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To: WTC who wrote (4774)	7/21/1999 10:37:00 AM
From: Frank A. Coluccio	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12823

Tim, I would like to elaborate at some future time on some of my experiences with I-R shots, but for the moment I can only state that in very close proximity arrangements, the success rate that we had with them in downtown Manhattan were superior to metallic T1s. In fact, at one point I consulted to a client who had a campus comprised of four buildings tied together with American Laser Systems I-R/free space equipment in a star configuration [two buildings on Broad Street, one at Hanover Sq. and one on Water Street] that were operational and highly viable for a number of years, when the client decided to put in T1s from NYNEX, at the time. The cutover to the telco T's took place over a weekend and all was well at first, until they began encountering some elusive or otherwise intermittent problems on the metallics, at which point we decided to cut back to the free space window shots, thus relegating the metallics to backups. But I would caution that... these results were achieved under almost ideal conditions, where the longest shot was approximately 1400 feet, and the other two were on the orders of 300 feet, and 500 feet, respectively. And yes, ticker tape contingencies, unavoidable pigeon flutterings and window washer scheduling, were all a part of this network architects' defined practices in the quality assurance manual used by the Network Control Center. FWIW. In case you are wondering, we were running highly critical treasury and other applications over these links, supporting unframed (from the standpoint of T1 framing) mainframe Hyper-channel links to remote IBM controllers and other processors under bus and tag switching arrangements, at the time. The links were were DES encrypted. These links have since been removed, and I now have some of the transceiver guns and other arifacts associated with mountings and conroller devices adorning my offices on Broadway. Regards, Frank Coluccio

To: WTC who wrote (4774)	7/21/1999 1:11:00 PM
From: Frank A. Coluccio	Respond to of 12823

Tim, a last point on this issue, for the moment, anyway, to answer one of the points you brought up, initially. "... if such systems turn out to be broadly deployable, it seems that the value premium of the national footprint plays that is based solely on their successful aggregation of spectrum licenses would be highly eroded." I would agree with this possibility, to some extent, but these optical devices, which operate in the Gb/s ranges (LU's opticair, in particular), operate at much higher rates than the normal fixed wireless companies services do, which are usually T1 through OC3 at the top end, at this moment in time, although higher speeds can be had at greater costs and on a custom basis. But the fixed wireless carriers are nowhere near the speed of this optical device. I therefore do not see the carriers scaling to this level, which relegates them to a different role. So, one would neither be enhanced necessarily, nor necessarily reduced due to the other's fortunes, at least not on the surface. If someone wanted to spend the money and invest in the staff to roll their own air links and maintain them over time at these lower T1 / T3 throughput levels, then there would be an adverse effect to WCII, TLNT ARTT, etc. But I think that the increased reliability of the wireless u-wave's and the sourcing of their maintenance to those carriers far outweighs any momentary advantage of a no-license infrared, despite any five year cost advantage of owning your own. Total cost of ownership, including maintenance staffing and the effects to business due to down times could far exceed the cost of the T1s and T3s from the fixed plays. It's a value call, I guess, with each case based on its own merits, keyed to criticality versus risks versus costs. LU's device is slated to operate thousands of times faster than the fixed wirelesses, though, so rolling your own in this case as a means of avoiding a second fiber build (for backup, as opposed to digging a second trench to complete a ring, or for automatic protection switching purposes) makes sense when the distances permit and you already have one fiber route in place. I therefore don't see an offset here. I see where it might even be a boost, potentially, since mind share could shift to free space alternatives as a result of this, and a rising tide, and all that. Comments welcome. Regards, Frank Coluccio

To: WTC who wrote (4774)	7/21/1999 1:22:00 PM
From: wonk	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12823

...If we stipulated success of such an optical product, such as the one announced recently by Lucent, does that not effectively replicate the Winstar, Nextlink, or Teligent spectrum holdings for any company that wants to deploy broadband systems using unlicensed "light?" At this moment, even if we stipulate success, I wouldn't go so far as to say that with optical techniques one could replicate the national footprints of the broadband wireless players. Rather, I would characterize it as having another arrow in the quiver, and a powerful one at that. .... if such systems turn out to be broadly deployable, it seems that the value premium of the national footprint plays that is based solely on their successful aggregation of spectrum licenses would be highly eroded.... Admittedly, I'm quibbling over adjectives; the one that bothers me is "highly." Yes I think that reliable, cost effective optical links could erode the value of the national footprint players. However, I can't see optical being a perfect substitute (as the economists define the word) for broadband wireless, particularly because BBW can do point-to-multipoint and I can't envision - given what Frank has talked about in terms of the implementation realities - of similar functionality in the near term. However, I can see, quite clearly, how cost effective, reliable optical transmission equipment could knock the stuffing out of the incremental value of additional spectrum over some minimum threshold. If one could offload the highest density customer locations to an optical mesh system - (with either wire or wireless on hot standby as the economics dictate, albeit probably at reduced functionality) - then maybe one could initiate a competitive service, in even the largest markets, with for example a single 100 MHZ 38 Ghz channel. I think it's far easier to collect a national footprint, or easier yet, a regional footprint, with a little bit of spectrum rather than a lot. ...I don't expect perfect alignment between the engineering reality and the business valuations, but it seems in time there should be some convergence if optical transmission can be economically feasible. Ultimately, the one metric which matters is return on invested capital - a great leveler <g>.