Very well, then. Thanks for those stats. I think those numbers go a long way in explaining why the IXCs would be reticent to change their ways. But this does bring call to mind a couple of questions, if you please.
One is, should dedicated "services" at the higher layers be considered bandwidth in the trading sense, e.g., frame relay and ATM, or even more convoluted expressions such as MPLS traffic volumes between identified city pairs or BGP flows, as would be plain vanilla bandwidth?
Secondly, is there sufficient demand and pricing elasticity incentive in your opinion, for the IXCs to trade those Layer 2 services, or even the plain vanilla?
If the answer to the second question is "yes," then I think that any such payoff to them would only come after an initial downside "hit," until the model proved itself in later on. This, I would imagine, is not a very comforting prospect for them to even contemplate, I'd imagine, hence their reluctance to step up to the plate. |
