Contrary Views at Telecosm – Tom Evslin

Good Summary of Steve Forbes's talk. "The price of Lasik surgery … has gone DOWN 50% in the past five years. If the price of an MRI were set in a free-market, it would have fallen with the falling price of electronic components and now cost $39.95."

Internet Traffic Growth Doesn’t Matter

Andrew Odlyzko, best known for his objective commentary on Internet traffic growth, spoke at the 2008 Gilder/Forbes Telecosm Conference. He helped clarify what really matters in the debate about Internet bandwidth growth. Consider this a survival guide in a time where “Internet traffic growth rates are slowing and Hype is accelerating.”

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There was a panel after Andrew Odlyzko’s presentation that included Bob Metcalfe. He had a couple zingers:

All I can say to that last point is please God, let there be another Bubble. I promise not to screw it up this time.

Most readers here are chip, optics, or hardware focused but a few care about carriers. Here’s a couple of new blogs on Carriers that are worth reading if you’re interested.

CEO of Zayo – a wholesale carrier. http://www.bearonbusiness.com/

Good detail on the major carriers – http://ikeelliott.typepad.com/telecosm/

New one on Level3 that looks good. http://www.itaoran.com/

Telecosm – Ike Elliott: LEC Line Loss Summary, 2007

Fantastic summary of the the magnitude and source of Carrier residential line losses. He postulates cable accounts for roughly 50% – the other half is market shrinkage due to mobile substitution and a sliver of other reasons.

Gilder Telecosm 2008, May 27 – 29

I’m speaking Thursday, addressing "Application-layer networking across the wirespeed reaches of the Net." and this time I am bringing my college textbook for Carver Mead to autograph.

Video: Gilder Telecosm 2007 – The Critical Path of Fiberspeed Connectivity

Video of EZ-Chip’s presentation at the 2007 Gilder Telecosm. Unfortunately, the panel discussion that followed is not included.

Equinix – Proxy for the Internet

Lane Patterson, Chief Technologist of Equinix (EQIX), shared his thoughts on data centers and the challenges facing his industry at the 2007 Gilder Telecosm conference. He coined the term ‘bitmile’ and shed some light on how application providers such as CDN’s are adjusting their optical transport architectures to optimize cost.

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LightReading Ethernet Conference Notes

This is a collection of notes and observations gathered during the LightReading Ethernet Conference that didn’t merit a standalone article. Unless noted, these conclusions were from conversations I had while at the conference, and not the opinions of presenters.

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Gilder Telecosm 2007

I came away from my visit to last years Telecosm (see articles here) pleasantly surprised by the quality of the debate. I had a chance to share a few beers with George Gilder and talk about the future of NPU’s and of the industry in general. I found the conference superior to standard investment conferences as it has real debate and hard audience questions.

You can imagine my pleasant surprise when I was invited back this year as a panelist. I’ll be participating in a panel debating flexible vs. fixed silicon solutions in the network (agenda here).

Presenting companies that fall under the Nyquist market model: LNOP, ANAD, QCOM, Luxtera, INFN, EQNX, and several more TBD. More information including registration can be found here.

The conference is being held in upstate New York this fall and always draws a very interesting speaker list – last year Steve Forbes, Michael Milken, Carver Mead and John Rutledge all delivered stellar presentations. I went in last year with a slightly negative bias of Gilder and the ‘Gilder Priesthood’ and came away with a positive impression. You might change your mind too. Hope to see you there.