Anthony,
Looks like WCOM's little announcement at Comdex has put some real life in the stock again. Here's a little more of what Sidgmore said ..
regards,
mazman
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MCI WorldCom CEO Sees "Silicon Cockroaches'
Online News (ComputerWorld) / by Elinor Mills and Marc
11/19/98 5:06 PM
LAS VEGAS -- People think they're wired now,
but they haven't seen anything yet. Just wait
until the world is populated with "silicon
cockroaches," wireless devices that can
communicate with one another and the Internet,
said John Sidgmore, vice chairman and CEO of
MCI WorldCom Inc.
These silicon cockroaches -- the
computer-to-computer devices that will be the
direct descendants of today's cell phones, PCs,
faxes and Web phones -- will multiply, becoming
the biggest driver of Net growth, said Sidgmore,
who is also UUNet Technologies Inc.'s CEO.
Sidgmore offered his observations during his
keynote address yesterday at Comdex/Fall '98.
"Everyone will have an average of five [Internet
Protocol] objects on their body by 2000," he
predicted. For example, digital eyeglasses with
voice controls will offer all sorts of information to
the wearer, he said. "Sony is working on the
technology, so it'll happen. It'll cost $20."
The networks of the future will have an optical
core and an IP framework, Sidgmore said,
adding that optical IP-packet switching will arrive
on the scene over the next few years. The
mid-layer of switches and routers will be where
the "battles [between network equipment
vendors] will be ... and [the technology]
breakthroughs will happen," he said.
Sidgmore added that there will be better fiber in
the ground, digital multiplexing, faster switches
and routers, caching improvements and
broadband access. "Everybody knows the
Internet is going to be the fabric of the future," he
said.
"Industry explosions like this are extremely,
exceedingly rare," Sidgmore said. "I think 40, 50
years from today, people will look back and say
this was the golden age of communications."
But this explosion has been slow in coming, he
added. That's why MCI WorldCom aims to help
unclog the Internet by rolling out Digital
Subscriber Line (DSL) technology, "the
technology with the most significant near-term
potential," Sidgmore said.
MCI WorldCom has been laying down new fiber
aggressively, but that's not enough to keep pace
with user demand, he said. He said the Internet
has an annual growth rate of 1,000% and that it
will represent 90% of all bandwidth by 2003 and
99% by 2004.
"We are laying new fiber, but ... we still need
10-times growth from fiber just to stay even with
current demand," Sidgmore said.
One attendee was heartened to hear about MCI
WorldCom's DSL deployment. "The state of
telecommunications sucks," said the observer,
who asked that he not be identified because he
works for an international telecommunications
supplier that deals with MCI WorldCom.
Before the keynote the attendee said, "I want
them to say deployment is going to happen and
happen rapidly. All of [the telephone companies]
seem to be going slowly."
After Sidgmore's talk, the observer pointed to his
pager and cell phone and said, "If you think
about it, if they can make the Internet work
everywhere, you don't need all these toys."
MCI WorldCom, meanwhile, is moving swiftly on
one front: It has taken over 68 companies in the
past few years. That allows the company to offer
end-to-end services, Sidgmore contended. For
instance, Comdex attendees in Las Vegas can
call Frankfurt using only MCI WorldCom's
network, he said. "Owning your own facilities
reduces the costs and allows you to implement
new services," Sidgmore said.
Last year the company tripled its local network
capacity and more than doubled its backbone
capacity, he said. The provider also deployed an
international undersea cable in the Atlantic "with
Internet demand in mind," he added. "We have
bet the ranch on the Internet.
"The world believes Internet access should be
really cheap and that broadband access should
be a part of that," Sidgmore said.
"Bill Gates thinks bandwidth should be free. We
think software should be free," he said, pointing
out that neither is free.
Though many industry observers consider DSL
and cable Net access as competing online
access technologies, the two are unlikely to
meet head-to-head in the market, Sidgmore said
in a question-and-answer session after the
keynote. "There isn't likely to be ubiquitous
deployment of either cable or DSL over the next
couple of years, so it's unlikely that many areas
will have both [types of technology]," he said.
"But if you are faced with the choice, I would say
the question is, who do you want to do business
with -- a cable company or a phone company? "
Sidgmore said. The phone companies have a
long history of providing communications
services to consumers, he noted. "You have to
ask whether you want to depend on the cable
company [to provide communications services]."
When asked whether it would be possible for the
newly merged, giant MCI WorldCom entity to
become a monopoly, Sidgmore said the
company should be able to maintain its
entrepreneurial nature -- in both the Internet and
telephone markets.
"We started as a commercial entity; we built the
business by competition," Sidgmore said. MCI
WorldCom has far less than 50% of either the
Internet access or long-distance markets, and it
is unlikely that it would reach monopoly status,
he added.
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