IP: New Versions of Ethernet Promise Swift Improvements in Communications

[Dave Farber <farber@cis.upenn.edu>]

>From: "the terminal of Geoff Goodfellow" <geoff@iconia.com>
>To: "Dave E-mail Pamphleteer Farber" <farber@cis.upenn.edu>
>Subject: New Versions of Ethernet Promise Swift Improvements in Communications
>Date: Sun, 4 Jun 2000 22:25:50 -0700
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>
>http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/06/biztech/articles/05net.html
>
>New Versions of Ethernet Promise Swift Improvements in Communications
>
>By JOHN MARKOFF
>The New York Times
>
>PALO ALTO, Calif. -- Several years ago, with tongue only partially planted in
>cheek, Intel's chairman, Andrew Grove, made an observation: Unlike the chip
>industry, where processing speeds double every 18 months or so, the moribund
>telecommunications world seemed to double its speed only about once a century.
>
>But here on a test bench at Agilent Technologies is clear evidence that may
>give lie to Grove's Law -- evidence that the nation's communications networks
>could be poised for sweeping improvements in speed and efficiency that could
>rival the breakneck pace of breakthroughs in the chip industry.
>
>Using inexpensive high-speed semiconductor components, lasers and mirrors, a
>small group of Agilent researchers have fashioned a palm-size device 
>capable of
>shuttling data at 10 billion bits -- or 10 gigabits -- a second.
>
><snip>
>
>But this is not your father's Ethernet; it is Ethernet 3,000 thousand times as
>fast as the original versions. At the rate the technology is evolving, some
>analysts expect office desktop computers to soon have access to data networks
>with speed and power formerly available only in the nation's best research
>laboratories -- but at prices no higher than today's standard business-office
>Internet connections.
>
><snip>
>
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>Geoff_Goodfellow@iconia.com, Prague CZ * tel/mobil +420 (0)603 706 558
>"Success is getting what you want & happiness is wanting what you get"
>http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/01/biztech/articles/17drop.html