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 : WCOM -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ahmad Sinno who wrote (4238)	4/24/1999 12:22:00 AM
From: Dale Baker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 11568

Ahmad, compare bandwidth to oil, then imagine if there were no physical limit to the size and power of cars or oil-fired power plants. We would live in a very high horsepower world. The applications which bandwidth carries can grow exponentially with virtually no limits. Movies on demand will be among the first, then who knows what else? This digital infrastructure could eventually replace almost all TV broadcasts and POTS phone calls. Build it and they will come. We are a long, long way from worrying about a glut. And who ever thought you could need more than 64KB of memory in your PC?

To: Ahmad Sinno who wrote (4238)	4/24/1999 7:57:00 AM
From: Robert Scott	Respond to of 11568

Prices for bandwidth are coming down and will continue to come down. Some argue that it will decrease faster than the transistor did. But think of how much money Intel and other chip makers have made in spite of the drop in transistor prices = a fortune. In the meantime, as prices for bandwidth fall, more bandwidth is used to make up the difference and more. This will continue for many years. The only way I see a bandwidth glut is if broadband deployment does not continue as it has. Actually by the year 2002, broadband should be everywhere and accelerating - especially if the FCC continues to permit acquisitions like ATT's of the cable networks. IMHO, the RBOCs will use every excuse in the book not to roll out ADSL if ATT is not permitted to buy these cable properties and roll out cable broadband without an open access requirement. They (the RBOCs) are clearly the problem and the FCC knows it. Further, the only way we're going to get local competition in the near future (if ever) is through ATT's cable network and once the RBOCs are permitted into long distance the opportunity may be lost for some time (i.e. they will make it very expensive to compete by lowering prices and bundling services). In short, the bandwidth companies are good long term holds IMHO. But clearly, the best way to play this trend (drop in bandwidth prices) is to invest in companies that either 1) have telecom as a major expense item, or 2) can use bandwidth to deliver additional and new services. The best positioned company in this space is: AOL

To: Ahmad Sinno who wrote (4238)	4/24/1999 12:14:00 PM
From: Frank A. Coluccio	Respond to of 11568

I think your suspicions about the glut are accurate, for the reasons you cite. I recall when the first mention was made about a 10 Mb/s Ethernet at a large global brokerage firm as recently as 1990. At the time, the gurus were saying that it would be another decade or more before Arcnet's 2 Mb/s capabilities would be exhausted. That same brokerage today has multiple Gigabit streams going up and down its risers, and 100 Mb/s to every desk top. It was only a few years ago that experts were saying that high speed networks into the home would be used for such unimaginable things as automated pizza deliveries and shopping excursions. I can still see the shopping carts on the TV screens at all those broadband conferences. And so it goes... Regards, Frank Coluccio