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Technology Stocks : FORE Inc. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rich Powers who wrote (8751)	6/13/1998 7:48:00 AM
From: Jim	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12559

I'm sorry if I offended anyone, but copying articles that contradict each other does not help anyone. I think most people on this thread have a financial interest in FORE and don't need to hear the networking industry is slowing down. I was referring to his first reprint not the last SORRY!

To: Rich Powers who wrote (8751)	6/20/1998 1:23:00 PM
From: MikeM54321	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12559

Jim, how about dissecting Peter's article that compares gigabit ethernet and ATM technologies? Does that one have any relevance to FORE? I am not a techie, and I would like someone who does have a technical background to summarize the article in language that does not require a PhD in Computer Sciences. Rich, Even though I don't have a networking technical background, I'll give it a shot. I know the feeling you are having trying to figure this all out. I started a few years back and I still have a hard time figuring out what companies do what, when, and for whom. The article does have great relevance to Fore. You see Fore has always been a big proponent of ATM, so as ATM goes, so does Fore. There are two competing high bandwidth technologies., ATM and Gigabit Ethernet. ATM is a technology developed by the Telcos. Gigabit Ethernet, by a select few data networkers. You might say it's a standards battle between the bellheads and the netheads. Well the "new world" data networks excitement started about 4 years ago (I invested in it about 3 years to early). One reason (excuse) the rebuild didn't take off sooner was, supposedly, this argument about which technology would be used to deliver data. ATM or Gigabit Ethernet. You see the telcos (I'm using the term loosely) didn't want to invest billions of dollars to rebuild their 100 year old twisted copper pair networks until they were certain of a standard. ATM is an "intelligent" solution. Been around a lot longer, is well proven. Gigabit Ethernet is relatively new, relatively unproven and is unintelligent. But it's beauty lies in just throwing bandwidth at the data problem. With enough bandwidth, the network doesn't have to be smart to deliver video and voice. There are other considerations, but not worth going into. Well this argument kept the telcos from making major investment decisions. My feeling this wasn't the true reason. The true reason was they wanted to milk their very old, hundreds of billions of dollar, old circuit switched, twisted copper pair, voice network for all it's worth. And they certainly have. There was no true motivation for them to give their customers a more robust and high bandwidth connections because they really didn't have to. So they just kept patching their old circuit switched voice network up. But now, with the like of Qwest, Level 3 and others, stringing fibre and creating new networks from scratch that is based on high capacity fiber and tailor made for video, data, and voice, the telcos are worried. Add to this, the cable TV companies getting into the high bandwidth data game, suddenly the telcos can't sit on their hands anymore. They have to start rebuilding their networks. So they are (as you know, that's one reason for my interest in Dycom Industries). And in my opinion, ATM is the winner as the telco solution for providing high bandwidth data to their customers. Fore is just not jumping on the ATM bandwagon now. They always have been an ATM company. So IMHO, they are pretty well positioned for increasing their revenues as the telcos spend billions and billions on their upgrades. Not only the telcos, but cable companies supplying interactive services also have to build data networks. Over one year ago, Time Warner built their Roadrunner cable modem network (which I'm on right now), not only using ATM technology, but Fore's equipment as well. I thought this was fairly significant win for Fore. Not only do they have the telcos going with ATM, but maybe cable TV companies also. Hope this helps, MikeM(From Florida) PS for some other very general information on some of the new data network players, you may want to check out my post on the "Asia Forum" thread. Earlier someone on this thread, I believe, linked to it. Here it is in case you're interested: techstocks.com