re here we go

[David Farber <farber@central.cis.upenn.edu>]

Posted-Date: Thu, 14 Oct 1993 07:43:58 -0500
X-Sender: cbrownst@note1.nsf.gov
Date: Thu, 14 Oct 1993 07:43:58 -0500
To: farber@central.cis.upenn.edu (David Farber)
From: cbrownst@note1.nsf.gov (Charles Brownstein)
Subject: Re: here we go


This should open doors for "program" and "service" providers, IF they don't
screw up and attempt to extract rents that won't let them profit. The
appetite for content will just expand to meet the bandwidth, if the
Internet is any indication. 


The bigger issue is "when will the mix of technology cost curves get into
the reagion to merge and create appliance-style/cost multi-media boxes"? I
heard a blurb on NPR about an advance at RPI having to do with capacitors
that provides a 1000x speedup in microcircuitry. If true that could be as
important a source of progress and wealth as the meeting of minds suggested
by the merger.


>"Bell Atlantic Corp. said Wednesday it has agreed to
>buy Tele-Communications Inc. and Liberty Media Corp. for $21.4 billion
>in the second largest corporate deal in U.S. history.."
>
>I have said often that the market place for the home is limited by a
>historical unwillingness to spend more than a given % of household income
>on communications and entertainment. When the telcos and the cable people
>were fighting they could battle for their percentage of that amount of
>money. Now since they are merging they will have to figure out new things
>to stimulate the house to spend more total money. Maybe we will not have
>500 channels of mush after all. Then again they might not see it that way
>and try the mush route.