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The Nigerian Commun-ications Satellite (NigComSat), which was launched into orbit over 18 months ago, is said to be missing. THISDAY gathered last night that with the satellite missing from orbit, the huge amount spent by the Nigerian government ...

Nigeria’s N40bn Satellite Missing from Orbit - This Day Online

(Editor's note: this is the second in a series of articles on the lack of broadband access in the U.S. When Debra and Lee Sherbeyn first moved to rural Virginia 14 years ago, they didn't own a computer, much less fret over access to the Web. It wasn ...

Hughes' Satellite Spans a Web Divide - BusinessWeek

[Editor's note: this is the second in a series of articles on the lack of broadband access in the U.S.) When Debra and Lee Sherbeyn first moved to rural Virginia 14 years ago, they didn't own a computer, much less fret over access to the Web. It wasn ...

Hughes Communications: Boondocks Broadband - MSNBC

MILAN and PARIS , November 12 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- FASTWEB, Italy's second-largest fixed telecommunications provider has signed an industrial agreement with Eutelsat Communications (Euronext Paris: ETL) via its Skylogic broadband subsidiary that ...

FASTWEB Chooses Eutelsat to Bring Broadband Satellite Connections in ... - MSN MoneyCentral

Remember how we said that broadband over powerline (BPL) technology was pushing up the daisies ? A small firm, International Broadband Electric Communications, has started plans to spend $70 million to prove otherwise. IBEC's move to equip utilities ...

BPL gets new lease on life as rural broadband solution - Ars Technica

IBM today announced it's leading a $9.6 million broadband project targeting rural communities across seven states. The Broadband over Power Line (BPL) networks deployment includes a half dozen electric cooperatives. Big Blue (NYSE: IBM) said it's the ...

IBM Aims to Electrify Rural Broadband Access - InternetNews.com

IBM has been hired to help rural Americans get broadband access using power lines. On Wednesday, Big Blue announced it has signed a $9.6 million contract with International Broadband Electric Communications to bring the technology to rural America ...

IBM bringing broadband over power line to rural America - CNET News

The live audio webcasts of Harmonic ’ s presentation will be available from Harmonic ’ s website, www.harmonicinc.com , under the Investor Relations Events section. The replays will be available after 6:00 P.M. (Eastern) on the date of the ...

Harmonic Announces Audio Webcast Presentation at Investor Conferences ... - Earthtimes

HERNDON, Va., Nov. 11 /PRNewswire/ -- VT iDirect, Inc. (iDirect), a company of VT Systems Inc (VT Systems), today announced that it has entered into a technology partnership with O3b Networks Ltd., a newly established satellite operator headquartered ...

iDirect Platform To Interoperate With O3b Networks' Medium Earth Orbit ... - Yahoo Finance

Armando Triana, 27, loves his gadgets. He's got an iPhone, an iMac, high-speed Internet and satellite TV service with a digital video recorder. But he's also got a mortgage and a newborn and has to deal with high gas prices and the economic crisis ...

Resolved Question: Broadband and Telephone Service Without BT?

Hello all, I was wondering if anyone out there in the UK knows of a way so that I can get my telephone line and broadband without having a BT line. I currently have a BT landline and broadband service through BT, but over these past few months, they have mucked me about, ie disconnecting my broadband for no reason, wrong bill amounts getting sent in. So I am looking to change, but where I am located, Aberdeen, Scotland, I do not get services like Virgin, Tiscali etc, who offer the complete service, ie landline, broadband, tv etc. Is there any other companies out there who offer this service no matter where you are located. I remember someone telling me some companies offer Satellite broadband? If anyone knows of any companies out there, I would like to know.... Thanks more

Voting Question: Broadband/Telephone Provider Without BT Line?

Resolved Question: Wireless Broadband in West Michigan, (Satellite Internet).?

I live in rural West Michigan, and cannot get cable internet service. So of course, I'm am left with wireless broadband, so I was wondering about the best service available. more

Resolved Question: Wireless broadband wireless isp good for gaming xbox live?

I was wondering if wireless broadband, not using routers but a internet service provider that uses wireless from a tower to modem any good for gaming? Because i currently have satellite and it's pings are terrible i was hoping that wireless being that it is closer would have lower pings, is that true? Also wireless is my only other option besides satellite. Thanks. more

Voting Question: Unlimited Satellite Internet at 1.5 mbps or more?

is there a service of satellite internet that is unlimited i live in the country and all i can get is unlimited dileup internet at 40k a sec. which really sux so im looking for a satellite internet that is unlimited and apperentaly there isn't one "Hughesnet" has limited like 200 megabits a day and its horrible and i like to download stuff like youtube videos and download movies and music and with hughesnet i cant so if anyone know of any unlimited broadband internet as 1.5mbps speeds i would love to hear!!!!!!!!!...... more

Resolved Question: American Expat Questions about living in KUWAIT.. ?

I'm looking for someone who will be able to answer as many detailed questions about an American Expat moving to and living in Kuwait. Are there any currently “Homeschooled” American kids living in Kuwait? Do people in Kuwait play XBOX 360 Live? Can we bring our two dogs (Rottweilers) with us if we live in an apartment in Salmyia or Salwa? Does Kuwait have activities for the teens such as BMX racing? Swimming? Ice Skating? Ballet? Dance instruction of any kind? Piano lessons? Drum lessons? Etc I understand that most Kuwaiti’s have what I call “household assistants” (ie; maid, cook, nanny, etc.) Is this common for Expats as well? What could you expect to pay for such a service? Internet (Broadband) Service in Kuwait? Plans & Prices? Household electrical plugs? Will I need some type of converter to use my own appliances as well as the kids Nintendo and XBOX gaming units brought from the United States? Ours are all set up for 110volt here in the United States… How much do you pay for cellular phone service? What are their plans like? Can you direct me to a website with plans/prices? What is the cost of purchasing a large SUV to drive while living there? Is there a subscription satellite television service there? (ie; Dish Network, etc.) Can you answer what you know for me? Feel free to add anything I may not have considered. Much appreciated!! :o) more

Resolved Question: We moved into a house with a Satellite dish on the roof. Can we use it without having to purchase cable TV?

Is there some way a satellite dish can be used without having to purchase services from a company? I want to do it legally, but do not want to pay the outrages fees companies charge for the service. Also can a satellite dish be used for internet purposes without having to purchase broadband? Thanks for your answers more

Resolved Question: I'm trying to make sure that magic jack will work on my computer?

I have Verizon wireless high speed internet service. Magic jack will work with the following: DSL, Broadband, Cable Internet, WiFi, WiMax, or high speed internet service. We use a satellite which is for the television. Is it used for the internet too? I read that magic jack will not work properly with a satellite. Will magic jack work with verizon internet? more

Resolved Question: Survey: Ireland users, was your ntl broadband down for past few hours also?

THANKS everyone for taking the time to answer...... am thinking of changing to another company as had no service few weeks ago also for a few days and when you try & ring on hold for 30-40 mins. Any other good broadband and digital tv or satellite services. thanks girls, I am with ntl and are useless, had no service for 4days 2weeks ago, if you get a chance in nx few days could you pls email me their details, would so appreciate. I need digital tv and wireless broadband, have no landline. thank you so much :)) more

Resolved Question: Can you rate HughesNet broadband satellite service?

Good, fair, bad? Rates are they competitive? How is customer service? more

Voting Question: Is satellite internet better than dial-up?

We are going insane with the incredibly slow dial-up conenction and not being able to have more than one person online at any given time. So we're checking into satellite (can't get DSL, can't get Cable, can't get mobile broadband, can't afford T-1). But the price is hefty. Is the service worth the cost and long term commitment? Like I say, there is NO other option. EVDO, Cable, DSL, WiMax anything. We are limited to satellite or dial-up. more

Voting Question: Satellite Internet in pakistan, lahore?

I want to set up a cheap internet at high speed in my house. im currently using ptcl 512kb, it is poor in service and costly. I need the list and price (tariff) of satellite broadband providers in pakistan, more

Resolved Question: Help w/ Internet services!!?

what is a good satellite or broadband service for like downloading music, basic surfing, email, youtube..stuff like that. Also what would be a good speed for stuff like that? I was lookin at a plan with like 1.2Mbps then a plan with 1.6Mbps. Im pretty sure tht 1.6 would be better cause its faster but would 1.2 Mbps take care of downloading music and stuff like that. Advice is greatly appreciated. more

Resolved Question: How can I get high speed Internet in a rural area?

I am a gamer. I have an Xbox 360, but can't connect to Xbox Live. I have an Internet connection, it's called Wild Blue. It's fast, but not fast enough and even if it was, it's satellite Internet, which means if I use it too much it slows down. I live in a small rural community in Mississippi and as far as I know, I can get dial up and satellite wireless Internet, but there is no Broadband or DSL service out here. Is there any way I can get a high speed wireless Internet connection, like through a laptop connect card or my phone company (AT&T) that isn't too expensive and that I could use as much as I want and connect to Xbox Live. more

Resolved Question: No relief for internet in rural areas?

I have had a dial-up connection for years. I've called every broadband service provider I can find and none of them supply internet to my house. It also looks like they arent exactly trying to either. I've looked into satellite internet, but I use it for gaming, and I've been told the latency is horrible for satellite. Is there any hope? Yup, I can get verizon...but like satellite they have a data transfer limit. I'm pretty sure I transfer more than the limit when I game for an entire month, so that wont work. more

Resolved Question: Who provides the cheapest satellite broadband internet in India for home purpose?

I hear about Hughes. But I would like to know from someone who has used their service. And also, please tell me if there are other service providers as well. Guys, Please read the question carefully. I mentioned "satellite broadband" and not just broadband. I know BSNL and Sify provide broadband. But in the place where I live, I don't have any of these cable/DSL net. So, the only option I have is go for satellite internet. So, if anyone happen to have used Hughes or know something better, please let me know. Thanks. more

Resolved Question: What broadband ISPs can I use in Minneapolis, MN?

I want a wired connection -- no wireless or satellite. Currently I am using Qwest DSL -- 7Mbps download, 896kbps upload. I liked this option because it has better upload bandwidth than the cable company and I don't have to pay for a landline phone service to subscribe. The other option I have used in the past is Comcast (3Mbps download, 380kbps upload). The price for both of the above options is about the same. Do I have any other options?? One of my friends subscribes to Verizon FiOS for LESS than I pay per month and he gets 15 Mbps download/ 5 Mbps upload!!! I want that but Verizon fiber is not here yet :( more

Resolved Question: Do you use a Sprint card for Xbox Live?

I live in the middle of the woods and have been waiting on comcast and verizons promise of delivering us broadband for to long so our only options are satellite(too expensive) and an air card. I don't like verizons limited download rate per month, and sprint has an unlimited plan, also looking at sprints online coverage map we get good broadband service in my area. But, do any of you use a sprint card for xbox live? How is it? thanks. more

Resolved Question: Does wireless internet need to have a home desktop to work? Or can it work with having only a laptop?

I live in a very rural area, that has no broadband DSL or cable access. I currently have satellite broadband internet service but it is expensive and really not that great. My current desktop computer is a dinosaur and I was thinking of getting a laptop and going WiFi wireless. Sorry I'm behind the learning curve on computer technology but I need to know if I can ditch my current ISP and desktop and solely use a laptop (a future purchase). more

Resolved Question: Do You Think I Have Grounds To Sue My ISP?

Living where I do, my only option for "broadband" internet is satellite. Over the past 5 months, my satellite service (which costs $70/mo) has been providing barely dial-up speeds. My case is, since I have a home-based business of designing web sites, as well as mastering music for various bands (some of which are overseas), I use the Net for a living. Because of the slow service, my computer usually gives up trying before my job is finished - whether that job is downloading music from my clients to master, or uploading a completed site project. In short, because of this, I have lost a ton of money - over $2000, this month alone. My house may be going into foreclosure as a direct result of my loss of money, thanks to my ISP. I have worked with tech support for the entire 5 months - no result. I contacted the BBB with no result. Do I have a case against my ISP? ADRIANNA - Perhaps you should read the entire question... satellite is MY ONLY OPTION. So, there is no changing. At very least, this comany's commercials say, "Live the broadband lifestyle" which gives one the impression that you will receive broadband speeds. This is misleading advertising. So, at very least, wouldn't that be false advertising? Further, it IS their fault I am not getting my work done. How do you suppose I do my work if I have a service that is failing? ADRIANNA - Here is an example of what my ISP is giving me: this example is in the format of download speed/upload speed: April 15th, 08:02AM - 23/58 kbps April 15th, 07:22AM - 24/153 kbps The plan is for 1000/200 kbps If you are telling me that the service I am receiving as opposed to the advertised plan is acceptable, than you need to wake. However, the fact that your answer is, "If you are not satisfied with your internet, the move or get a new occupation", that tells me you really don't have a grasp on reality, anyway. That begs the question... what is your experience with contracts? Do you HAVE contract experience? What about breach of contract experience? Or are you just an average Whoever that thinks they know everything, so they post bullshit on line without knowing what they're talking about? more

Voting Question: U.K. Sky Broadband & Telly?

Hi you lot out there lurking in the either I would appreciate some advice, warnings or comments on the advisability of signing up to Sky’s U.K. Broadband and Satellite package. A couple of my friends are signed up with Virgin version and are relatively happy with the service but alas I know no one who has tried Sky and I was wondering if this might be an omen. Thank you for your thoughts. more

Resolved Question: Mobily Connect Service - KSA?

Has anyone had any experience with Mobily Connect PC wireless internet service in the DQ or even other parts of Riyadh? Or has anyone tried one of the satellite based broadband internet services in KSA? Thanks more

Resolved Question: Any way to get high speed internet in bad locations?

Right now i am paying 60 freaking bucks a month for mobile broadband service that only gets like 16kbps download speeds. Faster than dial up, but only by a few kilobytes (and costs a crapload more!) I cant get satellite internet because of all the trees around us. So far all DSL companies say i cant get DSL. IS THERE ANY WAY YET! more

Resolved Question: Still slightly confused about bundle services?

I’ve checked out cheapest-services.com to get a comparison for tv, internet, and cable plans between various companies. Here's my situation. I'm a student holding two part-time jobs, one at school and the other online, while juggling between classes. My online business occasionally requires me to make weekend trips in search of merchandise, but what I’m trying to avoid is making purchases that will prove to be otherwise worthless and wind up as another “dead inventory” in sales. Two questions: 1) Are Broadband, Satellite, & Wireless service(s) one and the same definition of going “wi-fii”? AND 2) I need a good service where I can take my computer internet and calls wherever I go. Is it possible for me to apply for a completely Wireless package or am I doomed to be stuck with a Pay-As-You Go useless phone w/NO rollover minutes AND NO access to the internet or email(s) over my phone? more

Resolved Question: Live streaming TV on laptop over wireless internet?

I don't have a TV. I have a laptop with a wireless internet broadband card (WWAN) and normally, i go to the websites of NBC, Fox, etc. to watch full episodes of certain TV shows. On my cellphone, there is a service by mobiTV that lets me watch live streaming TV channels on my cellphone. Is there a similar service that will let me watch live streaming TV channels so i can watch shows from NBC, Fox, CBS, etc. as if i was tuning in with a regular TV ?? I am not asking about a TV tuner card or slingbox. For both of those, you need to have a cable/satellite TV service at home. I don't have those. I take my laptop with me to work/home and i want to be able to watch live TV channels and shows on my laptop with my wireless internet card (WWAN) more

Resolved Question: How can I convince my mom that dial up is obsolete and she should get something better lol? Pls lol?

Ok I have slow dial up. With dial up, you can’t do anything. I have Myspace, Facebook, AOL and an iPod and them things really need A good connection and don’t do well with dial up. I can barely check my messages on Myspace. My mom says that we don’t need it cuz its too expensive and, "I’m fine with dialup” and, “We have high speed” haha. She calls accelerated dialup “HIGH SPEED”. She has never had to sat down at A comp. with high speed internet and that makes it even harder to make her interested in getting something better. The only kind of Internet we can get besides dialup here is Satellite. DSL or Broadband is not available and wireless want work in my area cuz service is bad and cellphones don’t work good here. I can barely get on anytime I want. Most ppl I know have DSL and they can get on Myspace anytime they want and talk to there friends and I’m left at home with dialup and can’t talk to them because it ties up the phoneline. What is the best thing I can do in this situation? more

Resolved Question: online gaming help. getting conected.?

i live in the middle of no where and there is absolutely NO chance of getting high speed internet except satellite and wireless broadband through a service like verizon wireless. i have dial up and satelitte now. please help me i want to online game so bad :( someone please save me haha more

Resolved Question: What's best broadband option, satellite or telstra wireless (next G) ?

Am currently on dial up and am eligible for Gov subsidy to get satellite but have just found that we can probably get wireless broadband using the next G network as we're not too far out of town. I have tried twice to get ADSL but unavailable. I'm keen to hear from people what they think of both services. The wireless is $20 more a month but I figured might be worth the extra. I would choose the cheapest plan on either. We mainly use the internet for emails, surfing, downloading the odd song from bigpond and my son plays runescape. If we go down the path of satellite will probably go with activ8me. Has anyone heard complaints about noisy modems with satellite? more

Resolved Question: Nice Madrid Spain Hotel for a week?

I am an American who has been throughout Europe but have never been to Madrid Spain and would like recommendations on a nice hotel for a romantic, end of February 2008, week in the city, close enough to museums, operas, plays, restaurants, etc. And a hotel with a good concierge service. Mostly a clean room, comfortable bed for two, a nice bathroom with a large jacuzzi or tub, balcony with a view (?), hotel lounge with fireplace and nice bar, and safe. Modern amenities of broadband / wifi internet access and satellite tv not imperative but desired. Mostly something romantic for meeting a long lost love but we are both still fairly young and vibrant and will want to explore Madrid by foot, taxi, bus, subway, train. All advice greatfully accepted and appreciated. more

Resolved Question: How can I convince broadband providers to provide high speed access here?

I live in a small town 15 miles from the nearest cable/DSL service area. There is a new wireless provider close by but the service area stops about 5 miles away... I was told a year ago that my phone service provider (VALOR) was working to get DSL to my area but they sold out to Windstream a couple months ago and Windstream has no plans to add us to their service area. What on earth can I do to convince a provider to get high speed service to me? Might a petition do any good? I don't want satellite and I think many of my neighbors would agree. Any ideas? Thanks in advance more

Voting Question: Are there any other alternatives for internet service besides satellite if I can't get cable/DSL in my area?

Broadband via satellite is way too expensive and I've NEVER heard a good thing mentioned about any satellite ISP's. So are there any other alternatives to dial-up besides satellite since cable and DSL aren't available in my area? more

Resolved Question: Seeking no contract wireless broadband internet service for my laptop?

I need high speed internet for my laptop for a couple of months while I am working on site were there are no phone lines available. I have looked at sprints broadband service for laptops but they require a two year contract. Does any one offer month to month services for high speed internet access for laptops? Through satellite or whatever? Im in Oklahoma, U.S.A., There are no wifi signals in my area :( and no landlines. Thanks for your suggestions. more

Resolved Question: why does our broadband internet looses connection sometime?

i am currently subscribed in a local broadband internet service which made me use an antenna to connect in the web. but sometimes, rain or shine, i experience some "disconnection to the server".. while browsing, my internet access suddenly stops and it would take like 30 mins or even hours before i can get back again & surf.. can i fix this? also, is it possible for me to get a constant maximum internet speed with this kind of net connection (lan ethernet/via antenna-satellite/broadband)? i have downloaded some "internet booster software" but i dont see any improvement.. my connection speed still fluctuates.. more

Resolved Question: No DSL Service Seems to Be Available at My Address?

I live in an unincorporated area of Los Angeles County. None of the major DSL providers offers their service at my address. I've tried using some of the websites that check for DSL availability, and none of them reports DSL service at my address. I can't find any local DSL providers in my phone book, either. My current internet access is provided by my cable TV company, and it's not cheap. Much more expensive than the major DSL carriers. So does my cable company have a monopoly in my area? Don't I have any lower-priced alternatives? AT&T's satellite internet is even more expensive than my cable internet . The cheapest broadband plan Covad offers at my address costs $120 a month for a 2 yr. contract. Please help. Thanks, C.L. Dear baggypants505: That's just what gets to me the most about this! My local phone company, Verizon, does not offer DSL service at my address. I've been waiting for them to start covering my area for 7 years, ever since I first checked on their website for DSL availability. I don't know why they don't service my area. Doesn't NetZero High Speed use an internet accelerator? I've heard accelerators only speed up page downloads, but don't help with large file downloads. If a large download like a web browser takes just as long as it would using dialup, then NetZero High Speed will not be of much use to me. Yahoo DSL is not available at my address either. more

Resolved Question: Broadband Card question... please help.?

I am somewhat of an online gamer and right now I am currently living in the city where I have a Cable 5mbps connection for my computer. In about four months I am going to be relocating and living out in the some rocky mountains in the middle of nowhere and disgracefully I won't be able to get neither Cable nor DSL. The only highspeed internet service provider I will be able to obtain is satellite internet and I've read that online gaming will just not work via satellite internet. My question is, do broadband cards work for desktop computers?, and if so, will they work if you will be living out in the boonies? If so, is online gaming decent and lag free via broadband cards from Verizon or AT&T? Please help and thank you in advance. more

Resolved Question: Cheap Hi-Speed satellite internet?

Don't tell me to get broadband cause there is no service in my area. more

Resolved Question: Broadband in rural areas?

I was wondering how I get broadband Internet in a rural area. I am so tired of dial-up. But can not get DSL or Cable Internet. And the few satellite Internet service I looked at I been told they have bad lag time. more

Resolved Question: moving to another state, will I need to change my email address?

I will be changing my service provider to satellite or cable as it is remote...will I lose my sbc address? when I cancel my broadband? more

Resolved Question: Anyone intrested in writing a two page summary of this?

FIBER KEEPS ITS PROMISE BY GEORGE GILDER "Today, I await the death of television, telephony, VCRs, and analog cameras with utter confidence as Moore's law unfolds." Rupert Murdoch, Ted Turner, John Malone, are you listening?" Get ready. Bandwidth will triple each year for the next 25, creating trillions in new wealth. Editor's note: Four years ago, Forbes ASAP published its first issue with a stunning prophecy by contributing editor George Gilder. Fiber optics, said George, had the potential to carry 25 trillion bits per second down a single strand. This represented a ten-thousandfold leap in carrying capacity over the 2.5 billion bits "barrier" long assumed by most experts in the field. What did George see that others had missed? One, a little-recognized (at the time) breakthrough called an erbium-doped amplifier, which keeps optical signals pure and strong over long distances. The other was a deep technical shift, with roots in the 1940s-era work of information theory pioneer Claude Shannon. If you believed Shannon, his logic dictated a new messaging scheme called wave division multiplexing. Though scorned by the experts four years ago, WDM now is emerging as the winner George had prophesied. The real winners will be all of us, as the coming world of cheap, unlimited bandwidth unfolds and at last fulfills the true potential of the information age. Here is George with an update. IMAGINE THAT IN 1975 YOU KNEW that Moore's law--the Intel chairman's projection of the doubling of the number of transistors on a microchip every 18 months--would hold for the rest of your lifetime. What if you knew that these transistors would run cooler, faster, better, and cheaper as they got smaller and were crammed more closely together? Suppose you knew the law of the microcosm: that the cost-effectiveness of any number of "n" transistors on a single silicon sliver would rise by the square of the increase in "n." As an investor knowing this Moore's law trajectory, you would have been able to predict and exploit a long series of developments: the emergence of the PC; its dominance over all other computer form factors; the success of companies making chips, disk drives, peripherals, and software for this machine. With a slight effort of intellect, you could have extended the insight and prophesied the digitization of watches, records (CDs), cellular phones, cameras, TVs, broadcast satellites, and other devices that can use miniaturized computer power. If you did not know precisely when each of these benisons would flourish, you would have known that each one was essentially inevitable. To calculate approximate dates, you had only to guess the product's optimal price of popularization and then match its need for mips (millions of instructions per second) of computer power with the cost of those mips as defined by Moore's law. Merely by using this technique of Moore's law matching--and holding to it with unshakable conviction for nearly 20 years--I became known as a "futurist." Today I await the death of television, telephony, VCRs, and analog cameras with utter confidence as Moore's law unfolds. You can tell me about the 98% penetration of TVs in American homes, the continuing popularity of couch-potato entertainments, the effectiveness of broadcast advertising, and the profound and unbridgeable chasm between the office appliance and the living-room tube. But I will pay no attention. Just you wait--Jack Welch, Ted Turner, Rupert Murdoch, John Malone, and David Jennings--the TV will die and you may be too late for the Net. It is now 1997, and a stream of dramatic events certifies that another law, as powerful and fateful and inexorable as Moore's, is gaining a similar sway over the future of technology. It is what I have termed the law of the telecosm. Its physical base lies in the same quantum realm of eigenstates and band gaps that governs the performance of transistors and also makes photons leap and lase. But the telecosm reaches beyond components to systems, combining the science of the electromagnetic spectrum with Claude Shannon's information theory. In essence, as frequencies rise and wavelengths drop, digital performance improves exponentially. Bandwidth rises, power usage sinks, antenna size shrinks, interference collapses, error rates plummet. The law of the telecosm ordains that the total bandwidth of communications systems will triple every year for the next 25 years. As communicators move up-spectrum, they can use bandwidth as a substitute for power, memory, and switching. This results in far cheaper and more efficient systems. In 1996, the new fiber paradigm emerged in full force. Parallel communications in all-optical networks became the dominant source of new bandwidth in telecom. Like Moore's law, the law of the telecosm will reshape the entire world of information technology. It defines the direction of technological advance, the vectors of growth, the sweet spots for finance. AMERICA'S DARK SECRET FOR MORE THAN A DECADE, American companies have been laying optical fiber strands at a pace of some 4,000 miles a day, for a total of more than 25 million strand miles. Five years ago, the top 10% of U.S. homes and businesses were, on average, a thousand households away from a fiber node; now they are a hundred households away. However, the imperial advance of this technology conceals a dark secret, which has led to a pervasive underestimation of the long-term impact of photonics. Sixty percent of the fiber remains "dark" (unused for communications) and even the leading-edge "lit" fiber is being used at less than one ten-thousandth of its intrinsic capacity. This problem has prompted leaders in the industry, from Bill Gates and Andy Grove to Bob Metcalfe and Mitch Kapor, to underrate drastically the impact of fiber optics. Restricting the speed and cost-effectiveness of fiber has been an electronic bottleneck and a regulatory noose. In order for the signal to be amplified, regenerated, or switched, the light pulses had to be transformed into electronic pulses by optoelectronic converters. For all the talk of the speed of light, fiber-optic systems therefore could pass bits no faster than the switching speed of transistors, which tops out at a cycle time of between 2.5 and 10 gigahertz. Meanwhile, telecom companies could not deploy new low-cost fiber products any faster than the switching speed of politicians and regulators, which tops out roughly at a cycle time of between 2.5 years and a rate of evolution measurable only by means of carbon 14. Nonetheless, the intrinsic capacity of every fiber line is not 2.5 gigahertz. Nor is it even 25 gigahertz, which is roughly the capacity of all the frequencies commonly used in the air, from AM radio to kA band satellite. The intrinsic capacity of every fiber thread, as thin as a human hair, is at the least one thousand times the capacity of what we call the "air." One thread could carry all the calls in America on the peak moment of Mother's Day. One fiber thread could carry 25 times more bits than last year's average traffic load of all the world's communications networks put together: an estimated terabit (trillion bits) a second. Over the last five years, technological breakthroughs and legislative loopholes have begun to open up this immense capacity to possible use. Following concepts pioneered and patented by David Payne at the University of Southampton in England, a Bell Laboratories group led by Emmanuel Desurvire and Randy Giles developed a workable all-optical device. They showed that a short stretch of fiber doped with erbium, a rare earth mineral, and excited by a cheap laser diode can function as a powerful amplifier over fully 4,500 gigahertz of the 25,000 gigahertz span. Introduced by Pirelli of Italy and popularized by Ciena Corporation of Savage, Maryland, and by Lucent and Alcatel, today such photonic amplifiers are a practical reality. Put in packages between two and three cubic inches in size, the erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs) fit anywhere in an optical network for enhancing signals without electronics. This invention overcame the most fundamental disadvantage of optical networks compared to electronic networks. You can tap into an electronic network as often as desired without eroding the voltage signal. Although resistance and capacitance will leach away the current, there are no splitting losses in a voltage divider. Photonic signals, by contrast, suffer splitting losses every time they are tapped; they lose photons until eventually there are none left. The cheap and compact all-optical amplifier solves this problem. It is an invention comparable in importance to the integrated circuit. Just as the integrated circuit made it possible to put an entire computer system on a single sliver of silicon, the all-optical amplifier makes it possible to put an entire system on a seamless seine of silica--glass. Unleashing the law of the telecosm, it makes possible a new global economy of bandwidth abundance. Five years ago when I first celebrated the radical implications of erbium-doped amplifiers, skepticism reigned. I was summoned to Bellcore, where the first optical networks had been built and then abandoned, to learn the acute limits of the technology from Charles Brackett and his team. I had offered the vision of a broadband fibersphere--a worldwide web of glass and light--where computer users could tune into favored frequencies as readily as radios tune into frequencies in the atmosphere today. But Brackett and other Bellcore experts told me that my basic assumption was false. It was no simpler, they said, to tune into one of scores of frequencies on a fiber than to select time slots in a time-division-multiplexed (TDM) bitstream. Indeed, electronic switching technology was moving faster than optical technology. In the face of the momentum and installed base of electronic switching and multiplexing, the fibersphere with hundreds of tunable frequencies would remain a fantasy, like Ted Nelson's Xanadu. In 1997 the fantasy is coming true around the world. Xanadu has become the World Wide Web. The erbium-doped fiber amplifier is an explosively growing $250 million business. Electronic TDM seems to have topped out at 2.5 gigabits a second. TDM gear has suffered a series of delays and nagging defects and so far has failed in the market. Electronic TDM failed not only because it pushed the envelope of electronics but also because it violated the new paradigm. In single-mode fiber, the two key impediments are nonlinearities in the glass and chromatic dispersion (the blurring of bit pulses because even in a single band different frequencies move at different speeds). Chromatic dispersion increases by the square of the bit rate, and the impact of nonlinearities rises with the power of the signal. High-powered, high-bit-rate TDM flunked both telecosm tests. By contrast, wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) follows the laws of the telecosm; it succeeds by wasting bandwidth and stinting on power. WDM takes some 33% more bandwidth per bit than TDM, but it reduces power to combat nonlinearity and divides the bitstream into multiple frequencies in order to combat dispersion. Thus it can extend the distance or increase capacity by a factor of four or more today and can lay the foundations for the fibersphere tomorrow. In 1996 the new fiber paradigm emerged in full force. Parallel communications in all-optical networks, long depicted as a broadband pipe dream, crushed all competitors and became the dominant source of new bandwidth in the world telecom network. The year began with a trifold explosion at the Conference on Optical Fiber Communication in San Jose when three companies--Lucent Technologies' Bell Labs, NTT Labs, and Fujitsu--all announced terabit-per-second WDM transmissions down a single fiber. Sprint confirmed the significance of the laboratory breakthroughs by announcing deployment of Ciena's MultiWave 1600 WDM system, so called because it can increase the capacity of a single fiber thread by 1,600%. The revolution continues in 1997. At the beginning of January, NEC declared that by increasing the number of bits per hertz from one to three, it had raised the laboratory WDM record to three terabits per second. During 1996, MCI had increased the speed of its Internet backbone by a factor of 25, from 45 megabits a second to 1.2 gigabits. On January 6, Fred Briggs, chief engineering officer at MCI, announced that his company is in the process of installing new WDM equipment from Hitachi and Pirelli that increases the speed of its phone network backbone to 40 gigabits per second. Accelerating MCI's previous plans by some two years, the new system will use a more limited form of wavelength-division multiplexing to put four 10-gigabit in-cause formation streams on a single fiber thread. The first deployment will use existing facilities on a 275-mile route between Chicago and St. Louis, but the technology will be extended to the entire network. This move will consummate a nearly thousandfold upgrade of the MCI backbone, from 45 megabits per second to 40 gigabits, within some 36 months. Ciena, meanwhile, has announced technology that allows transmission of 100 gigabits per second. Its February IPO was the most important since Netscape (market cap at the end of the first trading day: $3.4 billion). Why? Ciena is the industry leader in open standard WDM gear. During the first six months the MultiWave 1600 was available, through October 1996, the firm achieved $54.8 million in sales and $15 million in net income. (Lucent is believed to be the overall leader with more than $100 million of mostly proprietary AT&T systems.) At the same time, the trans-Pacific consortium announced that it would deploy 100-gigabit-per-second fiber in its new link between the United States and Asia. A powerful new player in these markets will be Tellabs, currently the fastest-growing supplier of electronic digital cross-connect switches and other optical switching gear. In a further coup, following its purchase of broadband digital radio pioneer Steinbrecher, Tellabs has signed up all 12 principals in IBM's all-optical team. Headed by Paul Green, recent chairman of the IEEE Communications Society and author of the leading text on fiber networks, and by Rajiv Ramaswami, coauthor of a new 1997 text on the subject, the IBM group built the world's first fully functioning all-optical networks (AONs), the Rainbow series. Tellabs now owns the 11 AON patents and 100 listed technology disclosures of the group. The implications of the WDM paradigm go beyond simple data pipes. The greatest impact of all-optical technology will likely come in consumer markets. A portent is Artel Video Systems of Marlborough, Massachusetts, which recently introduced a fiber-based WDM system that can transmit 48 digital video channels, 288 CD-quality audio bitstreams, and 64 data channels on one fiber line. Aggregating contributions from a variety of content sources--each on different fiber wavelengths--and delivering them to consumers who tune into favored frequencies on conventional cable, the Artel system represents a key step into the fibersphere. It can be used for new services by either cable TV companies or telcos. The deeper significance of the Artel product, however, is its use of bandwidth as a replacement for transistors and switches. The Artel system works on dark fiber without compression. The video uses 200-megabit-per-second bitstreams (compare MPEG2 at 4 to 6 megabytes per second) that permit lossless transmissions suitable for medical imaging, and obviate dedicated processing of compression codes at the two ends. A move to massively parallel communications analogous to the move to parallel computers, all-optical networks promise nearly boundless bandwidth in fiber. According to Ewart Lowe of British Telecom, whose labs at Martlesham Heath in Ipswich have been a fount of all-optical technology, the new paradigm will reduce the cost of transport by a factor of 10. For example, the optoelectronic amplifiers previously used in fiber networks entailed nine power-hungry bipolar microchips for each wavelength, rather than a simple loop of doped silica that covers scores of wavelengths. As these systems move down through the network hierarchy, the growth of network bandwidth and cost-effectiveness will not only outpace Moore's law, it will also excel the rise in bandwidth within computers--their internal "buses" connecting their microprocessors to memory and input-output. While MCI and Sprint move to deploy technology that functions at 40 gigabits a second, current computers and workstations command buses that run at a rate of close to 1 gigabit a second. This change in the relationship between the bandwidth of networks and the bandwidth of computers will transform the architecture of information technology. As Robert Lucky of Bellcore puts it, "Perhaps we should transmit signals thousands of miles to avoid even the simplest processing function." Lucky implies that the law of the telecosm eclipses the law of the microcosm. Actually, the law of the microcosm makes distributed computers (smart terminals) more efficient regardless of the cost of linking them together. The law of the telecosm makes broadband networks more efficient regardless of how numerous and smart are the terminals. Working together, however, these two laws of wires and switches impel ever more widely distributed information systems, with processing and memory in the optimal locations. WHAT SHOULD THE MAJOR PLAYERS DO NOW? FOR THE TELEPHONE COMPANIES, the age of ever smarter terminals mandates the emergence of ever dumber networks. Telephone companies may complain of the large costs of the transformation of their system, but they command capital budgets as large as the total revenues of the cable industry. Telcos may recoil in horror at the idea of dark fiber, but they command webs of the stuff 10 times larger than any other industry. Dumb and dark networks may not fit the phone company self-image or advertising posture. But they promise larger markets than the current phone company plan to choke off their own future in the labyrinthine nets of an "intelligent switching fabric" always behind schedule and full of software bugs. Telephone switches (now 80% software) are already too complex to keep pace with the efflorescence of the Internet. While computers become ever more lean and mean, turning to reduced instruction-set processors and Java stations, networks need to adopt reduced instruction-set architectures. The ultimate in dumb and dark is the fibersphere now incubating in their magnificent laboratories. The entrepreneurial folk in the computer industry may view this wrenching phone company adjustment with some satisfaction. But computer firms must also adjust. Now addicted to the use of transistors to solve the problems of limited bandwidth, the computer industry must use transistors to exploit the nearly unlimited bandwidth. When home-based machines are optimized for manipulating high-resolution digital video at high speeds, they will necessarily command what are now called supercomputer powers. This will mean that the dominant computer technology will first emerge not in the office market but in the consumer market. The major challenge for the computer industry is to change its focus from a few hundred million offices already full of computer technology to a billion living rooms now nearly devoid of it. Cable companies possess the advantage of already owning dumb networks based on the essentials of the all-optical model of broadcast and select--of customers seeking wavelengths or frequencies rather than switching circuits. Cable companies already provide all the programs to all the terminals and allow them to tune in to the desired messages. But the cable industry cannot become a full-service supplier of telecommunications unless the regulators give up their ridiculous two-wire dream in which everyone competes with cable and no one makes any money. Cash-poor and bandwidth-rich, cable companies need to collaborate with telcos--which are cash-rich and bandwidth-poor--in a joint effort to create broadband systems in their own regions. In all eras, companies tend to prevail by maximizing the use of the cheapest resources. In the age of the fibersphere, they will use the huge intrinsic bandwidth of fiber, all 25,000 gigahertz or more, to simplify everything else. This means replacing nearly all the hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of switches, bridges, routers, converters, codecs, compressors, error correctors, and other devices, together with the trillions of lines of software code, that pervade the intelligent switching fabric of both telephone and computer networks. The makers of all this equipment will resist mightily. But there is no chance that the old regime can prevail by fighting cheap and simple optics with costly and complex electronics and software. The all-optical network will triumph for the same reason that the integrated circuit triumphed: It is incomparably cheaper than the competition. Today, measured by the admittedly rough metric of mips per dollar, a personal computer is more than 2,000 times more cost-effective than a mainframe. Within 10 years, the all-optical network will be thousands of times more cost-effective than electronic networks. 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