BUSINESSWEEK ONLINE : NOVEMBER 13, 2000 ISSUE
BOOKS Pushing the Web to the Speed of Light TELECOSM How Infinite Bandwidth Will Revolutionize Our World By George Gilder Free Press -- 351pp -- $26 The Internet has morphed, in its short life, from a U.S. military research project to a communications channel to an incubator of multibillion-dollar businesses. It is now poised for another transformation, says George Gilder in his new book, Telecosm: How Infinite Bandwidth Will Revolutionize Our World. At the heart of that change are two types of limits: the speed of light and the span of a human life. ''A physical limit and a biological limit,'' the author explains. ''These are the governing scarcities of the Information Age.'' Information coursing across the Internet is bumping up against the first of these limits. But most of the data spend only a small part of their time on fiber-optic networks, the glass superhighways of what Gilder calls the Telecosm. In the name of speed, the author says, the very core of the Internet must be recrafted as pure fiber optics. And that may help mitigate the second limit. All the wealth in the world can't supply what many people crave most: additional time to enjoy life. On this point, Gilder believes that the infinite bandwidth of ''fibersphere'' will banish network delays, give consumers only what they want, and spare them unwanted messages in media and advertising. Gilder lays all this out in a fast-paced argument punctuated with deft technical explanations. His arguments aren't new: The author has been airing the key ideas for years in magazine and newspaper articles. And as in his earlier writings, the vision is clouded in places by a conservative ideology that feels tacked on to the technical analysis. Nevertheless, he has pulled together some of his most original thinking in this book, which deserves a broad audience. For much of the past decade, Gilder writes, PC-based computing power has been cheap and abundant, while bandwidth--meaning communications speed--was scarce. In the coming age of Gilder's Telecosm, this arrangement will be reversed. Ubiquitous glass fiber will provide bandwidth to burn. At the same time, the circuitry of handheld computers and cell phones will shrink down to single chips, which will be forced to economize on limited battery power and silicon real estate. ''This reversal is forcing a massive and drastic reorientation of the entire structure of the information economy,'' the author contends. ''Every electronic system and infrastructure must be reformed to take advantage of the new canonical abundance.'' In the opening chapters, Gilder takes the reader quickly through the physics of light, the structure of semiconductors, the history of fiber, and the origins and architecture of telephone and computer networks. Along the way, he hammers home a smart, contrarian point: Internet traffic yearns to travel in the form of photons, at the speed of light. But today's ''intelligent'' telecom networks, run by the likes of AT&T (T), slow information down by managing the traffic electronically in silicon chips. ''The remedy,'' he says, ''is not more processing, but less...not intelligent switches but dumb pipes of boundless bandwidth.'' Don't worry about getting the data to a destination, Gilder urges. In this formulation, the ocean of bits will be sorted out by smart devices at the periphery of the network, not by central switches at the core. Gilder isn't the only one advocating such a shift. Among the many narratives in Telecosm is the story of AT&T rebels David Isenberg and Joe Nacchio. The former left his research post at Bell Labs to become a proselytizer for dumb networks. The latter, says Gilder, left AT&T consumer long-distance to build such a network at Qwest Communications International Inc. At his epigrammatic best, the author compresses complicated ideas into sharp prose that is rich in metaphor. No one delivers a more colorful explanation of the electromagnetic spectrum than Gilder--in just four short pages of the first chapter. Intentionally or not, he's also amusing when he gets sidetracked, in the closing chapters, in a medley of rants against the U.S. government, the television industry, the education system, and assorted businesses that waste consumers' time. But in these same sections, he flounders when it comes time to lift the veil on the future. He wheels out a predictable telecommuting family of the future. It's Father Knows Best-meets-William Gibson's Neuromancer. Following Gilder's meandering thought process isn't always easy. He piles on too much technical detail in some chapters. In others, he tells stories--the founding of Netscape Communications, for example, or the origins of Qualcomm Inc. (QCOM)--that seem old-hat and off the point. Indeed, for readers of the author's monthly newsletter, the Gilder Technology Report, or his frequent contributions to ForbesASAP, much of this book may feel recycled. On the flip side, plenty of Gilder fans have made money from the author's predictions--investing in optics companies such as JDS Uniphase Corp. (JDSU), for which Gilder was an early evangelist. If his vision of a paradigm shift is on target, much bigger fortunes will be made. As for politics, Gilder has toned down his usual rhetoric in Telecosm. And when it comes to rants, he's often right: Institutions do waste our time, as do television, buggy personal computers, and much of consumer culture. One can share Gilder's yearning for some kind of liberation--and hope he finds it in the fibersphere. By NEIL GROSS Gross writes about science and technology. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ BACK TO TOP					RELATED ITEMS Pushing the Web to the Speed of Light PHOTO: Cover, ``Telecosm'' INTERACT E-Mail to Business Week Online

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