[Gartner Group study - with comments on DSL]
Gartner Group Says Commercial Internet Services Will Reach Gigabyte-Per-Second Transmission Speeds by 2002
'GigaPOP' - Lynchpin of Future Networks - Will Add Scalability; Wide Range of Price/Performance Choices
STAMFORD, Conn., Aug. 19 /PRNewswire/ -- The future architecture of the internet will be shaped by a partially U.S. government-funded project to build a 2.4-Gigabytes-per-second (Gbps) network over the next five years for the exclusive use of the academic and research community, according to Gartner Group, Inc. (Nasdaq:GART), Internet Service Providers (ISPs) participating in the ``Internet 2'' project, such as MCI, AGIS and Merit, will use their underwritten research and development efforts to introduce ``Internet-2 like'' services to the commercial world by 2002, according to it new research study that will be presented at Gartner Group Symposium/ITxpo 97 in early October.
Recognizing that today's Internet infrastructure would act as a bottleneck to gigabyte-speed multimedia transmission, several companies are already working on developing a ``gigaPOP'' - a next-generation routing and switching infrastructure, that will offer low-speed Internet protocol (IP) routing capabilities similar to today's environment, but incorporate an ATM switching core that would scale to 2.4 Gbps and higher. Gartner Group predicts that by the year 2002, the top 20 percent U.S. metropolitan markets will have direct gigaPOP access. With this scalability, businesses will be able to select access methods based on price and performance for each location.
Demise of Most ISPs Foreseen
While there currently are more than 4,500 Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in the United States, with 1996 revenues of between $2.5-$3 billion, Gartner Group predicts the large minority will be forced out of business in the next five years. Among the reasons cited by Gartner Group are intensifying market competition and user demands for upgraded, performance-guaranteed services.
``By 2001, local-exchange carriers (LECs) and interexchange carriers (IXCs) will replace more than 90 percent of the current ISPs as the primary service providers to access the Internet,'' said Gartner Group analyst Eric Paulak. ``The hardest hit will be the estimated 4,100 local ISPs, only a handful of which own their own infrastructure. Their traditional customer constituencies -- residential and small business users -- will be most affected by these market disruptions.''
The substantial investment required to upgrade Internet infrastructure and will also sound the death knell for today's flat-rate, unlimited usage pricing structure. Pointing to the fact that several IPSs have already started to move back to usage-based pricing (i.e., Netcom, BBN Planet and UUNet), Gartner Group predicts that 75 percent of the Internet services for large enterprises will move to usage-based pricing by 2001.
2002: Consumers Are ``Bandwidth-Constrained''; Business Users Graduate to xDSL
Between one-third and one-half of U.S. households will not be able to afford Internet access service through 2002, the Gartner Group research predicts. And despite advances in higher-speed access to the home, 65 percent of consumer users will still access the Internet via dial-up modems by 200l. This reliance on bandwidth-constrained technology is primarily a factor of cost. Most consumers will not be able to afford the $50 to $60 monthly cost of cable modem access by century's end.
Over the next five years, business users will be able to afford the greater speeds and reliability of xDSL services, which are being rolled out by LECs in response to the competitive threat of cable modems. IXCs are also offering xDSL as a way to compete with LECs for Internet access and other data services. ``ISDN will still be in the picture in 2002, but will be at the apex of its U.S. market share,'' Paulak predicts.
With all of the Fortune 1000 companies expected to implement frame relay services over the next five years, Gartner Group expects that less than 5 percent will use the Internet to support their wide-area intranet needs by 2001.
About Gartner Group Symposium/ITxpo 97
Gartner Group Symposium/ITxpo 97 is a series of four international IT strategic-planning conferences held in the United States, Europe and Asia/Pacific. The theme of Symposium/Itxpo 97, ``The Future of IT,'' will address the key business trends and events driving the future of IT investments. More than 7,000 IT professionals and industry leaders from around the world are expected to attend the flagship U.S. Symposium/ITxpo on October 6-10, 1997, in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., featuring keynote interviews with Bill Gates, chief executive officer of Microsoft, Jim Barksdale, CEO of Netscape Communications, and Scott McNealy, CEO of Sun Microsystems. Participants can choose to attend more than 30 industry-specific tracks that feature more than 200 sessions hosted by Gartner Group analysts.
ITxpo, an interactive high-technology exhibition, is held in conjunction with Symposium. Tied to this year's theme ``The Future of IT,'' industry leaders will exhibit next-generation products and services that will enable participants to glimpse new technology innovations and learn how they may affect their enterprises.
For more information on attending Symposium/ITxpo 97, call 1-800-778-1997 or 1-203-316-6757, E-mail apearce@gartner.com, or visit the Gartner Group Web site at gartner.com. For complimentary press registration, call Richard Weber at 212-704-4552, E-mail rweber@edelman.com.
About Gartner Group
Gartner Group, Inc. is the world's leading provider of IT research, advisory and market research services. Founded in 1979 with headquarters in Stamford, Conn., Gartner Group serves more than 8,300 client organizations worldwide. Gartner Group provides a broad range of products and services that support critical decision-making in IT. Additional information about the company is available on the World Wide Web at gartner.com. |
