Internet Still A Thousand Times Bigger Than We Would Have Thought
What is changing now that’s relevant to this discussion is the communications infrastructure. It may not matter how much capital Cisco, US West and others invest in the next stage of high-speed Internet access. Instead, it will be the smart group of vendors, telcos, ISPs and, yes, military conversions that will drive the next generation of global networks. For example, it is no secret that submarines can already communicate with optical transmission up to 4000 miles, and have been able to do so for some time. Could this mean that optical amplifiers will play a big role in the next-generation Internet? The “magic” will come to the applications that require high-speed access and microbrowser capability.
Too many corporate intranets are already tied to costly, slow portals that get bogged down in messaging traffic, much like AOL can with consumers on a busy e-mail day. However, as this generation of AOL “newbies” gets used to online services and begs to have the Web subsume their growing data appetite (more – for less money!), will these end-users really want to have their telephone, mail, TV, movie rental, virtual meetings and classroom-based education bogged down on one portal?
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