Word: bandwidth
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...United States, superseding those low-tech cattle trails, this new high-tech network will supersede the laggy and unstable Internet that exists today. The present Internet was built on a network of wires that were designed only to carry voice communications -- telephones. Full-motion video takes a lot more bandwidth. The Abilene Project runs at 2.4 gigabits per second -- about 90,000 times faster than your humble 28.8 kbps modem...
Trouble was, it was a difficult line to swallow. Gates as a fuzzy-headed amnesiac? This is the man revered even by the geniuses who roam Microsoft's Redmond, Wash., campus for his awesome "bandwidth" (geekspeak for intelligence). Gates' memory is so capacious that at age 11, he astounded friends and family by memorizing all 107 verses of the Sermon on the Mount. He's so driven and detail oriented that he favors baths over showers so he can study while he soaks. Besides, it's hard to imagine the lackadaisical Gates of the video taking Microsoft from three employees...
Both of these bandwidth bandwagons are on a roll lately. At a gathering in Chicago this week, many of the country's largest cable and computer companies will plot speedy-modem marketing strategies with big electronics retailers like Circuit City and Radio Shack. This follows a recent agreement to make all cable modems work the same, so you can buy and install one yourself rather than staying home from work to have a cable guy install a leased modem for you (assuming he shows...
Another way to sate this need for speed is through DSL phone service, which enables your existing phone line to carry data at rates as fast as 1.5 million BPS. That's only half the maximum of many cable services, but DSL gives you "dedicated" bandwidth. Cable systems make you share bandwidth with other subscribers in your neighborhood, and things may bog down if you all go online after dinner. As with cable, DSL lets you stay "always on" the Internet since a single digital line can handle voice and data calls simultaneously...
...then we'll know whether this fall's Palace surge is a fad or a genuine paradigm shift, the Net's first step toward the three-dimensional virtual world that cyberpunk writers have envisioned for years. Imagine the capitalist dreams that cheap bandwidth and visual communities the size of shopping malls might fulfill: try-it-on Gaps; virtual town halls; online nightclubs with live video and sound. "I'm not sure that even the guys at E.C. know what the Palace's future is," says Foley. Like the Web browser before it, the Palace has a chance to become that...