Internet Failure – An Opportunity for Alternate Network Providers

Implications: This is not a criticism of the Internet.  Things break down and things get broken.  It is the norm for a network operator. However, is this an opportunity for a third party network provider?

Analysis: The Internet is not immune to network failures.  In fact the Internet is no better or worse than the time division multiplexing (TDM) counterpart.  A TDM network is the network you have come to know as the old non-Internet network.  The Internet is a packet data network.  The TDM network is a fixed timeslot serial network.  The Internet supports dynamic routing.  Bottom line; the Internet is a fast route diverse network.

Router diversity and speed aside, the Internet backbone can break down as easily as the old non-Internet network.  Keep in mind the Internet’s core root servers were not broken or even damaged; rather cables were broken.

What this should be viewed as is an opportunity.  Once the cables were broken the entire network crashed because the network could not automatically re-route traffic.  That has nothing to do with it being Internet based or not.  For the non-engineer reader the best analogy is a race care versus a plain old passenger vehicle.  Just because the race car is a high performance vehicle does not mean the engine will not break down.  The only real difference between a race car and a passenger vehicle is that the race car has a more powerful engine. That all being said.

Once the cables were broken the first sign that something was wrong was suddenly millions of consumer stopped getting service.  What happened if there had been a ccompany that could have been made available to FLAG Telecom in order to assist FLAG in quickly rerouting traffic?

What is needed is a company that could provide alternate IP network services, network-neutral data center services, and interconnection services.  Such a company could also colocation, traffic exchange and outsourced IT infrastructure services.

This disaster is an opportunity for that next startup.