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Technology Stocks : 3Com Corporation (COMS) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: joe who wrote (23716)	11/1/1998 1:36:00 AM
From: Steve Porter	Respond to of 45548

Joe, Okay you asked for it. First I'm going to have to correct you a bit and here goes. OK, so we have a long piece of fiber, with both ends connected with fantastic COMS equipment. Now, we are talking about changing the frequencies of what's traveling on those lines. Those lines can be either copper or fiber. Maybe the transmissions will have various networking protocols? We are now talking about COMS equipment being able to handle many situations. In the future, these situations might expand due to faster speeds, greater bandwidth demands, changes in protocols, other stuff I have no idea about, etc. You don't really have frequencies on fiber.. you can have differnt "bands" of light which are technically frequencies, but I was referring to differnt frequencies on the copper wiring. Let's take an example of 2 different parts of a town, with 2 differnt types of wiring in place (this should help you visualize the problem) In area 1, we have fiber upto a certain point.. that fiber is then attached to standard coax that serves 4 blocks. Assuming 10 cable modems a block, using frequency hoping, each user can comfortably expect 2-5Mbps and approx 80 TV Channels. In area 2, we have more old fashioned copper wiring, serving say 20-25 blocks (to the nearest fiber).. no we are talking about maybe 500-600Kbps, because there just isn't enough frequncies available on the copper. Once you get to teh fiber, bandwidth is not an issue (as fiber is capable of Gbps). If you are still fuzzy just ask. Now with regard to proprietary, that is a big mistake and I don't think COMS will persue it at all. The best part of COMS for their customers is their interoperability.. That's the biggest bain with CSCO equipment and one that causes a lot of customers not to go that route. Steve