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Technology Stocks : Qualcomm Incorporated (QCOM) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bux who wrote (35533)	7/17/1999 10:54:00 PM
From: Morgan Drake	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 152472

From the GTR Forum. This was so good, I had to share it. posted: Sat Jul 17, 1999 12:33pm -- read 160 times, 3 replies author: Mark G <MrGerber@primenet.com> subject: Re: Bob Metcalfe Got a couple more minutes so let me add one thing: Microcosm = smart networks, Telecosm = dumb networks. In case you are still looking for definitions of these smart and dumb networks, let me try and help by an example of sending an electronic message (eg. email) from my computer at work say in California to a computer in New York: An entirely smart network might go something like this: My computer at work is connected to the building ethernet (as most still are). My computer divides the message into packets and repeatedly sends the data packets out on the ethernet using a smart algorithm that keeps trying until a collision free transmission succeeds. For each packet that makes up the message, the folowing now occurs: The data gets picked up by the switch connected to the ethernet in the closet in the corner of the building and uses smarts to examine the data packet to see where it should go next. After determining the data is to be sent someplace outside the switches workgroup, the switch forwards the message over a wire connected to a router. The router uses its smarts to look at the data packet and determines this data is to be sent outside the building and forward it over another wire to corporate headquarters next door. Now, the router at coprporate uses its smart to recognize this data is for another company and sends it not a network access router at UCLA. Now in the old days (15 years ago), this data would bounce accross the country between several more routers, possibly utilizing wired data links and satellites, until it finally arrives at the router in the building where the receiving computer resides. Then, this router would use its smart to examine the data and send it to a switch in the building with a connection to the ethernet where the receiving computer is connected. Finally, after the switch uses its smarts to avoid collisions and send the data to the correct computer on the ethernet which receives each data packet and stores them on the disk to reassemble the original message. Wow that was a mouthfull. Fortunately the dumb network case of the future isn't so hard to describe. In the year 2050 the age of the dumb network and badnwidth abundance as finally taken hold with 99.9% of the world's computers connected to the net via fiber optics. Now when my computer wants to send it's message, it simply transmits the stream of data onto the fiber connected in the back by converting the data to light. This data stream (light) appears almost instantaneoulsy (at the speed of light -- or thereabouts :) at every computer in the world connected to the net. The light waves had to go through hundreds (thousands, millions) of optical gratings, plitters, and erbium amplifiers but was never examined or touched by a device with any decision making smarts. Now, every computer in the world is examining all the light waves to look for ones marked for them. The computer you sent the message to in NY recognizes its name on a signal and grabs it to store on disk. In this dumb system, all the smarts sit at the edge of the network where the data is converted to light to transmit and converted from light to receive. Every component of the dumb network esists today exepct the smarts at the edge to convert between light to electronics. This is where companies like Juniper Networks live: the interface between optics and electronics. I may be optomistic in thinking that this element will be reduced to a card in your PC but given HP's announcement about molecular computing, I wouldn't bet against this! I hope that helps. P.S. I was too early on Qualcomm too. CDMA just seemed an obvious eventual winner to me! I guess smart minds think alike :)