The SHo Six-Pack (Page 4 of 6)
Bandwidth, Bandwidth, Bandwidth
There are two major bandwidth issues we foresee during 2000. The first is
fundamental advances in the fiber and transmission technologies that
facilitate massive bandwidth, and, more interestingly, the potential to
shift away from packet switching to circuit switching, at least on the
backbone. The other bandwidth issue relates to increasing bandwidth between
the backbone and the business/home.
There are major technical developments nearing the market that will greatly
enhance the bandwidth available on the backbone, mostly through new fiber
technology. Clearly they are deployed, but it is reasonable to assume that
major backbone providers will be installing more bandwidth. What will be
even more interesting about this new bandwidth is that there may be so much
of it, that it will become feasible for certain portions of the backbone to
be supported by dedicated circuits. This lets us move away from packet
switching, back to circuit switching, and then into the problems of rapidly
switching from packet networks to circuit networks.
Relative to the links between the backbone and the user, the bandwidth issue
will be one of DSL and cable. SHo does not believe the RBOCs will be
sufficiently motivated to make higher speed access technology, such as DSL,
available to any extent greater than they already have. As it is, the RBOCs
are amortizing wires and poles put in place 10,20,30 years ago. These
pressures could come from a variety of sources: cable, CLECs, fixed-location
wireless, new cable laid out by utilities or others owning right of way, and,
of course, government fiat. What this means is that we will see savage
competition in areas with high population density where CLECs and RBOCs are
offering DSL and cable companies high-speed access. In the meantime, the rest
of us will be struggling along on ISDN or worse.
So regardless of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (TCA), we’re still
waiting for the RBOCs to get thumped into motion by the competition. Clearly,
the only thing that’s likely to get them off their collective behinds is a
major threat, and that’s not likely to occur until there is real local-loop
competition. But the impediment to that is the very thing that was supposed
to force open the local-loop – the TCA.
On top of this, stack the coming showdown between cable service providers
and ISPs. The ISPs (AOL, Mindspring) want to force the cable companies to
allow them access to the cable. The cable companies, naturally are resisting,
contending that they made the investment and have the right to determine who
has access. As the ISPs gain access to the cable, we may likely see a more
rapid deployment of higher speed access.
The net/net is that the technical infrastructure for much higher bandwidth
will be in-place, or moving into place, but because of the tight control the
RBOCs have on the telecommunications market, little of this higher bandwidth
will find its way to consumers, either individuals or businesses, except in
selected, high-population-density areas.
Part 5 - Wireless
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