Only a few years ago, the dream of striking it rich by transmitting Internet data and telephone calls across continents and under oceans, through endless ribbons of fiber optic cable, captivated one company after another. But rarely in economic history have so many people with so much money got it so wrong.
Instead of a stampede of customers to fill up these fiber optic highways, the industry found itself with too many vacant lanes way too many. What had once seemed like a brilliant idea carriers' buying and selling future access on those fiber networks to meet expected customer demand became a swap meet unto itself, with its own peculiar bookkeeping.
|