The failure of NorthPoint Communications earlier this year left tens of thousands of DSL customers without service and tarnished the reputation of DSL as a business-class technology.

It's somewhat surprising then that DSL's biggest broadband rival -- cable modem service -- has benefited less from NorthPoint's demise than other DSL providers, such as Covad Communications.

Then again, most cable providers haven't exactly gone out of their way to court business users.

"The cable guys know how to go after consumers," says Adam Guglielmo, an analyst with research consultancy TeleChoice. "And I see them concentrating on maintaining their lead over DSL in [the residential] market, rather than moving into business services."

A reason cable providers haven't gone after businesses is that unlike DSL, cable is a shared medium; bandwidth and security can become major headaches.

"A lot of the cable providers won't even let you install VPN software on your machine," Guglielmo says. If everyone on a particular cable segment operated over a VPN, bandwidth on the segment could be used up quickly, he adds.

AT&T, one of the largest cable modem providers in the U.S., with 1.28 million customers, is a perfect example.

"We're focused on selling and marketing into residential neighborhoods," says AT&T spokeswoman Sarah Duisik. "But if our plant goes by a business we might be able to connect to them."

AT&T wouldn't offer that business any special services, such as VPN support, Duisik notes. The service would be the same as a residential user would get.

Time Warner offers business-class services in some areas, says spokesman Mike Luftman, but the company's primary focus is residential users.

The Time Warner market that's most developed for business-class service is Portland, Maine. Portland has more than 2,000 business-class subscribers, says Jim MacKay, director of business development for Time Warner in Portland.

A basic commercial account for $80 per month includes access to a commercial help desk. The help desk will assist end users with any technical problems, including VPN support, and companies can view the progress of any trouble tickets involving their remote workers through a Web-based application.

Time Warner's Portland office offers a high-end package with a 2M bit/sec downstream and upstream committed information rate service for $600, but their Portland business packages don't include service-level agreements (SLA).

"It's a month-to-month service, rather than a long-term service, so we didn't see the need for SLAs," MacKay says.

A large cable firm concentrating on getting business-class customers is Comcast. Through its Comcast Business Communications unit, it offers managed Internet, data and voice services designed for businesses and telecommuters.

Comcast Commercial Internet Service 2.0 includes a cable modem, router and server; 24-7 monitoring of the network connection; and speeds ranging from 512K to 2M bit/sec.

Telecommuter packages offer connectivity from 256K bit/sec and up, backed by 24-7 network monitoring. The company's list of corporations using Comcast for telecommuters includes Merrill Lynch and AT&T.

And, notes Comcast spokeswoman Sherrie Walters, Comcast is one of the few cable companies targeting former NorthPoint customers. The company is offeriing stranded NorthPoint users packages that include free installation.

» posted by ITworld staff

Network World

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