Variola wrote...

...

While this cannot be discounted in toto, the tech comes to them from academia (most of the time), so generally, if you are widely read, you'll have a pretty good idea of what's *possible*. You are likely dead-on accurate about the fabs though.

In the *public* lit.

Well, perhaps but perhaps not. Burst-mode signaling, transceivers, and networking technology are a good example. If you see DISA, NSA, and DARPA all working with the acknoledged experts inthe academic field, and if you see them spending $$$ on burst-mode testbeds, then it's clear that there are some issues they haven't solved. Of course, they may not be the issues WE think they are, but you get some idea. What that also hints at is that they can't actually always backhaul EVERYTHING. Their interest in burst-mode indicates they still view bandwidth as an obstacle (and not dark fiber, but actual lit bandwidth). Of course, their bandwidth "problem" is probably at orders of magnitude greater than we'd consider a problem, but their continued interest in burst mode probably indicates there are times when they have huge amounts of data that needs to get through i a short amount of time, and they don't want to clog up a channel.

Fair 'nuff. You know that 5 year predictions are too conservative, and 20 year predictions too liberal. Ask Orwell.

Well, there's the famous Adaptive Optics story centered around bringing Manua Kea online. When the Manua Kea designers were trying to solve some of the big issues ca. 1988, the military (as part of one of their dual-use programs) declassified Laser Guidestar research they had done in 1962! In other cases you can, however, take a reasonably good guess. Remember, during the bubble there was billions poured in by the private sector in making lasers more efficient, smaller, etc...There just happen to be physical limitations. But I have zero doubt that the NSA can't make a laser that is siginificantly more efficient than what I can buy off the shelf.

You think subs are just toys?

Actually, this is a most interesting point. Those cables are not merely giant rubber hoses running around on the sea floor...the telecom equipment is actually powered via an electrical layer in the cable sheath. And then remember that there are lots of fibers in any one of those cables, and that the signal therein might easily need to be amplified due to splice losses. So that Sub (which I know exists) must really be something to see. Almost makes me want to join the dark side! (Oh yeah, come to think of it I did actually work on an NSA project that examined some undersea optical component failures out of one of their networks. From the components we looked at, I can only guess what their network topology must have been (OC-3 ATM, BTW), but I can only take vague guesses as to what it must do). -TD _________________________________________________________________ Dont just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/