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From: netnews@erc3bb.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: 500MB/sec is only local, I think...
Message-ID: <282@erc3bb.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 22-Nov-87 12:34:45 EST
Article-I.D.: erc3bb.282
Posted: Sun Nov 22 12:34:45 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 25-Nov-87 02:26:09 EST
References: <19211@yale-celray.yale.UUCP> <8711201132.AA03014@hop.toad.com> <871@pbhyc.UUCP>
Reply-To: netnews@erc3bb.UUCP (Network_News)
Organization: AT&T Engineering Research Center, Princeton
Lines: 28

In article <8711201132.AA03014@hop.toad.com> gnu@hoptoad.UUCP (John Gilmore) writes:
>I doubt that Bell intends to provide switched 500MB/sec cross-country
>bandwidth; you and everybody else can probably get 500MB/sec through
>your local central office, perhaps 50MB/sec through your local city,
>and maybe 5MB/sec cross-country.

There are various fiber-to-the-home experiments going on, one is in
Hunters Creek, somewhere in Fla. Depending on coding, digital
full-motion video (i.e. cable TV) requires on the order of 100Mb/s.
This is the driving force behind offering services of 100-500Mb/s to
the individual user. In such a situation you may have a video
front-end at a central office that is then routed to the home's
thata want to receive it. In this kind of situation you do not have
to worry about transmitting 1000's of individual 500Mb/s data
streams over the long-haul portion of the network. It is feasable to
have 500Mb/s (and much higher) switched data connections. The
question is how much of a demand is there for it, for the RBOCS and
long distance carriers to support it. The concept of bandwidth on
demand is however one of the ideas behind ISDN. The main question
there is how long it takes for ISDN to begin propogating through the
network. There are currently many ISDN network trials going on as
the major switch manufacturers prove in their ISDN-compatible
products.

Avi Feldblum
AT&T    <- given for identification purposes only

Disclaimer: The above in no way represents the official position of AT&T