), Wi-Fi (Feather), and some DSL/cable resale through partners that gave them decent prices. None of that has succeeded. I can't blame them for focusing on lower-cost customer acquisition that has a high margin. The last numbers I saw were that 25 percent of Americans accessing the Internet used dial-up. I wrote an article over a year ago for The Economist about dial-up's slow death in which researchers I spoke to were pretty convinced that numbers would continue to fall but slowly in the U.S.; that most people who wanted broadband had already gotten it, except in some areas where it's still rolling out. So there will be a core that wants nothing better than dial-up or doesn't care enough, until such a point as dial-up actually becomes expensive, and broadband is cheaper. In the UK, there's a trend that dial-up will essentially disappear except for specialty purposes within about 2 years. Now, to be fair, EarthLink can’t be called the enemy of broadband. At least 15 years of spectrum and telecom policy, regulation, and jurisprudence are the enemy of broadband. EarthLink cannot get the non-discriminatory wholesale access to wire or fiber that is mandated in, say, most of Europe and Japan. Look at what happened when BT was forced to turn DSL into an infrastructure subdivision that they can’t control. DSL raw costs keep dropping. Many providers are in the works. Broadband access has grown enormously in the UK, even in remote areas. And you can get 8 Mbps ADSL for free when you sign up for mobile phone or satellite TV service, among other options.

EarthLink’s only option for survival was to add lines of business: MVNO (Helio), Wi-Fi (Feather), and some DSL/cable resale through partners that gave them decent prices. None of that has succeeded.

I can’t blame them for focusing on lower-cost customer acquisition that has a high margin. The last numbers I saw were that 25 percent of Americans accessing the Internet used dial-up. I wrote an article over a year ago for The Economist about dial-up’s slow death in which researchers I spoke to were pretty convinced that numbers would continue to fall but slowly in the U.S.; that most people who wanted broadband had already gotten it, except in some areas where it’s still rolling out. So there will be a core that wants nothing better than dial-up or doesn’t care enough, until such a point as dial-up actually becomes expensive, and broadband is cheaper.

In the UK, there’s a trend that dial-up will essentially disappear except for specialty purposes within about 2 years.

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