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To: A.L. Reagan who wrote (14418)	11/29/2000 1:36:55 AM
From: pat mudge	Respond to of 24042

Thank you, A.L. :) Now, for those who are interested in where the Net is going, here's a video of the plenary session from NGN: ngn2000.com [click on "view video. . . "] And for those who would rather read a summary of the entire 5-day conference, this came from Dr. McQuillan this afternoon: >>>> While it is not possible to summarize a full week's worth of content and conversations in just a short email, we will try to give you a sense of a few major highlights of NGN2000 here. The conference covered everything from progress in component technologies and enabling standards to new service offerings, but the three themes we would emphasize are: * The rise of MPLS and MP-Lambda-S * Gigabit Ethernet's momentum * Dark fiber deployment 1. The MPLS standard is not without controversy, but now even its detractors must acknowledge it as a significant development. MPLS has become a powerful force to be reckoned with because of its implications for provisioning, importance to the emerging optical infrastructure, and applications at both the core and the edge of the Net. NGN panelists made the case for overlay solutions such as ODSI. We believe this may be an attractive approach in the interim. Ultimately the peer-to-peer model (MP-Lambda-S) for managing optical bandwidth dynamically holds the greatest promise, but some question how open and dynamic optical backbones will become. Increasingly it appears that the question is not whether, but when and how broadly MP Lambda-S will be implemented. 2. Gigabit Ethernet is white-hot. The topic was the subject of a debate this year at NGN, as well as being covered during the course of several tutorials and conference sessions, and at a well-attended after-hours birds-of-a-feather interactive discussion session. As we opened the conference on Tuesday, John remarked that nothing in next generation networks ever really goes away (SONET) and nothing ever stands still (Ethernet). The week's activities reinforced this point many times over, as proponents of each solution drove home the dichotomy between these two contenders for metropolitan networking. Huge sums will be invested here, so we were not surprised to hear strongly held convictions on both sides--but we do admit to being amazed by some of the economics involved in this horse race. More than 100G for less than $100/month! Whatever one's opinion of SONET, at that price, GigE is clearly going to be a disruptive factor, capable of reshaping the NGN landscape. 3. It might seem reasonable for carriers to concentrate on exploiting the vast quantity of dark fiber already deployed, given the tremendous improvements in optics now occurring almost daily. What we heard from many of the service providers represented at NGN, however, was that just the opposite is true. In panels throughout the week, service providers seemed to have a single refrain: more. More conduits and more fibers are going into more cities, in more far-flung parts of the globe more quickly than ever before--even as it is becoming increasing possible to turn up more lambdas per fiber. Like the notorious Energizer Bunny, some of these guys just keep digging and digging and digging! This underscores a continuing shift away from vertical integration toward greater horizontal specialization among service providers. John Sidgmore's keynote came right on the heels of AT&T's decision to break up its operations, and indeed coincided with his own company's announcement of its plan to follow suit. These examples may only mark the beginning of a wider-reaching industry restructuring. You can expect to see more next generation network service providers competing on the basis of delivering best of breed capabilities to much narrower target segments. These insights gained during the week at NGN left us enthusiastic about the prospects for our industry going forward. Innovation and the pursuit of technical excellence certainly show no signs of slowing: NGN presenters and attendees impressed us once again this year not only with their knowledge, but also with their passion for advancing the state of the art. Our sincere apologies go to anyone who was unable to attend or who had trouble gaining admittance to a particularly popular session on site. Even though we stopped accepting registrations for the event weeks in advance this year, the evening exhibits and portions of the conference were still quite crowded. We urge those who were unable to participate to take advantage of the online archives of select sessions sponsored by Hyperchip-- hyperchip.com. Go to ngn2000.com and click on "View Video of the Plenary Sessions" to view any of the following featured sessions: * Conference Introduction: Where the Net Is Going Next * Internet Scalability Crisis * Keynote Address: The Future of Portals * Keynote Address: The Emerging IP Infrastructure * Super Carrier Strategies >>>> Incidentally, next year NGN will be held in Boston and if it's as popular as this year, you'll have to sign up early. [Something I've learned to do because I hate commuting from some hotel miles away.] And lest you think there'll be no need for networking conference next year, check out RHK's latest numbers: rhk.com LightReading's take: lightreading.com Some component areas will show triple-digit growth year to year for the next several years, the firm says. Included in this category are tunable lasers, which will grow from a $280 million market in 2001 (up from this year's starting figure of $2 million) to $960 million by 2004. The strong forecast for DWDM components is no surprise, but RHK admits its newly published figures are nearly 60 percent higher than original forecasts. "A year ago I stood up and gave a forecast of 80 percent growth for 2000," says Liebowitz. "People thought those figures were high. I was wrong. They were too low." Liebowitz says the strong component figures don't necessarily reflect correspondingly high growth rates in DWDM gear. RHK says DWDM is set to grow between 50 and 60 percent next year. Pat