Communication bandwidth vs. Price (the price/performance issue of the 1990s)
Carl Malamud says[3]:
The new reality is simple: there is so much capacity and competition that
telecommunications providers are about to go into an airline-style price war to
keep market share. ... How cheap will it get? How does $30 a month for a T1[4] line grab you?
Who will the new communication companies be? Probably not who you expect!
- A leading U.S. long haul network operator is Wiltel (ran fibers
inside their natural gas distribution network!)
- Banverket, Vattenfall, Stockab {the City of Stockholm}, ... - all
have major fiber installations
In Sweden: several operators offer ISDN based service + several operators providing GSM data service
- Prediction: Many companies will eliminate their
modem pools and use Internet service providers
- Prediction: Future exchanges will have direct
interconnects to Internet (to cut out other Internet providers)
- Prediction: cellular Interworking units will have
direct connections to the Internet
Consolidation of ISPs starting:
- UUNET Technologies + MFS merger ==> (LDDS) WorldCom buys the resulting MFS for $14B!
- Bolt Beranek and Newman (BBN) [now runs BARRnet (Bay Area) and NEARnet (New England)]
Big players - new alliances forming
[3] Viewpoint: An airline-style price war looms in
telecommunications, Carl Malamud, in IEEE Spectrum, January, 1995, pg. 32.
[4] T1 is a 1.544 Mbits/sec connection
