Hollywood Hunter

DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) stands for "Digital Subscriber Line". This technology began to sprout in the late 1970s. In the 1980s, because of the demand for high-speed data transmission technology for cable TV and network communications, DSL technology gradually gained in the evening.

Simply put, DSL is a technology that uses higher data frequencies for data transmission through traditional telephone lines.

The biggest advantage of DSL technology is that it breaks through the maximum 56Kb/s data transmission limit that can be achieved by traditional voice communication low-frequency analog signals.

ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) translates to ‘asymmetric subscriber digital subscriber line’, which is a type of DSL technology.

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

Compared with DSL technology, using ADSL can more than double the user carrying 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 technology and the more advanced ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) technology. The maximum network speed of the former can only reach 56Kb/s, and the latter It 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 roughly like the difference between analog signals and digital signals that are rapidly being updated in the field of mobile communications.

Four years ago, Westeros had just invested in Quantum-Link, the predecessor of AOL, and Simon used his status as a major shareholder to ask Steve Case to buy the relevant patent authorization of DSL technology and invest in subsequent technology research and development.

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

In Simon's memory, for a long time, ADSL is almost synonymous with broadband, although these are 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 appears several years in advance after DSL has been developed for more than ten years. It just needs an opportunity to promote technological development. It is more accurate and can help enterprises. Business opportunities that bring profits, so there are no technical obstacles.

Just as human beings completed the first moon landing in 1969.

If every space program can bring a commercial return that is several times and dozens of times the investment, the current humans may have already immigrated to Mars.

In the original time and space, the explosion of the Internet industry at the end of the twentieth century was basically disorderly and chaotic.

Everyone knows that there are huge business opportunities, but they don't understand which way to go to find the treasure. This is actually the root of the failure of most new technology giants in the Internet 1.0 era to continue to flourish.

Because I don't know how to take the road ahead.

In Simon's mind, he was hiding a complete treasure map.

Compared with the history of major Internet service providers trying to spend time between different technologies, they finally determined the ASDL technology as the standard for high-speed Internet transmission. This time, Simon bypassed all attempts that may be useless and went straight. The best choice has been determined in memory.

Once AOL, around 2000, a super giant with a market value of almost US$200 billion collapsed in just a few years. To a large extent, this company gave up itself as an Internet service provider. The foundation of the business has turned to become an Internet media company, and thus completed the merger and acquisition of Time Warner, a traditional content company.

Therefore, in the critical period of dial-up Internet access and ISDN technology to ADSL transformation, AOL is focusing on content, but it does not understand that in the Internet era where the amount of information exponentially explodes, it is different from traditional Hollywood studios or several major televisions. Net, a pure Internet media company, cannot meet the differentiated needs of hundreds of millions of Internet users for content.

At the same time, because it took the wrong route, AOL gave up its ISP business, the foundation for its survival, to the traditional telecom operators who were slow to respond but did not forget the bank. Finally, in the double wave of the Internet bubble burst and technological upgrading Next, an Internet company that could have become a super ISP giant was wiped out in a flash.

This time, Simon has firmly locked AOL's ISP attributes 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 the need to lease lines of traditional telecom operators.

Now, AOL's line network in its own business areas on the east and west coasts is very complete, and even a backbone optical fiber that runs through the east and west coasts of the United States exclusively for AOL itself has been completed. At the same time, AOL has been testing the ADSL technology under continuous development on a small scale.

The preliminary preparations have been completed, and the number of Internet users in the United States has reached a considerable level, so the time for technological upgrading has also been lost.

Before that, if there was no exclusivity agreement signed at the beginning, even if AOL completed the main line laying, traditional telecom operators would rely on their own infrastructure for a century of accumulation to replace AOL’s market position. It's still big.

However, once the upgrade from traditional dial-up to ADSL is completed, AOL will have an unattainable advantage in the ISP field.

Because although it still relies on telephone lines to provide data transmission, ADSL has two completely different data transmission modes compared to traditional dial-up Internet access. Both parties need completely different equipment to support between ISP access to user terminals. A large amount of capital investment is required for the upgrading of the service network. Of course, time costs are inevitably involved.

Any company that has surpassed its peers in time and technology, as long as it does not lose its way, this advantage will be easy to maintain.

In the next year, AOL plans to invest a huge amount of US$1.5 billion to upgrade its service network.

A huge plan involving a huge investment of 1.5 billion US dollars and a crazy bet on ADSL technology is almost a desperate behavior in the eyes of people who cannot see the future.

Because different from 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 access 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 much as possible.

You know, once the ADSL technology is deployed, it is not as good as imagined. Then, AOL will lose more than just $1.5 billion in investment, and it may even drag the entire company into the abyss.

Just like the mistakes AOL made in the fundamental development path of the company.

Therefore, this plan is still the result of Simon's use of Westeros' absolute holding of AOL and the result of strong advancement.

On January 20, Simon had been attending AOL high-level meetings in New York during the day, and did not fly to Washington until the afternoon.

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

Simon did not go to the celebration ceremony, but had a meeting with several members of the Clinton cabinet at a reception in another part of the city.

Still no direct contact with Clinton himself.

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

The itinerary that Clinton promised to visit Silicon Valley has been confirmed in early March. In the same month, the U.S. Congress will finalize the "Information Superhighway Project." After the election just now, both houses of the Senate and House of Representatives are in the hands of the Democratic Party.

Therefore, compared to the time point in September 1993 in Simon's memory, this time-space information highway plan will be launched half a year earlier.

Although it was only half a year, Simon knew how powerful this national-level plan would be for the entire Internet industry.

The most intuitive point is that the "Information Superhighway Plan" must be accompanied by tax reduction and subsidy policies for new technology companies. Even if the technology companies of the Westeros system are not short of money, it is enough to make their own capital chain more generous. At the same time, this plan can also further promote the flow of capital to new technological fields and promote the continuous explosion of the Internet industry.

After the inauguration of the new US president, AOL's ADSL upgrade plan was also exposed.

Prior to this, due to differences within AOL on this plan, the keen media had begun to stare at this matter.

With the official announcement of the upgrade plan involving 1.5 billion U.S. dollars in capital investment, it immediately aroused a heated 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 256Kb/s or more.

256Kb/s, which is equivalent to a data download speed of 32K per second.

At this stage, most of the stand-alone games in the Eaglet software store are only about 1M in size. In the past, the network speed was 56Kb/s or 128Kb/s. After the user purchases it, it takes a few minutes to download. , Users can download the same game or software, basically within one minute.

At the same time, after the technical upgrade is completed, the web animation and audio technologies developed by Eaglet can also be more widely used, thereby further enriching the content of the Internet platform.

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

Overall, this is a very good virtuous circle.

Of course, the next few years will mainly be a virtuous circle in the area where AOL operates.

Moreover, after the completion of the ADSL technology upgrade, if the traditional operators are still unresponsive, AOL will no longer stick to its own business area, and the management has even formulated a plan to expand to the Great Lakes region in advance.

It's just that the outside world obviously cannot see the virtuous circle of this possibility.

Instead, many media are criticizing AOL's aggressive expansion strategy.

During the previous two years of industry outbreak, AOL has been operating at a loss. Now, it has just perfected its layout in several major areas on the east and west coasts. According to the normal operation of a company, it should be delayed for at least a few years and recover the previous through the existing technology network. The huge investment, and then consider upgrading.

The layout of the basic line network has just been completed, and not much funds have been recovered, so I can’t wait to update it, and it’s a bit blind to update a technology that has not yet proven successful.

Therefore, on January 21, the day the news was announced, AOL's stock price fell 3.1%.

The subsequent response of the Westeros system was somewhat surprising.

It's also very simple.

Increase holdings simply and rudely.

After the close of business on Friday, January 22, Westeros submitted a shareholding increase document to the SEC. In just two days, AOL’s stock price fell by 5.3%, and Westeros also unknowingly Among them, their shareholding in AOL increased to 66.1% from 65.4%, which had hardly changed since the IPO.

In the past year, the number of Web users in the United States has reached 28.67 million according to statistics, and the number of users belonging to AOL reached 17.32 million.

Compared with the overall 13.17 million and AOL user scale of 7.68 million at the end of 1991, both figures have achieved more than 100% growth.

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

Therefore, although Westero's shareholding ratio is only 0.5%, it has invested about 80 million US dollars in just two days.

At the press conference on Saturday that day, Westeros President James Leibald also said that the Westeros system is very optimistic about the development prospects of AOL and will invest more money to buy the company’s stock if necessary. .

In a blink of an eye, with an investment of 80 million US dollars, Westeros has a glimpse of the powerful capital strength, and the capital market has also recovered.

The rapid growth of AOL in the past few years is obvious to all. Moreover, considering that this company's business area is still limited to the east and west coast states, there is still huge room for performance growth. It was just because public opinion questioned AOL's ADSL plan that it hurriedly abandoned It seems very unwise to hold shares in this company.

This is not the first time the media has made misleading judgments.

In comparison, Simon Westeros has already created too many business miracles.

As a result, when the weekend passed, and in the new week, only on Monday, AOL's stock price rebounded back to its January 20 price, and the market value still faintly broke through the $20 billion mark.