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Technology Stocks : Frank Coluccio Technology Forum - ASAP -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: MikeM54321 who wrote (1622)	5/17/2000 3:13:00 PM
From: MikeM54321	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1782

Frank- In a directly related follow-up, take a look at this. I shouldn't use the term "legacy" so lightly. Now this is really strange because Williams has no legacy MAN to even worry about. Like I said, I can't figure out where this is all heading. Maybe it's simply because Williams has heavily committed to ATM. And a SONET MAN is just a natural extension of their ATM backbone? -MikeM(From Florida) ___________________________ *Williams Selects Nortel Networks' Optical Solutions for First Phase U.S. Metro Expansion* Immediate Availability, Rapid Service Delivery Critical to Aggressive Metropolitan Rollout Plan ATLANTA, May 17- Continuing its aggressive, three-year local network expansion into 50 metropolitan markets across the United States, Williams Communications has selected SONET equipment and services from Nortel Networks for the first phase of its optical-in-the-metro environment launch.....

To: MikeM54321 who wrote (1622)	5/17/2000 3:42:00 PM
From: Kenneth E. Phillipps	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1782

Mike, I don't know very much about the subject but there seems to be a significant difference between Gigabit Ethernet over copper and Gigabit Ethernet over fiber. GE over copper is subject to severe distance limitations. The press release from Bell Nexxia talks about optical ethernet which I assume is GE over fiber. This particular application was for the WAN. I believe that Freddy Mac has recently contracted with MetroMedia Fiber for access to the MAN with gigabit ethernet over fiber.

To: MikeM54321 who wrote (1622)	5/17/2000 4:19:00 PM
From: Frank A. Coluccio	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1782

Hi Mike, "What the heck happens to legacy ATM-SONET MAN/WAN networks if a carrier starts to rollout GE in the WAN/MAN?" IMO, in most instances nothing measurable will happen immediately in the negative to the legacy nets. The legacy nets might grow less rapidly, or at some point in time flatten out entirely and then be replaced over the next half-decade or so, but the new GbE nets (as well as those which are founded on fibre channel and other non-ITU sanctioned WAN prtocols) aren't supplanting older forms of networking just yet, as much as they are revolutionizing how work flows take place a la ecommerce, and through techniques that take advantage of distance neutralization. Thus, these new networks support new applications thanks to the enabling characteristics of optical. And many firms will begin their exploits in this direction by installing a "pilot" network for experimental use and proving in, first, which could take anywhere between a six months and a year or more to fully test and evaluate. In other words, while I see some cannibalization in the works here, these newer networks are largely incremental, rather than being immediately supplantive, for now. For example, optical will allow SANs to operate over vast distances now, whereas they were once relegated to in-building, or in-campus distances in the past. Likewise, servers no longer need to be local to the same building in which they are accessed, thus allowing centralized server locations to service mulitple enterprise sites within a given MAN, and beyond (WAN) through the use of IEEE and ANSI LAN / FC protocols, instead of those which are strictly tied down to SONET/ATM/ISDN/etc. To be sure, howewver, over time they will overtake many of the legacy forms of SONET/ATM networking that you referenced. "I recently read some PR about both of them [gbe and atm] being compatible on the latest incarnation of metro-DWDM/ metro-switching platforms." I don't know what the p-r might have meant by that. I could only guess that they meant that both GbE and ATM are able to be encapsulated in SONET, which is true, and that DWDM units use SONET framing on their i/o's. Syllogistically, then, the statement about compatibility would be accurate if all of the premises I've presented here are true, and you are so inclined to come to that conclusion. No? Maybe you can find that p-r, just to be sure...? FAC

To: MikeM54321 who wrote (1622)	5/18/2000 11:01:00 PM
From: Frank A. Coluccio	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1782

Pardon the out of sequence.. "What the heck happens to legacy ATM-SONET MAN/WAN networks if a carrier starts to rollout GE in the WAN/MAN?" The GbE deployment in the MAN will begin to eat into the incumbent's SONET trunk revenues which are now being collected for router networking between enterprise locations, especially if the GbE is provided by a non-affiliated access provider, like MFNX or Telergy. The POTS component will go largely unaffected at first, as will the legacy components, because VoIP and ISDN replacements in the IP genre are not soup yet.