Content under pressure

Cable Internet and DSL players continue to talk about swift Internet connections and always-on convenience, but signs indicate that in the broadband market battle, content rather than raw speed is emerging as a more important tactical weapon.

Sprint has announced plans for a high-speed Internet portal available only to subscribers of its DSL service, currently supplied by EarthLink. The portal will offer streaming video clips from MSNBC.com, including content from NBC news and sports properties. Sprint DSL also partnered with multimedia supplier Broadcast.com and interactive games supplier MediaStation.

MSNBC.com has announced similar content distribution relationships with Excite@Home and Road Runner. Road Runner also will draw original interactive sports and news content from News Corp.'s Fox Multimedia division.

The company is "taking a page from the cable modem handbook" by focusing on content rather than just the speed of DSL, a Sprint spokesman said. Subscribers to Sprint DSL - currently available only in Charlottesville, Va., with tests in Las Vegas - will link to a cobranded jump page that's been optimized for DSL streaming. In the case of MSNBC.com, the content may be the same as the network's Web page, but the downloads are coded for transmission at 100 to 300 kb/s. Sprint is putting in either dedicated connections to these broadband providers or caching the content locally to avoid Internet bottlenecks.

The cable networks also are optimizing their delivery systems for high-bandwidth multimedia content.

Excite@Home has been working with RealNetworks to accommodate video on its system, integrating RealNetworks' G2 streaming platform to the cable modem infrastructure. That system is now in the test stage and should be available for wider rollout by the end of 1999.

"You can't pitch velocity forever," said Jim Sheridan, a researcher with InfoProperties Group. "Experience has taught us that eventually some lower-priced competitor will come along and steal your market. Broadband providers have to emulate the America Online model. They're priced above the bulk of the ISPs selling access, and yet they have 18 million subscribers. Why? At least in part, it's because they offer unique content that you can't get elsewhere."

One broadband provider that pushes assets other than speed is Cincinnati Bell's ZoomTown.com. The 8000-subscriber DSL service sells itself on its "enabling functionality."

"I'm bringing in any [application] that has anything of value to add to broadband," said Steve Shoemaker, ZoomTown.com's director of partnership management and planning. The service is testing every video mode, from streaming and live event multicasting to videoconferencing.

Will enhanced broadband experiences lead to more users staying on longer and using more of the bandwidth allotted to them? Cincinnati Bell's pending acquisition of long-haul carrier IXC Communications has Shoemaker feeling confident that he can meet subscribers' bandwidth needs for a while.

"Users with 56 kb/s modems don't really use all their bandwidth, so I can aggregate them at 10 or 20 to 1," he said. "But will broadband shift the way we use the Internet and result in higher bandwidth usage? If I give you 3 Mb, will you find something brand new that you want to do on the Internet and come asking for more bandwidth? We argue about this all the time."