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Technology Stocks : COMS & the Ghost of USRX w/ other STUFF -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dwight E. Karlsen who wrote (9396)	11/18/1997 8:04:00 AM
From: Ian Mahoney	Respond to of 22053

3Com Chairman Sees Changes In Networks Underlying Internet By ANTHONY PALAZZO Dow Jones Newswires LAS VEGAS -- One of the most talked-about themes of this year's Comdex computer industry trade show is the emergence of the Internet as the unequivocal focal point of the present-day computer industry. And while the success of the Internet has broadened the awareness of the networks it was built upon, less has been said about the changes under way within those networks, said Eric Benhamou, chairman and chief executive of 3Com Corp. (COMS), one of the largest makers of networking equipment. In many cases, those changes are being brought on by the Internet's very success, he said. "We're going to see a dramatic expansion of bandwidth," Benhamou said at a panel discussion during the show. "Along the way we're going to cross the threshold that will enable new applications" that make use of the wider capacity, he said. Benhamou spoke on the eve of a Comdex keynote address by John Chambers, President and Chief Executive of rival Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO). He said changes taking place will bring on a whole new approach to the network. Up to now, Benhamou said, the prevailing view has held the network to be simply an infrastructure - plumbing that pays little attention to the digital content flowing through it. In the future, "we're going to pay a lot of attention to what those little bits are" - prioritizing data flow depending on who the user is, the time of day and the type of information being transmitted, Benhamou said. "The network will not be one-size-fits-all." Benhamou echoed statements of personal computer executives in predicting that people will keep finding new ways to lower the cost of ownership of their information technology resources. He said most of today's costs come at the edge of the network - the place where 3Com has been focusing its marketing efforts since buying modem maker U.S. Robotics Corp. earlier this year. He also said larger and larger parts of the computer-network infrastructure will be publicly owned, traveling through "encrypted tunnels." While costs and other factors will go into a company's decision on whether to build its own intranet or lease the network space from an outside party, the choice will be made without any worry of possible data degradation, he said. The bandwidth issue is on the minds of many industry professionals, because without a major increase in capacity, wide use of new technologies such as video streaming and live videoconferencing won't gain wide public use on the Internet that many predict. 3Com's Benhamou said coming cable modems will go a long way toward relieving data bottlenecks, and he said ADSL, a technology that allows for faster transmission of data over existing copper telephone wires, also holds promise - although there are regulatory difficulties with the telephone companies that own the lines. ASDL is an asymmetrical digital subscriber line. "I think we will see major breakthroughs but the issues (in the way) are not technical," he said.