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 : Qwest Communications (Q) (formerly QWST) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Shibumi who wrote (718)	1/29/1998 2:48:00 PM
From: Teegir	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6846

DWDM is a current technology. So is 10 gigabits/second which MCI and others have already deployed in 1997. You will see a terrabit/sec per fiber in the next 18 monhts, with higher speed. Qwest might have dropped because some realize that AT&T, MCI, Sprint and others aren't going to run to Qwest for additional bandwidth because their own fiber networks can expand by 10, then 10 again two years later, and likely 10 again after that. MCI announced that more than 25% of revenues came from Internet and Data Services, growing at 20%+ a year. Truly a company moving toward the next century. Lots of business for Qwest, but not necessarily that much reselling 'capacity' to the big three now. MCI is planning beyond terrabits now so the capacity will be there.

To: Shibumi who wrote (718)	1/30/1998 12:32:00 AM
From: Digitom	Respond to of 6846

<<< the only risk I see is that by increasing the available bandwidth supply that the served areas could develope a bandwidth surplus. However, since bandwidth demand appears to be driven by ex- ponential factors, I would think that this is a relatively small risk.>>> along those lines of thought, this article from redherring... redherring.com

To: Shibumi who wrote (718)	1/30/1998 2:42:00 PM
From: John Klein	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 6846

Fiber capacity is an unusual commodity. The explosion of data traffic has created great shortages of capacity along certain channels, but the funny thing is, that in this high demand/low supply market the prices are still going DOWN. The reason for this, I would suspect, is competition (duh), and that it is clear in the market place that a significant increase in supply is right around the corner (as companies like QWST build, and as existing network is moved onto higher capacity switches). The cost along the QWST route is especially cheap (for obvious reasons), and as service providers increase capacity, I would expect these rates to continue to drop. Does this mean a glut is around the corner? I am not sure, since it is tough to predict how bandwidth intensive applications will become, but I do expect the prices to continue to drop as supply increases. I have heard QWST can make money selling capacity at 1 cent/DS0 mile - probably just a rumor. (Wholesales fiber capacity is typically priced in increments of 64kbps*mileage - what are referred to as DS0's). Has anyone done the math to determine the break-even point for their network build? John