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[IP] Do we need more bandwidth -- your Editors comments



Way back when I was planning what became the Gigabit Testbed program, many people I talked with said "who would ever need gigabit paths between organizations let alone desks. " But there were those like Erich Bloch at the NSF and others including Bob Kahn and Jon Smith, who saw the future and supported the idea. That initiative bought gigabit capacity to the national internet a good 3-4 years before it might have happened otherwise.

During the planning I went over to my colleagues at Wharton and asked what their community could do with gigabit capacities. After 15 minutes I had to stop them and say that we were not yet capable of supplying the bandwidth they wanted. They were visualizing real business application that if successful could save enough money and give enough flexibility that the cost would be irrelevant.

What they need is 100 gig or more channels and systems that can generate and absorb data at those rates. Saddly I don't see the same commitment to doing the research that will yield that environment as eventually we saw in the Gigabit testbeds.

Dave


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