title: The view depends on where you stand
by: Scott Bradner
If the Wall Street Journal is
to be believed Global Crossing has built itself a coffin, under budget and
on-time. Global Crossing holds a
somewhat different view of its achievement.
Two weeks ago Global Crossing
announced that it had completed its "core network." This is a combination under-sea and
land-based "IP-based fiber optic network" connecting 200 major cities
in 27 countries around the world.
There are some nice maps of the network on the Global Crossing web site
(http://www.globalcrossing.com) under the "Network" tab. It does not blanket the globe in that
it misses Africa, most of Asia, and Eastern Europe but is still very
impressive. This is just the sort
of thing that seemed a long way off just a few years ago.
The timing of the Global
Crossing announcement could have been better. Their network is being completed during a feeding frenzy
among journalists and commentators about a fiber glut. I have stopped counting the articles I
see that quote the Journal's estimate that 97% of the long-haul fiber in the US
is currently unused. The Wall Street Journal's coverage of the Global Crossing
achievement fit right into the frenzy and could have been printed on
doom-colored paper. There seemed
to be nothing that the Journal could see that might be remotely considered
positive in the whole situation in spite of a list of deals that the Journal
reported that Global Crossing had signed.
Naturally it did not take
Global Crossing long to respond. The day after the Journal article ran Global
Crossing posted a "statement correcting factual inaccuracies in Wall
Street Journal story." Their
statement painted a far brighter picture. A picture that hints at, but does not
come right out and claim , a rosy future.
I will say that I take the
extreme of the fiber glut proponents with more than a grain of salt. Yes, lots of fiber has been installed
over the last few years, 90 million
kilometers last year alone if some reports are to be believed. But that fiber does not go
everywhere. I somehow doubt there
is a fiber glut between Minot North Dakota and Wichita Kansas. And I doubt very
much that there is excess fiber into Lima, Peru. It was the completion of a link into Lima that precipitated
the Global Crossing announcement.
So while there may be supply in excess of demand in many places in the
US and western Europe and maybe even going across the oceans I expect that
there are enough places where Global Crossing is the only supplier to ensure a
viable, if not spectacular, business model.
The message here is that the
time for simple, broad brush, US centric views of the technology world is gone
past, if indeed it was ever a reasonable thing.
disclaimer: The above is my own view, not a Harvard
Harvard-centric one.