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Technology Stocks : Disk Drive Sector Discussion Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Gottfried who wrote (7436)	11/29/1999 2:29:00 PM
From: Mark Madden	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9256

Last night I spent several hours listening to part of the Gilder Conference videos you provided in your link. It was very interesting but did not involve storage much because most discussion was about voice communications. Voice communications is the one data transfer segment that does not require much storage because it occurs in real time. They did have some discussion on intelligent and stupid networks. The intelligent networks they talked about were with the telephone companies. Intelligent networks select available circuits for voice communications. Two changes are reducing the need for these intelligent networks. The two changes are increased bandwidth and Voice on Internet Protocol (VoIP). Increased bandwidth reduces the need for intelligent phone networks because it makes available circuits easier to find. The increased number of circuits allows some dedicated circuits that do not need intelligence to find. Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is a concept that enables many more voice calls over one circuit. VoIP digitizes and compresses voice and puts it in packets similar to other Internet data. When the packets arrive at a destination, they are put in order, uncompressed and converted to voice. This process allows packets from many conversations to use the same circuit. One problem with VoIP is packets can get delayed in Internet congestion and hurt the quality of the voice conversation. Bandwidth is the solution by reducing the congestion. This means bandwidth reduces the cost of voice communication by allowing lower cost "stupid" networks. However, these "stupid" networks are also difficult to charge for because they do not know the amount of time you talked by counting your packets. Flat rates for long distance solve this problem. Storage enters the picture because high bandwidth networks also allow more non-voice data. This is primarily e-mail, attachments, faxes and multimedia for us but many types of data are becoming practical as the cost comes down. Bandwidth increases are coming on line in the communication "backbone" that runs from city to city all over the world. The "last mile" communications to our homes will be much more difficult. Fiber optics cables have the greatest capacity and reliability but they expensive to install. Since fiber for 10,000 homes is installed almost as cheaply as fiber for 1 home, we will see fiber in large corridors first. Interim local connections will likely be cable modems, DSL or wireless depending on the status of existing facilities. This is enough rambling on a topic that is marginally on topic. Regards, Mark