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Technology Stocks : George Gilder - Forbes ASAP -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: SteveG who wrote (543)	5/30/1998 12:09:00 PM
From: Frank A. Coluccio	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 5853

Steve, this does require a lot more research. In viewing the last of your links first, that is, techweb.com ...I find it to contain an interesting, if not contradictory, set of clauses: --------begin excerpt "Ciena and Cisco united with AT&T, Bellcore, Hewlett-Packard Co., Sprint Inc., WorldCom Inc. and Qwest Communications International Inc. to form the Optical Internetworking Forum...The agreement may be the first step toward altering the architecture and ownership of the Internet backbone, may preface the end of the router as we know it, and may lessen the importance of the Synchronous Optical Network (Sonet) protocol and asynchronous transfer mode in the network infrastructure...The more obvious agreement was significant enough. Cisco (San Jose, Calif.) and Ciena (Linthicum) will collaborate to interface Cisco's GSR 12000 gigabit switch/router with Ciena's metropolitan and long-haul dense wavelength-division multiplexing (DWDM) systems." ---------end excerpt Seems to me to be a bit inconsistent with Nacchio's stated position, if QWST was a part of this part of the agreement, although it may have only involved Ciena and Cisco, <edit> now that I read it a second time. But it is unclear what QWST's role would be in this situation, since the accord speaks to optical networking, and in some parts speaks to the dissolution of the SONET model, for some types of payloads. I'll dig through the rest of that list and get back to you later on during the weekend sometime. One thing I'd like to say is that Qwest had better unpaint themselves from this corner they've decided to stand in, for whatever reasons they did so, lest they find themselves embarrassed and attempting expensive work-arounds later on down the road, when the world is flowing in photonic abundance, if not at the residence or business, at least where carriers and SPs are concerned in the core. And while they're at it, it wouldn't hurt QWST's mission for them to announce their LEAF-grade fiber and future Soliton model intentions, if they haven't done so already. I would hope to get some replies on the latter techniques, perhaps George Gilder would like to respond to this himself here, as these are truly incremental breakthroughs that merit some more attention here. Regards, Frank Coluccio ps - some folks in the new optical carrier game should respect the safety warnings on opto-electronic equipment that states that one should not look directly into a fiber at any time, lest they become blinded by the light, or otherwise compromise the gift of vision that they were endowed with. [Couldn't let that opportunity pass me by, Steve. Later.]

To: SteveG who wrote (543)	5/31/1998 6:53:00 PM
From: Frank A. Coluccio	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 5853

Steve, after reading the links you posted in #543, I have a few comments and observationsthat I'd like to pass by you and others here. In the article titled "Optical interconnects getting supercharged," the chirped pulse techniques caused me to reflect and reinforce my belief that among the next steps in the 'digital revolution,' we will see some old familiar forms or analog modem technology re-introduced into the optical domain, such differential phase angle modulation, and eventually full blown QAM techniques, once the theoretical limits of baseband optical on-off have been exhausted per individual fiber. ---- In the MCI article that speaks to their use of Solitons in the future, I found their selection of the St. Louis to Chicago route an interesting venue for testing this 'new' (164-year-old-theory) of transmission with Pirelli. Isn't this the same "truckers' route" that McGowan beat the Bell System over the head with during the deployment of their first analog microwave systems back in the Seventies? Do I sense a sort or romantic recapitulation here? ----- [[ In "Internet2 faces engineering hurdles" I found the following to be of interest on a personal level: "What universities want to show is how people can communicate in sign language over a network-and for that you need extremely high-quality video, the kind that Internet2 is focused on." During several years of pro bono work that I performed for the city university here in NY, I was involved with architecting a distance learning platform that included programs for the deaf. We had an OC-48 ring throughout the city at our disposal, but this couldn't help where outlying schools were concerned, and T-3 bandwidth was out of the question for most of the on-net schools, as well. We found that a minimum of 6 Basic Rate Interface ISDN lines (12 bearer channels) were needed in order to begin to perceive subtleties of ASL syntax, whereas only 2 or 3 BRIs, (4 or 8 bearer channels) were needed for satisfactory use by unimpaired students. During this period I was also privileged to become familiar with some distance learning work done for deaf and blind students. A notable program that was done between Rochester Institute of Tech and Gallaudet University, utilizing email to conduct a drama class, serving as a model for other schools in this pursuit. It was very primitive by the standards we now hold as the norm, but it was incrementally very useful to those involved at the time. ]] ========= In the article titled "Chip makers taking aim at SONET/SDH" came the following: "On the other hand, the possible shift toward wavelength division multiplexing(WDM) technologies among various carriers could dampen the growth of ATM, SONET, and related networking topologies, analysts said. Traditional fiber-optic cable can now carry only one circuit at a time, but WDM can transport up to 10 simultaneous circuits-each at up to 622 Mbits/s over short distances and 200 Mbits/s over long distances. In the future, WDM could support 20 to 50 simultaneous circuits, for total data rates of more than 31Gbits/s." I have to stop and wonder where all of those 20 to 50 simultaneous streams are going to come from, if not from the electrically fueled ATM, IP, SONET and so forth, that the author implies will be displaced. There are no intrinsic, standalone, optical drivers at the applications levels yet that can be deployed in a globally orchestrated manner. Until there are, there will be a need for ATM, Frame Relay and SONET functions, if not in the heart of the backbone, then surely at the user application levels. To assume otherwise is to also assume that there is an infrastructure in place that will support optical paths directly to users' applications at the business and premises. Regards, Frank Coluccio