The chart above shows how all three are selling below their values the day Lucent had its IPO in 1996.
What is Broadband?
Broadband is anything that provides an internet connection that is faster than a phone dial-up modem which is limited to about 56Kb/s. I typically get 1,100 KB/s download speeds from my dedicated DSL connection at a cost of $49.95 per month. So for about $10 over the cost of a 2nd phone line and a dial up account, I get an internet connection that is always on and about 20 times faster. This is a great deal if your work depends on an internet connection.
The Failings of Broadband
The problem with broadband is ease of use. The speed and value are great but it is not easy to use unless you are very lucky. The broadband providers seem to rely on customers being as knowledgeable as electrical engineers to figure out problems. Even with my engineering knowledge, I spend hours on the phone with their help technicians when there are problems and I often end up very frustrated and angry.
Can you imagine buying a TV or a telephone if they were that hard to figure out why they were not working? Heck, would you buy a TV or telephone if they had that many reliability issues?
An Example of Frustration
A friend recently got SBC DSL for her home business. It worked fine until some free firewall software she installed slowed her system and we determined it was "spyware" (monitoring what sites she visited). We removed the spyware with "MS Windows Uninstall Software" in the control panel but this caused the DSL connection to stop working. I called SBC and spent about 10 frustrating hours trying to resolve the problem. They said that once you remove that free firewall program they have not figured out how to make customer systems work again other than reformat the Hard Drive and start from scratch! Too bad they didn't warn her to not put load that free software when they sent her instructions on how to connect. I would have reformatted her hard drive but they couldn't tell me if the line to her house was working even though I could log into the network just fine. Something would block data flow between their network and her PC.
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