However, together they add about 2,000 new subscribers every day. Analysts at Pioneer Consulting predict that by 2007 there will be more than 10 million residential cable modem users in North America alone, with another 14 million across Europe and some 12 million in Asia. Regional phone companies meanwhile, who control the 'final loop' to the consumer, try to upgrade their existing phone networks. Regardless which technology carries the day, Microsoft wants to make sure that its software is dominant on either side. The Murdoch factor Cable television is an expensive and inconvenient technology.
Roads have to be dug up and only densely populated areas are easy to supply.
Satellite television, on the other hand, is simple and easy to install. Rupert Murdoch's BSkyB. But satellite dishes are dumb, and they work only one-way. Only broadband cable would be able to deliver the colourful new world of interactive media. There is just one hitch. Many old cable networks are simply not up to the task of carrying broadband two-way services.