Newsgroups: comp.dcom.lans
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: high speed networking between buildings
Message-ID: <1989Sep20.155009.3284@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <4574@ursa-major.SPDCC.COM> <337@ai.etl.army.mil> <Sep.18.23.42.02.1989.1290@geneva.rutgers.edu> <2314@umbc3.UMBC.EDU>
Date: Wed, 20 Sep 89 15:50:09 GMT

In article <2314@umbc3.UMBC.EDU> chimiak@umbc3.umbc.edu.UMBC.EDU (Mr. William J. Chimiak (MMA)) writes:
>The latest issue of EDN talks of broadband networking with FDDI.  In it,
>they predict a $500/node cost as economies of scale come into play.

Before getting too excited about this, compare with the predictions some
years ago about how the price of Ethernet was going to drop as the same
economies of scale got going.  It has dropped... but not nearly as much
as predicted.

A cautious man would probably predict that FDDI prices will fall very
gradually, not suddenly and massively.  For the immediate future, it's
likely to remain a "premium" networking technology, used only where
Ethernet is not good enough.  That's going to limit those "economies
of scale" quite a bit.
-- 
"Where is D.D. Harriman now,   |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
when we really *need* him?"    | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu
