Invective - Viewpoint - broadband Internet inadequacies - Column

Electronic News, Sept 2, 2002 by Gale Morrison

The dot-com and telecom bust happened because of a laundry list of stupid ideas and human foolishness. There are greedy CEOs; lying or delusional technology marketers; lumbering, drunk-on-monopoly telcos; and, of course, Osama bin Laden.

But what really takes the cake is the inability of everyone involved in deploying computing and communications equipment to bite the bullet and go optical. Deregulated telcos and ISPs and the makers of networking gear and computers all promised consumers, the banks and shareholders that there would be are a liable broadband network and a brave new Wired era. And then these companies took the billions upon billions of dollars we gave them, shoved it in their pockets and walked out the door, headed for the casino and the bar.

High-tech failed to bring fiber optic communications to the final mile and to the desktop while it had the chance. It's as if we hired an excavation company to dig a hole the size of the Grand Canyon (after all, the job is that big), and the company took the payments and spent it on $10,000 teaspoons and gold-plated trucks for the workers; and mansions in Vail, Colo.; and $50 million yachts and $10,000 bottles of Bordeaux for the excavation company executives. Sure, a minor hole was dug. There is plenty of fiber and even too much capacity in a couple of cities.

But what we rank-and-file users of the network, whether at home or in most offices, will tell you about the computing experience today is unprintable. We're angry, and we're walking as fast as we can away from our computers and the Internet sites we would look at if they would ever download. Obviously, this is not good for the economy.

Intel CEO Craig Barrett, who valiantly spent last week at points all over the world assuring audiences there is a future for high-tech, already has expressed his dismay at this country's broadband deployment. In May at the Atlanta Supercomm show, Barrett got really hot under the collar.

"We've got to do something about this," said Barrett. "We've got to get it together."

The long and short of it is this: Assess what you are doing very carefully. Stop laying more copper. Stop selling plain Ethernet, and move up to Gigabit Ethernet. Just plain stop working on analog modems, and, for that matter, stop working on DSL and cable modems and their access equipment, too. These speeds and the spotty and difficult service at the current prices aren't acceptable either. Telephone and cable companies: Get some real service that is working all the time and truly fast, and give us a call back.

Fiber optic cabling is available for pennies on the yard. Optical modules to interface the networks with computing systems of all kinds are plentiful. The plans to make more of this media and these components are sitting idle, and woefully, on the auction block.

To paraphrase Intel's Barrett: Get it together.