Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : LAST MILE TECHNOLOGIES - Let's Discuss Them Here -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Frank A. Coluccio who wrote (8579)	9/22/2000 8:36:22 PM
From: 4finger	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12823

Frank Thanks for your thoughts. As you can probably tell I'm primarily a finance geek and not a techie so there are some fairly gaping holes in my understanding of the technology constraints. I think I'm still confused on a fairly fundamental issue maybe you can help a slow learner. At Yipes web site for example they describe their service thus "...connectivity all from a simple, on-site hand ethernet handoff which is owned and maintained by yipes" Are they running fiber from their metro to the building and circumventing all incumbent facilities? what about in-building wiring? who owns that? ILEC? Thanks,

To: Frank A. Coluccio who wrote (8579)	9/22/2000 8:51:51 PM
From: axial	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12823

4finger and Frank - Thanks for the dialogue on Metro Service Providers: it opens up an area of activity that I am trying to study, but which seems to elude categorization. My limited understanding of the subject reduces it to this: it seems to me that the problems of optical switching are such that it can only be performed at a higher level: at the wavelength level, on fiber. Switching occurs by (lambda?), not content: is that correct? I'm assuming that such switching can occur because data is 'pre-sorted' before it is inserted into an appropriate wavelength. If I'm understanding what I'm reading correctly, the problems of reading packet header information, and switching packets, cannot be done at the optical level: it is o-e [-o], or, the data stream itself must be routed to a slower network, where the necessary switching, and transfer, continues, perhaps with re-insertion of old data, or insertion of new data, into an optical stream, or to substreams of slower, dedicated data, such as video, or voice. I'm still trying to figure out how such switching would occur in an Ethernet sub-network, though SONET seems a little clearer. The extension of optical networks, in the Metro model, ending with FTTH, seems prohibitively difficult: how can content information possibly be switched at optical speeds? FTTH, a concept I once threw around with abandon, now seems laden with huge obstacles. I realize that I have opened a constellation of subjects here. Frank, can you suggest any books that would get me started (at least)? I am particularly interested in an overview of existing network architectures, switching and routing, and how future optical networks might evolve/coexist with legacy networks. TIA Best regards, Jim