"Frank Dresser" wrote in message
...

"Dee D. Flint" wrote in message
...
[snip]

The quality of the reporting on BPL is, more often than not, poor:

http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/P81685.asp

That guy doesn't seem to have a clue about the technical problems that the
BPL system has to overcome. I suppose he figures that since the FCC
doesn't
seem much worried about cranky old hams, then BPL is on easy street. I'd
think the financial press would have wised up after the dotcom blowout.


Nor does he have a clue about how people choose to spend their money. For
example he mentions that there is good market potential since 80% of the
internet users are still on dial up. He seems to think that they will
switch to BPL. But let's look at why they are on dial up. It is cost.
Dial up is still the cheapest access and it will be cheaper than the
projected cost for BPL. Unless they can get much closer to dial up in
price, most will NOT switch. There's a dial up service around here that is
only about $10 per month. Even the most expensive dial up in this area tops
out at $20 per month. BPL won't be able to snag a major share of the dial
users no matter what anyone would like to believe assuming their projected
costs are accurate.

Dee D. Flint, N8UZE

"Dee D. Flint" wrote in message
...


Nor does he have a clue about how people choose to spend their money. For
example he mentions that there is good market potential since 80% of the
internet users are still on dial up. He seems to think that they will
switch to BPL. But let's look at why they are on dial up. It is cost.
Dial up is still the cheapest access and it will be cheaper than the
projected cost for BPL. Unless they can get much closer to dial up in
price, most will NOT switch. There's a dial up service around here that
is
only about $10 per month. Even the most expensive dial up in this area
tops
out at $20 per month. BPL won't be able to snag a major share of the dial
users no matter what anyone would like to believe assuming their projected
costs are accurate.

Dee D. Flint, N8UZE


That's another good point. I think $30 bucks a month might attract alot of
buyers to BPL, but it's still not low enough for cheapskates such as myself.
I do think the likely number of buyers is researchable, but reporters don't
always do research. Since the number is unspecified, I'll assume the BPL
folk didn't bring up this fundamental issue in their press release.

The finanical press usually has a disclaimer at the end of their columns.
Something like "Our columnist owns no stock or any other interest in the
company". That's nice, but it would be more informative to the reader if
the disclaimer said "Our columinist has done no research for this column
beyond reading the press releases of the company".

Frank Dresser