Chapter 524

The full name of DSL (digital subscriber line) is "digital subscriber line". This technology began to sprout in the late 1970s. In the 1980s, because of the demand of cable TV and network communication for high-speed data transmission technology, DSL technology gradually developed.

In short, DSL is a technology that uses higher data frequency to transmit data through traditional telephone lines.

The biggest advantage of DSL technology is to break through the traditional voice communication low-frequency analog signal can reach the maximum 56KB / s data transmission limit.

ADSL (asymmetric digital subscriber line) is translated as "asymmetric subscriber Digital Subscriber Line", which belongs to a kind of DSL technology.

With standard DSL technology, users should upload and download data at the same speed. However, in practical application, the data downloaded by users often far exceeds the data uploaded. If the transmission rate is equal, it will cause a great waste of resources. ADSL technology just solves this problem.

Compared with DSL technology, using ADSL can double the user capacity of a communication network.

In the past few years, the Internet access services provided by AOL are mainly the most traditional dial-up Internet access technology and the more advanced ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) technology. The maximum network speed of the former can only reach 56KB / s, while the latter is also a data transmission technology that appeared in the 1980s, which can double the speed of traditional dial-up Internet access to 128KB / s.

Compared with the former two, DSL technology is similar to the difference between analog signal and digital signal in the field of mobile communication.

Four years ago, westero just took a stake in quantum link, the predecessor of AOL. Simon used his status as a major shareholder to ask Steve case to buy the relevant patent authorization of DSL technology and invest in the follow-up technology research and development.

ADSL is a new generation of digital subscriber line standard developed by AOL on the basis of DSL.

in Simon's memory, for a long time, ADSL was almost synonymous with broadband, although it was actually two concepts.

However, this is enough to prove the popularity of ADSL technology.

Compared with the original timeline, ADSL appeared at least five years earlier.

In fact, just like the Internet, semiconductors, digital cameras and many other technologies, ADSL has been developed for more than ten years and appeared several years in advance. It just needs an opportunity to promote the development of technology. More accurately, it is a business opportunity that can bring profits to enterprises. Therefore, there is no technical obstacle.

It's like the first human landing on the moon was completed in 1969.

If every space program can bring a commercial return ten times more than the investment, today's human beings may have immigrated to Mars.

In the original time and space, the outbreak of the Internet industry at the end of the 20th century is basically disordered and chaotic.

We all know that there are huge business opportunities, but we don't know which way to go to find the treasure. In fact, this is also the root of the failure of most of the new technology giants in the Internet 1.0 era.

Because I don't know the way ahead.

In Simon's mind, there is a complete treasure map.

Compared with the previous history of major Internet service providers in different technologies, they finally determined ASDL technology as the standard of high-speed Internet transmission. This time, Simon bypassed all possible futile attempts and went straight to the best choice in memory.

AOL, once a super big Mac with a market value of almost US $200 billion, collapsed in just a few years around 2000. To a large extent, the company gave up its fundamental role as an Internet service provider and turned to become an Internet media company. As a result, it completed the management of Time Warner, a traditional content company M & A of the industry.

As a result, in the critical period of the transformation from dial-up Internet access and ISDN technology to ADSL, AOL is focusing on content, but it does not understand that in the Internet era of exponential explosion of information quantity, unlike the traditional Hollywood studios or several major television networks, a single Internet media company is simply impossible to meet the content differentiation of hundreds of millions of Internet users Demand. At the same time,

ashes to ashes, but not to forget the traditional telecom operators who have not forgotten their own business. Finally, in the dual wave of the Internet bubble burst and technology upgrading, AOL has turned into a supergiant ISP ISP Internet Co.

This time, Simon firmly locked in AOL's ISP attribute from the beginning.

In the past few years, AOL has been investing as much resources as possible in the construction of its own backbone optical fiber network and other infrastructure, in order to get rid of the embarrassing situation of renting lines from traditional telecom operators.Now, AOL's line network in its own business area on the East and west coasts has been very perfect, and even has completed a trunk optical fiber laying through the East and west coasts of AOL. At the same time, AOL has been testing ADSL Technology in a small scale.

With the completion of the preparatory work, the number of Internet users in the United States has reached a considerable level, so it's time for technological upgrading.

Before that, if there was no original exclusive agreement signed, even if AOL completed the laying of the main line, traditional telecom operators, relying on their own accumulation of infrastructure for a century, would still be very likely to replace AOL's market position.

However, once the traditional dial-up Internet access is upgraded to ADSL, AOL will have incomparable advantages in the ISP field.

Although it still relies on telephone lines to provide data transmission, ADSL is already two completely different data transmission modes compared with traditional dial-up Internet access. The two sides need completely different equipment to support the ISP access to the user terminal, so they need a lot of money to invest in the updating of the service network. Of course, it also inevitably involves time Cost.

Any enterprise can catch up with and surpass its peers in time and technology. As long as it does not lose its way, this advantage will be easily maintained.

In the next year, AOL plans to invest $1.5 billion to upgrade its service network.

The huge plan involving a huge investment of 1.5 billion US dollars, as well as the crazy bet on ADSL technology, is almost a gamble in the eyes of people who can not see the future.

Because unlike those who plan to equate ADSL Technology with broadband, this era is not without other technologies.

Many senior executives and board members of AOL are more inclined to further upgrade the ISDN technology based on dial-up Internet in order to improve the overall network service speed of AOL.

Upgrading on the basis of the original technology not only greatly reduces the cost, but also avoids the risk of going the wrong way as far as possible.

You know, once the ADSL technology is developed, it is not as good as expected. Then, AOL will lose not only 1.5 billion US dollars, but also the whole company.

Just like the mistakes made by AOL in the original time and space on the fundamental development route of the enterprise.

Therefore, this plan is the result of Simon's strong promotion by taking advantage of westero's absolute holding of AOL.

On January 20, Simon stayed in New York during the day to attend the high-level meeting of AOL, and didn't fly to Washington until the afternoon.

On the same day, Bill Clinton officially took over the White House from George Bush. The inauguration ceremony lasted until the evening, and a grand celebration ceremony was held in front of the Lincoln Memorial.

Instead of going to the celebration, Simon met several members of Clinton's cabinet at a cocktail party in another part of the city.

There is still no direct contact with Clinton himself.

However, Simon also got the information he wanted this evening.

Clinton promised to visit Silicon Valley at the beginning of March. In the same month, the US Congress will have a final vote on the information superhighway plan. After the recent transition, both the Senate and the house of representatives are in the hands of the Democratic Party.

Therefore, compared with the time point in September 1993 in Simon's memory, the launch time of this spatiotemporal information highway plan will be half a year earlier.

Although it's only half a year, Simon knows how strong the national level plan will promote the whole Internet industry.

Most intuitively, the information superhighway plan must be accompanied by tax relief and subsidy policies for new technology enterprises. Even if the technology companies of westero system are not short of money, they can make their own capital chain more abundant. At the same time, this plan can further promote the flow of capital to the new technology field and promote the continuous outbreak of the Internet industry.

After the inauguration of the new US president, AOL's ADSL upgrade plan also came to light.

Prior to this, AOL's internal differences over the plan have led to a keen sense of the media's attention.

With the official announcement of the upgrade plan involving $1.5 billion capital investment, it once again caused a hot discussion in the media.

After completing the ADSL plan, AOL can easily break through the existing speed limit based on dial-up Internet technology, and provide users with a network speed of more than 256Kb / s.

256Kb / s, equivalent to 32K data download speed per second.

At the present stage, most of the stand-alone games in igritte software store are only about 1m in size. In the past, the Internet speed was 56KB / s or 128KB / s. It took a few minutes for users to complete the download after purchase. Once the ADSL upgrade is completed, users can download the same games or software in one minute.At the same time, after the completion of the technology upgrade, the web animation and audio technology developed by igrit company can also be more widely used, so as to further enrich the content of the Internet platform.

Further enrichment of Internet content, in turn, can increase the attraction of the Internet to the public, and thus promote the development of the whole industry.

Overall, it's a good virtuous circle.

Of course, in the next few years, it will mainly be the virtuous circle in AOL's operation area.

Moreover, after the completion of the ADSL technology upgrade, if the traditional operators are still slow to respond, AOL will no longer stick to its business area, and the management has even made plans to expand to the Great Lakes region in advance.

However, it is obvious that the outside world can not see the possibility of a virtuous circle.

On the contrary, many media are criticizing AOL's aggressive expansion strategy.

AOL has been operating at a loss for the past two years. Now, it has just improved its layout in several major areas along the East and west coasts. According to the normal operation idea of an enterprise, it should postpone for at least a few years, recover the previous huge investment through the existing technology network, and then consider upgrading.

As soon as the layout of the basic line network has been completed, we can't wait to carry out the upgrading without recovering much funds. Moreover, it is a blind upgrade to a technology that has not been proved to be successful.

As a result, AOL's share price fell 3.1% on January 21, the day the news was released.

The subsequent response of the westrow system was somewhat surprising.

It's also very simple.

Simply and rudely increase holdings.

After the close on Friday, January 22, westero submitted a document to the SEC to increase its shareholding. In just two days, AOL's share price fell by 5.3%. Without knowing it, westero increased its shareholding in AOL to 66.1% from 65.4% which has hardly changed since the IPO.

In the past year, the number of World Wide Web users in the United States has reached 28.67 million, including 17.32 million users of AOL.

Compared with the total number of users of 13.17 million and AOL 7.68 million at the end of 1991, both data have achieved more than 100% growth.

Not to mention the whole, only AOL. In the past year, the preliminary statistics of revenue reached $3.8 billion. Although the annual financial report is still expected to be a loss, due to the rapid growth of users and revenue, the market value of the previous day on January 20 still reached a high of $18.6 billion.

As a result, although the increase proportion of Westeros is only 0.5%, it has invested about US $80 million in just two days.

At the press conference on Saturday, James Leibold, President of westero, also said that westero system is very optimistic about the development prospect of AOL and will invest more money to buy the company's shares if necessary.

In the twinkling of an eye, invest 80 million US dollars. Besides the powerful capital strength of westero company, the capital market also recovered.

AOL's rapid growth in the past few years is obvious to all. Moreover, considering that the company's business area is limited to the East and West Coast states, and there is still huge room for performance growth, it is very unwise to give up holding the company's shares just because of the public opinion's doubts about AOL's ADSL plan.

It's not the first time the media has made a misleading judgment.

Simon westero, by contrast, has created too many business miracles.

As a result, when the weekend passed, the new week, just on Monday, AOL's stock price rebounded back to the price of January 20, and its market value still showed a trend of breaking through the $20 billion mark.