While Ackerman considers computers to be powerful, practical, enabling tools, he still likes voice for its dependability. New capabilities of computers and networks do not always produce the same reliability as the telephone. Voice and data are continuing to merge, creating very tough competition. We are at an economic turning point of historic proportions. Ackerman provided a long-term outlook on copper embedded telephone wire bases in the face of increased fiberoptic usage for wider band width.
Conditions dictate the continued use of copper because copper is more economical than fiber.
That not withstanding, he said, new applications are increasingly using fiberoptics, a trend that will continue. We are seeing a steady evolution toward the use of fiberoptics for embedded bases. Fiberoptic growth will boom. Data is not an end in itself, of course. Several industry leaders talked about the impact that the Internet's data delivery system is having on commerce and the manufacturing supply chain.