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DSLTech
join:2000-12-30
San Jose, CA
| reply to JTC
Re: Why did our beloved DTVDSL go under...........
I dont know if you comprehend the meaning of proprietary. The modems certainly were such.
Thats not to say that you couldnt figure out how to use another modem as some did, but the gateways themselves were made in-house.
The fact is that each customer was adding a certain MINUS $ ammount to the accounts. Until they could reach a particular customer base, or period of service per one customer, there would be absolutely no profit.
Many companies in this field based their pay and budget on 1999 and 2000 rates. There were many people that were overpaid for the times we're currently in. Profit margins for an ISP are quite low, if anything at all. The additional cost of the gateway design and manufacturing broke the camel's back. | |
JTC
Always Mount A Scratch Monkey
join:2002-01-09
USA
 ·Comcast Workplace
 ·Integra Telecom
| said by DSLTech  :
I dont know if you comprehend the meaning of proprietary. The modems certainly were such.
Yes I do know the meaning of proprietary. OK, to be exact, the modem design was proprietary, but that was it. The DSL signal coming from the telco was still the same one used by the 'generic' DSL modems.
This was one of the first things told to us when we were being trained on how the DTV DSL systems worked. One of the smaller issues they had with the setup was that some people would plug in their old DSL modem they got from the telco and, wow, it works fine. But since the DTV modem never got plugged in, it never contacted the OSS server, which is how the accounts automagically moved to the billable stage.
We had a contact at the corporate office who would pass along any information he got from the 'all hands meetings' they had, so we often would find out things that corporate didn't want us to know. Believe me, the cost of the modem design was a very small part.
As for the thin margins at an ISP, I know this fact very well, as I was part of a small local startup ISP that went under. I didn't work the accounting side, but when the entire staff consists of five people total, there are no secrets. 
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