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Facing the Challenges of Transition
NCF a showcase for futuristic tech designs and services

I recently had the good fortune to make my third annual pilgrimage to the National Communications Forum (NCF99), which takes place in Chicago every October. Sponsored by the International Engineering Consortium (IEC), the event occurs in conjunction with a gigantic trade exhibition called InfoVision that features scores of high-tech telecommunications firms presenting the absolute latest in technologies, products, applications, and services in the information industry.

Over the course of four days, NCF schedules two days that feature four "TecForums" each day and two days that feature more than 75 sessions covering topics that run the gamut from public policy and regulation to home gateways and networks to the economics of E-commerce. Additionally, there is a veritable boatload of CEOs, presidents, vice-presidents, senior managers, and other executives of the most prominent telecommunications companies in the world in attendance. Some of the companies represented include BellSouth, Teradyne, Cisco Systems, Nortel Networks, Telcordia Technologies, GTE, Siemens, IBM, Lucent, Hewlett Packard, and many more. You get the picture ­ the sight of so many stock options on the hoof is truly awe-inspiring.

Aside from the abundant free food and drink, the amenities of the Hyatt Regency O'Hare, and some great Chicago blues, my favorite parts of the proceedings are the TecForums, which were particularly good this year. The TecForums feature six presenters who offer a daylong, in-depth look at some particular cutting-edge aspect of the telecommunications industry. I attended one called "Challenges of the Emerging Optical Network" that was one of the most beneficial ways to spend a day I have ever experienced.

As you may know, one of the major challenges facing networking industries today is the transition from the electrical to the optical domain. The fiber optic medium is now at a level of development that promises almost unimagined bandwidth. Bottlenecks occur, however, at each point in the network where electrical devices remain. These are the nodes and switches of the network ­ in other words, the points at which physical connections are made and transmissions receive their routing instructions. The most significant change on the horizon for optical networks is the development of optical cross-connects. These devices are inserted at points where a conversion from light to electrical impulses normally takes place. Then, instead of the data buffering and reduction in transmission speed that occurs at these points, the light is simply redirected by a very tiny multiple array of mirrors under very sophisticated control. The importance of this development cannot be overstated ­ it's tremendous.

One of the speakers I heard that day was also one of the best I have heard at presentations of this type. Bill St. Arnaud is the Senior Director of Network Projects for the CANARIE project, which is essentially the Canadian version of what we now call Internet II. In other words, it is the new high-speed network for academic use now that commercial interests have taken over the old one. St. Arnaud is a big proponent of Gigabit Ethernet and 10-Gigabit Ethernet, and had impressive reports on its implementation connecting institutions of higher learning in Canada. This was particularly gratifying for me to hear, since I only recently touted the virtues of Gigabit Ethernet in these pages (Lane Report, August, 1999, p. 42).

Another of the more interesting aspects of NCF is the presentation of the InfoVision Awards for superior and innovative products and services. Several of the awards this year were given for products designed to deliver broadband access over the last mile to residential and business customers. In future columns, I'll describe some of these products that will be changing the way we do business.