DSL Prime News Weekly: The Inside Source  July 19, 2001

Dave Burstein
DSL Prime

Ed Whitacre of SBC is an honest man, we are told; his representatives are not, and they are hurting the reputation of the company and the many hardworking people there.

"Pronto is Dead!", could have been our headline, based upon what three different Congressional staffers heard from SBC representatives.

It isn't true, of course—Pronto is behind schedule, but Cisco DSLAMs are shipping into Ameritech territory and Alcatel DLCs into California. I write too often about the Tauzin-Dingell bill, but was outraged by our research. I think there are enough honest folks in D.C. to have hope, but much of what we finding about politicians and lobbyists is as shameful as you fear.

Korea passed 3.5M DSL subscribers, as 6.5M households (40%) have broadband. A million are served by building networks, and the balance by cable. Hanaro is negotiating to buy the DSL customers of Dreamline and SK Telecom. The government proposed a five year program costing $14B to bring VDSL or fiber at 20Meg or more to 84% of the country in 2005. Korea clearly intends to become the most wired country in the world.

AOL, controller of 1/3 of the US Internet, is offering a free month of service on AOL Plus DSL in selected areas to upgrade to the $44/month service.

At the Chicago conference, say hello to Dave Burstein, a round fellow with a beard. Wednesday, he'll be wearing a Bell Atlantic t-shirt, a public proclamations we don't hate telcos despite our strong reporting.

Q2 US estimate: 3,500,000 up 20+%
Official numbers will be coming in over the next two weeks, but CSFB and others on Wall Street have some pretty close estimates. There's a question mark next to all the numbers except Covad, which confirmed. The first number is the total subscribers, the second the probable net adds for Q2. BellSouth and Rhythms are picking up, everyone else flat. The US total roughly matches Korea, a country a fifth our size.

SBC 1,100K? 182K?

Verizon 890K? 170K?

Qwest 375? 70K?

BellSouth 397K 94K?

Covad 333K 14K

Rhythms 95K? 28K?

Broadwing 53K?

Sprint 35K?

Others 200K?

Total 3478K?

Covad continues to suffer from losses through Bluestar and some ISPs.

SBC continues to hold back, installing at about half its capability for financial reasons. They are now explaining the previous claim the numbers were affected by "database reconciliations" is really 25K subs from non-paying ISPs they are cutting off. We knew their computer people were more competent than that.

Note we've added Sprint, most of which is in the territories they run the local phone service, and is a guesstimate since they refuse to provide official numbers.

Copyright 2001 Dave Burstein.
The DSL Prime Newsletter is reprinted with permission.

Numbers
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News
A Warning
DSL Prime Disclosure