TELECOSM: How Infinite Bandwidth will Revolutionize Our World

Rating:
Summary: Must I say, a few incandescent fish in a wide prolix sea...
Review: Ah. The language of Gilder! In a typically verbose, self-confessed 'prophetic mode of the inspired historian' he makes the reader wade through an egotistical, occasionally insightful and entertaining, and at times even annoyingly predictable view of the future of the networked world that he believes is no less consequential than the most important breakthroughs in physics.

Expect to work through stuff like: "Beyond the copper cages of existing communications, the telecosm dissolves the topography of old limits and brings technology into a boundless, elastic new universe, fashioned from incandescent oceans of bits on the electromagnetic spectrum."

A perfectly predictable notion that bandwidth will revolutionize our world (what a surprise!) is fleshed out into 20 putative laws of the telecosm that provide provocative rules to live by. Some of Gilder's reasoning is tenuous, and many of his conclusions are obvious. For instance, the Law of Instantaneous Information builds on the fact that the speed of light is immutable and that our life spans are limited. Combining those facts, Gilder grapples to arrive at the terribly simple idea that companies should strive to save time for their customers. Uh huh.

The flow of the book can be as daunting as the prose. Essentially this is 4 books in 1 --

1. An investment guide, which really should be skipped for your own good. For instance, we were convinced over a span of dozen pages that JDS Uniphase would be the Intel of the networking world. The equity, at that time US$ 20 a share, now gets by at $3.

2. A look at the world that infinite bandwidth is creating, which you most likely already know much more about than to subject yourself to this verbiage.

3. A history of scientific discovery. Ironically, this is the only section with pockets of amusing anecdotal material, particularly a section on the development of science where he tells gossipy tales that show how entrepreneurs developed the technologies that are forming the telecosm.

4. A textbook at the end, with a glossary that you could lay end on end from Tokyo to Tanzania.

If you really must read this supposedly epic work, this last section (the textbook section) is where you could consider starting off with. It contains a compendium of his 20 laws and their underlying assumptions.

Otherwise you can pretty much pass this by, assured that you haven't really missed much that you haven't already read in The Economist, WSJ, Business2 etc.

Rating:
Summary: Great book on technology & Economics-he will be right!
Review: First off, don't read this book hoping to get investment advice. That isn't Gilder's expertise. The guy is an economist folks. His rise to fame may have been during the telecom boom but he became well known during the Reagan era when he wrote a book on entrepreneurial ventures and how it was the key to creating wealth in this country. Reagan dragged this guy around the country folks because of his insights into the entrepreneurial spirit! Gilder sits on panels at conferences with such luminaries as Peter Drucker, Lester Thurow, Andy Grove and other intellectuals.

When you read this you will find out the following

1) There is a lot of technical jargon in it. Most should be able to learn what he is saying but it isn't like reading a trashy, romance novel. You have to think.
2) He is trying to convey the fundamental change that telecommunication technologies will have on the economy. Having worked in telecom and being a closet economist with an MBA I can say this guy knows his stuff folks. The impacts will be felt starting this year when fiber in the metropolitan markets connects into businesses with Ethernet. But, I don't want to digress too much.
3) Gilder uses excellent prose and superb metaphors and I believe it is critical that people understand that Gilder, nor I, know when this stuff will finally start to affect us. Right now there is an all out depression going on in the capital markets for telecommunications. This will affect the deployment and timing of some applications/technologies.

Gilder, through his prose and descriptions of technologies/service companies describes how increasing bandwidth supplies its own demand. This is true folks. As prices drop for bandwidth applications always pop up that gobble it up. Here is the kicker and frankly, where Gilder falls short. You get what you pay for! Gilder talks about the endless limits of fiber backbones and the applications that will be created and could occur. I completely agree but only corporations are willing to fork out the bucks to get the high bandwidth directly to their doorstep. To get such high bandwidth to the consumer would result in digging up streets nationwide and costing close to a trillion dollars.

This book is great. I have read this book and his other tech book, Microcosm (on semiconductors.) If you want to learn about technology those are two good books to start with. If you want to learn about how companies become category killers and create HUGE wealth read The Gorilla Game by Geoffrey Moore

...One day, the flood gates will open. The devil is in the details. The bandwidth glut is artificial and temporary, caused only by the last mile of the network having encountered bone-headed business practices and government legislation. Gilder will, one day, have the last laugh.

Rating:
Summary: The pessimist's review
Review: From where you read this it will look like I have missed the bubble. After all, wasn't the Telecosm a phonemena of the now historic Internet bubble ? With change moving at the speed of light I am just starting to catch up on the products of the bubble era.

In fact I was so caught up during the era that I think I made the transition from being an engineer to being a production line laborer in the manufacture of the Internet economy. So is Telecosm a product or even cause of the hype that has now deflated? It may seem so, but that's because no one saw the invisible hand (1) that really popped the inflated bubble.

If there was a bubble, I think I was in it or near it. From 1997 through 2000 I was at first a Network Architect and later the Manager of Network Architecture at America Online. From the day that I first arrived at AOL I was caught up in the explosive growth of building the network. And later even my own personal life was affected as I found that being an engineer changed status when our culture not only accepted technology but openly admired it. This revelation first occurred to me when one of my best friends from college toasted me at his wedding rehersal dinner. He was thanking my colleagues and I at AOL for the service that was the medium for meeting his soon to be wife. It was called the nerds revenge. But it seems closer to what Gilder described. What was once witchery became not only accepted, but admired.

I spoke at two Telecosm confences and had the priviledge of sharing the stage with Mr. Gilder at a Merryl-Lynch conference as well.

I not only share Mr. Gilder's views, but dare say that at least my own views were solidified in my discussions either in person or over email with both him and the many people of the Telecosm that I met directly or indirectly through him.

Although I completely agree with the vision of the Telecosm, I am probably the telecosmic pessimist. I am not the devils advocate, but just a pessimist. I believe in the same forces of change that he describes in Telecosm, but I suspect that instead of being used for the social good that the forces will be pushed to the worst extremes of capitalism. In hindsight this seems easy to explain the likes of Global Crossing and Enron.

I would go even further to say that some of the service providers that surive today continue these practices. In fact it is they more than any others that contributed to the expansion of the bubble beyond the obvious capital potential of the Internet and telecommunications. Entrepreneurs, engineers, marketers, investors, and people in every other occupation associated with the Internet made money from stock options of their Internet economy employers. The biggest difference between the engineers and other visionaries, and profiteers, can be determined by examining what they did with those profits. Profiteers held on and diversified. The engineers and visionaries believe (we still do) in the Telecosm. So we invested the profits back into new ventures. The rest is the modern history of Wall Street.

Technology doesn't have to be complicated. Our best technologies are made easy to use. That's what engineers strive to do. But across the Telecosm are overly complex technologies. Particularly wireless technologies. If one can criticize the flow of an IP packet across the Internet, then the progress of a telephone call on a wireless system is truly an act of complexity and waste. As things stand today the escapees from AT&T, Lucent, et. al have fled to start-ups where they are making optics and IP not only more complicated, but even worse. Added to their complete misunderstanding of the simplicity of optics and the Internet is their need to want to "control" every pack on the Internet as if it were a telephone call. The result could be a system 1000 times more complex than the PSTN even though it should be 1000 times cheaper.

The Telecosm is still here. The best is yet to come, but it is either a slow revolution or an evolution. Even though there are those of us who can stand the rate of change that it brings, we must battle those who resist. And that alone will make the difference between a revolution and an evolution.

1. Smith, Adam. The Wealth of Nations.


Rating:
Summary: ranges from compulsively readable to mind numbingly annoying
Review: Gilder's writing style is verbiose and lively. He poetically waxes mad philosophical luminescence, resonating and pontificating over the coming harmonies of bandwidth abundance, the ascendant technologies that act as its conduits, and wives thereof, to be grossly humane.

It was cool at first to read such a colorful account of hi-tech, but over the course of the book his manic style wore on me a bit. Towards the end there was a lack of solid material and everything started to sound repetitive and overwrought. Still, this is a fast read, and even though it's a bit dated in the short term, over the long term a lot of his predictions will probably turn out to be true. And although none of his predictions are *that* earth-shattering, this is still an interesting account of what the future world of telecommunications will look like.

Rating:
Summary: Poor predictions?
Review: If you just look at the numbers Gilders could not have done worse. The financial performance of his Telecom stars is inferior. Almost all of "Gilder's companies have declined double as much as the NASDAQ. Some are even filing bankrupcy.

Probably Glider had bad luck. His technology predictions are very interesting and plausible. Also his macroview about the different "wasting" stages in human history. So even if Gliders predictions are very poor in a 12 months perspective he might be right in the long run.

Anyway an interessting book to read. Sometimes as an European reader you can not avoid the impression that Glider wrote a very patriotic book. But again as most of the technological developments have their origins in the US Glider has a point.

Rating:
Summary: A wonderful read for the lay person
Review: Wow! What a book. If you know nothing about what is going on in the technological world other than how cool the new nokia phones look, or if you follow numerous techno mumbo jumbo newsletters, this book is great.

Whether you are a futurist or someone with a great appreciation for history, Gilder will capture you with this book.

He takes the time to explain all the historical scientific achievements, and the people involved, that have brought us into the beginning of the telecosm.

Then, in lay terms, he explains the science of bandwidth. If you know nothing about frequency, fiber optics, or communication technologies don't fret, this is an easy and fascinating read.

And he makes the most logical, rational argument I've heard for why we are entering the age of the "dumb" network utilizing infinite bandwidth.

Finally, he gives us a glimpse of what the future will hold. Quite an extraordinary work. If you love history or science you'll love this book. If you don't know anything about technology but have a curiosity then read this book. No advanced degree required. Or, if you're just looking for the "next big thing" in the stock market this will give you some general sectors to look at and some specific companies to consider.

On a scale of 1 to 10, Gilder's book is an 11...