Mike, I find myself making similar statements:
"I think the real winners and loser won't be known for a few more years.
IMO, that which the service providers are "chasing" is, itself, in an ever accelerating state. I can easily see how each of the service providers platform models which have been publicized (that I have heard about, in any event) will find themselves becoming "tapped out" where their abilities to "scale" is concerned. They all are susceptible to a place where their heads hit the ceiling.
Service providers will simply size their deliveries of information, i.e. their payload carrying capability, at levels which are dictated by their platforms' limitations. We've seen this already many times. Most often it is implied, as can be determined by the rating of a modem or line driver, or digital service unit. But sometimes, it's actually engineered at one point in the network in order to prevent other points from getting swamped. In cablemodem we see this through the introduction of governing agents.
In some cablemodem services we've already seen acceptable use policies defined, and routers which introduce bit rate limitations, in order to discourage (or prevent through physical means) speeds which are higher than a prescribed level. It's almost laughable to read that a system boasts 27 or 40 Mb/s speeds, and then must limit a user to 128 kb/s (and I don't care if it is only in the upstream that this limitation exists, it only goes to prove the lack of foresight some six or ten years ago), and limitations on streaming content in the downstream, and other some such limitations.
This is really amazing to me, because CM is only a year or two out of the gate, for all practical purposes where any real penetrations are concerned, and it's providers are already leary about how much traffic they can handle without melting down.
Yes, T has lightwire which will save them some grief at some point. When they finish the current upgrades, that is, at which time they will either have to go back and redo them, or start from scratch.
Between now, and a fully wired "lightwire" scenario, however, there is ample time for other providers to come along and disrupt those plans.
Each instance of this happening will result in a new opportunity for the next set of platform candidates to introduce their approaches and break new ground. The problems center around pole and RoW rights, and other franchise-related realities.
It'll be this way until a model which approaches "almost all-" optical comes along --not to some field node where it picks up black radio frequency coax again, but one which enters the home-- and then the focus will revert back to limitations in processing speeds, or some other wanting attribute, possibly within users, themselves. For example, the inability of users to adapt, or to assimilate information through evolving forms of multi-sensory I/O gateways to the mind, etc.
When I say "almost all optical," I'm not referring to the PON architectures which simply emulate the usual forms of extended DSL and NTSC/HDTV via SONET and ATM fabrics. Sure, those can be made to scale, but at costs which would be prohibitive and using administrative means which are cumbersome. And I don't see long-lasting salvation in any of the existing wirelesses, not even a superset of HDR, except in rare location profiles where climate, terrain and density are just right.
It's got to have less baggage than PONs do, and more bandwidth than any popular wireless scheme I've seen disclosed, to date, that actually works.
Such casual activities as "surfing the web" will seem like a quaint artifact from the past at some point, when it used to be considered a discrete and separate activity from other forms of cognitive awake time. Many of today's connotations of being wired to the Internet will be forgotten when being wired becomes a mandatory requirement of daily existence. And that'll take plenty of media juice, the stuff we call bandwidth.
Between now and then it'll be a constant game of "chasing" taking place, and since there is never any final resting place, as these things go, it will continue beyond "then," whenever then is, as well. All IMO.
I don't see an ultimate resting point, is what I mean to say, and winners' times in the limelight will be limited ones. Incremental demand doesn't subside with increasing bandwidth availability. Instead, demand for additional bandwidth increases.
Regards, Frank Coluccio |
