Re: MFS WorldCom/WilTel/LDDS

[Vadim Antonov <avg () quake net>]

Perry E. Metzger <perry () piermont com> wrote:

> > Excuse me, but bandwidth demand doubles in about half year,
> > while Moore's law is that semiconductor capacity doubles every
> > 2 years.  There's no indication that this will change any time
> > soon.
> >
> > Nice brick wall :)

> I doubt it.

I doubt it too, but for entirely different reason.

> The curve is racing upward now because of all the people
> who are suddenly connecting to the net. Once a large fraction of them
> are on the curve will slow dramatically -- demand for bandwidth will
> continue to increase, but only as fast as the customers can eat it,
> which is by definition related to how fast their equipment runs.

Ah, you forgot that Internet is not a single-technology medium.
It is not a single wave of customers, it is going to be waves after
waves following customer acceptance of newer technologies --
watch Internet telephony, video telephony, 3-D videocom, or whatever
bandwidth hog of tomorrow it will be.

> There will be some problems between now and the time things slow down,
> but...

There is a very strong suspiction that Internet is not going to slow
down, as new bandwidth-intensive technologies will keep popping up.
There's already 20 years of growth fueled by introduction of e-mail,
USENET, Web.  In a sense it's very much like Moore's Law -- nobody
knows what new technology will sustain the trend tomorrow, but the
trend is pretty stable.

--vadim
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