"In fairness, I still believe he's on the right track w.r.t. the ultimate dominance of the lightpath model, but like other aspects of his testimony, he's talking in the present tense about technologies that won't be ready for mass market adoption until sometime beyond 2010."
Yes. We're still going through a transitional phase, IMO.
Saying one thing is like another can be mistaken, but I often compare the present to the mid-1800's, and the transition to rail. There were all kinds of warnings about the dangers of this newfangled technology. All kinds of caution - yet rail is still with us.
The advent of rail had profound effects on nations that recognized the potential - especially, their possible impacts on society and national interests. In both Canada and the US, the transcontinental buildout was marked by government support and incentives, spectacular corruption, mismanagement, and stupidity. But the concept was right, and it lasted.
Railways turned out to be successful and pervasive transport technology, with many variants, which will probably still be in use 200 years from now: especially as energy costs climb. That's the key word: probably. There's nothing wrong, nothing imprudent, in committing to a technology for which you can foresee no superior alternative.
"... but also confusing in places. For example, what did you mean by "denigrate the per-bit life-cycle cost of fibre? In any event, wired or wireless, assigning attributes to bits can be considered a fool's game at times, when you think about it."
Agreed, a fool's game it can be. Perhaps I should have been more cautious, and stated that among wired technologies, optical's life-cycle cost per bit is attractive, and getting better.
But the evaluation shouldn't end at purely technical criteria, else the hideous cost of building rail through mountains would have seen track end at the Rockies.
In a non-commercial sense, there were valid reasons to support the cost, and complete the buildout. Once the price was paid, the benefits far outweighed the costs, which seemed prohibitive.
The value of a bit depends on the evaluation criteria. It also depends on whether there is a market. The societal criterion that needs to be satisfied is whether the network allows the optimal (balancing all the criteria) flow of bits to their markets.
Optical has (and will continue to have) alternatives, as did rail. Through time, the balance among competing technologies will change.
I'm pleading the case for a technology that doesn't satisfy all the criteria, any more than rail does. The core of the argument is that it satisfies so many demands for the transport of bits, in the present and the foreseeable future.
It's not everything to everyone, but like railways, it's a damn good bet as transport technology. We should use it. We should make the technology available and widely dispersed, with government legislation, support, and incentives where necessary: just as was done with rail, air, and highways.
Jim |
