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Technology Stocks : The *NEW* Frank Coluccio Technology Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (37492)	1/20/2011 12:00:39 PM
From: Frank A. Coluccio	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 46821

re: "Total fuel consumption and data transmission can zoom as efficiency improves." Or so one would assume. However, economies can be improved only so much until eventually a tipping point is reached (which explains why elephants' limbs are so disproportionately larger than those of humans), at which time the dreaded several degrees of diseconomies of scale begin to kick in. First and second generation mobile, for example, proved your point very nicely. That is, until traffic began to peak and then surpass the capabilities of wireless backhaul facilities. This necessitated a boost from T1/E1 to T3/E3, until such time as the current wave of video mania was unleashed. Moving from a couple of copper-based ADSL & T1 lines to a T3 was expensive in itself, and it was done using old-school technologies (TDM). However, moving from T3 to GigE requires a complete architectural overbuild (think: rip and replace) in many cases where insufficient fiber and the wrong types of (TDM) muxes were in place. We're not talking chump change here. And now it remains to be seen how long the new GigE will last until expensive new optical ports for 10 and then 40 and then 100 and then .... will be required. Satellites on the source side of the equation could mitigate some of the burden, assuming there are the routers and IP exchange points in outer space to pick up some of the mediation that goes into establishing an IP session, but even then it would not be very much relief... not to mention the limitations on bandwidth and poor latency characteristics of satellite transmission, or the costs associated with launching a bird. And so it goes. ------