The recent CANARIE Advanced Networks Workshop (Toronto, Nov. 29-30, 1999), an annual event, drew participants from all over Canada plus networking experts from around the world, notably Sweden, the Netherlands, and Korea, with a smattering from a less developed southern country--the United States.

CANARIE stands for the Canadian Advanced Network for Research, Industry, and Education. CANARIE is similar to Internet2 in the US, but industry takes more active role. And the Canadians have some apparently great companies like Newbridge, JDS Uniphase, PMC Sierra, Teleglobe (I *think* it's great; certainly it has huge connectivity on the great circle between Europe and Asia), and even Nortel.

Also, unlike any other nethead meeting I've ever been to, school networks, especially nets for the Kindergarten-12 grades, were significantly represented.

The biggest impression I took away was this: It sure looks like Gigabit Ethernet (GigE) over glass (and even 10 Gigabit Ethernet, though still in the labs) is coming on like gangbusters. GigE is following the classic Clayton Christensen disruptive trajectory, rapidly improving in capability, moving up-market from LAN to WAN to displace ATM and SONET, to become the network architecture of choice. The move to GigE seems to be coming first in entirely new Internet-created companies, then it reaches newly networked market segments (especially public institutions), then it slowly penetrates older, already-networked sectors like telcos, banks, etc.

Since there are many more LANs than WANs, GigE, due to its Ethernet LAN heritage, has huge economies of scale. (Every flavor of Ethernet that has hit the marketplace has slid down a 30% per year price reduction curve.) GigE's use in both LAN and WAN gives greater scale yet. Plus by erasing the LAN/WAN boundary, GigE decreases the complexity of the network, making it even stupider, easier to manage and easier to innovate upon. So it looks like the Stupid Network will be built of GigE over glass, and it looks like CANARIE's CA*Net 3 will be its first pure nationwide instantiation.

Referring to the disappearance of the LAN/WAN distinction, Bjorn Roos, who is building a 190 node, GigE "from core to closet" optical Internet for Stockholm schools (using the Stokab municipal dark fiber infrastructure) quipped, "I am sad to say I had to change my title. I used to be a WAN manager but now I am a LAN manager again!"

But it looks like the big Canadian innovations are more regulatory than technical, notwithstanding the huge progress in Internet over GigE over glass. The CRTC (the Canadian FCC), in sharp contrast to the US FCC, has ruled that Canadian Cable TV operators are common carriers, and ordered them to open their head-ends to any ISP. Then, when the cable guys didn't do it, last September the CRTC slapped them with an order to re-sell head-end access to all ISPs at a 25% discount! That'll goose up Canadian Internet competition!

In contrast, in the US, some industry advocates, including FCC Chairman Bill Kennard, make dire predictions that open access to cable networks (especially AT&T's) would chill investment in broadband infrastructure. Poor AT&T needs its $120 Billion investment protected. (I want the US Government to protect my OpenFund investment, too--it'd be in the public interest, dontcha think?--but I can't seem to hire enough lobbyists to make my case.)

In Canada, open access is not discouraging investment in broadband nets, not at all! The Canadians seem to understand the centrality of a broadband communications infrastructure to their economy. They are pushing towards fiber everywhere with a national will.

Where there's a will, there's right of way. Any Canadian public institution--schools, hospital, cities, universities, churches, etc.--can hang their own cables on telephone poles. Lots of them are doing it. As a result, there is already much fiber in Canada's neighborhoods, close enough to where people live that fiber to the home will soon be common. I should point out that there is significant neighborhood fiber activity in the United States, but it is more spotty and isolated. It does not have the support of the telecom industry or the regulatory establishment, but it is going on! Spokane WA and Palo Alto CA are two good examples of the 47 US communities with municipal fiber and a civic understanding of how broadband connectivity makes their economy vital. Ken Poulton (Palo Alto Fiber Network) and Dennis Schweikhardt (Spokane Public School District 81) reported strong progress.

Telecom whistleblower Bruce Kushnick (who was not there, but is a good friend of mine) says, "AT&T is Mother Theresa compared to the RBOCs." Lon Berquist, of the University of Texas Telecommunications & Information Policy Institute, reported that there are 6 US states that prohibit or restrict municipal telecom. These RBOC lap-dog states include Arkansas, Florida, Missouri, Nevada, Texas and Virginia. Shame, shame, shame, shame, shame, shame. If a city wants to run a sewer system, it can. If a city wants to provide water, power, garbage collection, etc., there is nothing that prevents it from pursuing its own economic interests and defining the standards of municipal service that its citizens should expect.

Please don't label me a Commied Symp for this opinion. (I gave up when the wall went down.) I'm all for private enterprise where it creates open markets and real competition. Metromedia Fiber Networks is doing great work to bring abundant dark fiber to US cities, but until we have a dozen such companies, if small and mid-tier cities want their citizens to have beef, they will have to rope and tie their own calf.

As we move into the age of networks, countries with good infrastructures upon which they can build a vibrant, competitive networked marketplace, like Canada and Sweden, will prosper. The future will appear in these places first. Conference keynoter Peter Lothberg described the goal of Sweden's national fiber initiative. He said, "We never want to run into a scenario where we'll be bandwidth limited again."

CANARIE workshop presentations

For more information on this item please visit the CANARIE CA*net 3 Optical Internet program web site at the CANARIE website

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