The Fiber-Optic Bubble

• The telecommunications act of 1996 allowed local and long-distance companies to get into each other’s business. Projections for Internet growth were unrealistically high but thanks to the dot-com bubble money was easy to get and companies just kept building more capacity. When telecom companies went bankrupt, the fiber capacity was sold for ten cents on the dollar to companies who could make a profit.
• The PC-Windows phase was about you and me interacting with our computers. The Internet-email-browser phase was about your computer interacting with anyone anywhere. This was the foundation for the next step in flattening the world.

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