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Technology Stocks : Ciena (CIEN) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: Gabor who wrote (5030)11/2/1998 7:51:00 PM
From: hung wood  Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 12623
 
biz.yahoo.com

CIEN after hour traded at 21 1/2. If we are to trade on rumors, there
are plenty rumors floating out there. I don't think the CIEN engine
is out of steam yet. Looking for another up day tomorrow.

Good Trading to All.



To: Gabor who wrote (5030)11/2/1998 7:53:00 PM
From: Doug Moulton  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 12623
 
November 2, 1998

Fiber Optic Data-Transmission Technology Arouses Skepticism in the Industry
By JOHN MARKOFF
he telecommunications industry is expressing curiosity and skepticism about a little-known San Diego start-up company that says it is ready to market a technology that significantly increases the amount of data that can be sent over fiber optic cables.

The company, Silk Road Inc., plans a demonstration of the technology in New York tomorrow, in which it will transmit 144 uncompressed television signals over 100 kilometers, or 62 miles, of cable using a single laser beam.

In publicizing the demonstration, Silk Road said that such bandwidth, the term used to express a system's data-carrying capacity, far surpassed the capability of today's commercial fiber optic networks.

While that is true, a number of telecommunications-industry experts expressed doubt about the company's ability to quickly transform a controlled demonstration into a viable commercial product. Cable capacity under laboratory conditions, they noted, is not the same as bandwidth in real-world networks.

"We get a large number of contacts from ambitious companies with supposedly fantastic solutions," said Ted Darcie, head of AT&T Laboratories' optical network research group. "The real questions are not demonstrating a high-performance link in the lab, but getting it commercialized to the extent it's reliable and compatible."

Silk Road said it planned to introduce commercial products in the first quarter of 1999.

The bandwidth to be demonstrated on Tuesday will be about 93 billion bits of information -- the equivalent of 77,500 copies of "Moby Dick" -- in one second, the company said.

Several experts said that even if the technology worked as promised, it would not significantly outstrip development progress reported by current industry leaders of fiber optic network equipment like Lucent Technologies and Ciena.

But Silk Road executives said their engineers had achieved even better results in the company's laboratory, transmitting up to 200 gigabits a second over a range of 200 miles. A gigabit is a billion bits of data.

A key feature that differentiates Silk Road's technology from that of competitors, the company said, is its ability to send that volume of data over long distances without having to either repeat or amplify the signal along the way. Silk Road executives said they made the bandwidth improvements by using a new technology for carrying information by laser light, which they referred to as refractive synchronization communication. The company received a patent on it earlier this month and has applied for other patents.

If true, the enormous bandwidth it is promising would represent a significant advance in the ability of fiber optic networks to carry data like digital voice and video signals and the packets of information that make up the Internet. The technology is also well suited to increasing the channel capacity of cable television systems, as well as to delivering the extra bandwidth needed for digital television, Silk Road executives said.

Telecommunications industry researchers and executives expressed skepticism that a company and technology they had never heard of could deliver such remarkable performance to a world where the appetite for bandwidth keeps growing.

"I wait with anticipation and excitement for such a technology to prove itself in the commercial market," Mr. Darcie of AT&T Laboratories said.

He added that although the performance Silk Road plans to demonstrate is impressive, it is about on par with the most advanced results in top research laboratories.

Earlier this year, an NTT researcher in Japan demonstrated the ability to transmit 640 gigabits a second over a distance of 60 kilometers, or 37.2 miles, using a single beam of laser light.

Lucent executives said they were now working to deploy a fiber optic networking technology for AT&T known as dense wavelength division multiplexing, which they said would carry 400 gigabits a second over fiber optic cables. That approach, which has been pioneered by companies like Ciena and Northern Telecom in addition to Lucent, uses a number of separate laser beams tuned to different frequencies -- colors in this case -- to expand bandwidth.

In the face of industry skepticism, Silk Road executives defended their technology on Friday as "hard-core optical physics."

"Einstein would have put his stamp of approval on everything we've done," said Robert Freeman, Silk Road's vice president for operations.

The company's technology, Mr. Freeman said, embeds information on a single laser beam by using a device known as an electro-optical modulator. He expressed doubt that claims on behalf of dense wavelength technology would be matched by installed performance.

Silk Road has discussed its technology with a number of telecommunications carriers, he said, but was not ready to announce products or identify customers.

The company was founded by James Palmer, a chemist the company identifies as the former chief optical scientist for the Strategic Defense Initiative, or "Star Wars."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



To: Gabor who wrote (5030)11/2/1998 8:08:00 PM
From: CJ  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 12623
 
** Alert: Second thoughts ** -- as dictated by Gabor:

King Gabor just contacted me from his Mercedes stretch limo. He has to be away from his computer and dictated this message for me to post for him:

"After watching all the MM's, I re-evaluated my position because of the trading today, and other factors [e.g. the small size of the trades [and the GSCO selling ] relative to the very high volume, etc.] and my "feelings." Also, I took another look at the Company. In this process, I am also realizing this is not the same Ciena of a year ago at this time. The loss of the AT&T contract has not in any way closely been offset by the new contracts.

If we forget the run-up from the TLAB prediction and announcement., AND the drop after the deal fell through, I do not feel as comfortable now that Ciena will see the 35 I previously estimated. Therefore, I am putting in a Stop Loss at 20.

As with all of you, I have made very good profits on CIEN during the past week. If I mess-up and leave it on the table, I will have to get a loan from Baldy to cover my SHVA losses --- and I refuse to pay the 18% interest from his Last Nat'l. Bank of Mars!

Please understand: I am not selling, and we could have a run-up to 25 pretty easily. I just don't want everybody to get burned and feel it is my duty to all of you on this thread to tell you my new feelings and what I am doing.

If "my secretary's" spelling is worse than mine, God help us all!

Regards,
Gabor"

Gabor's secretary [and Caddy!]