Predictions for 2002

[tw]

Originally posted by BrianR
... Maybe not quite tomorrow, but in the next ten years or so. It'll take a while to upgrade all the copper wires to fiber optics.

Unfortunately this represents the thinking of Robert Allen of AT&T - and AT&T corporate mentality today. Copper wire is not the bottleneck. We have excess fiber optic. What we have is a shortage of communication industry executives who are willing to pioneer innovation. The problem is not copper wire - today as it was not copper wire when I posted this same in the Cellar in 1997(?).

The problem is a fear to abandon circuit switch technology. High communication costs are directly traceable to this obsolete technology. We knew it would become obsolete about 1990. The future is packet switch technology. Qwest understood that when they first created a network just for packet switching. But with so many fearful of innovation in the 'last mile' providers, well, how much 1990 technology broadband is on your block.

Broadband does not require fiber optic. It requires packet switch technology and the 20+ year old technologies for that existing copper wire. The problem is directly traceable to people who still think like those IBM corporate executives in 1981. Estridge's innovation plans for the IBM PC were to create the next wave machines - IBM AT and IBM PC, Jr. But if they obsoleted the IBM PC, then all that investment money for the PC would be lost. So instead they dumbed down the PC Jr so that the PC would sell for eight years. What nonsense. MBA mentalities. Making innovation decisions based upon capital ROI and not based upon the product. And so we still don't have packet switch broadband communication.

Fiber is not the future solution. Packet switched technology is the future solution. The bottleneck has created a symptom of economic recession called circuit switch technology.