From a financial point of view, it's bad news for them in the near term.

You have to think that at some point the cable operators are going to be forced to do something. But then again I said the same thing last year when the phone companies cut DSL pricing. It's hard to know where the breaking point is and how long it will take to get there.

The biggest fear of cable operators like Comcast is simply becoming the provider of big dumb pipes. Comcast in particular has been struggling to build its portal business to give customers another reason to choose their service over a competitor's.

The challenge is to succeed with a simple value application.

They may end up being a victim of their own success. It may be a good short-term problem to have too many people interested in your service, but it's not something you want as a sustained problem.