Thomas Stanton on network value
From Tom Stanton, Chairman & CEO, ADTRAN · · BroadbandWorldForum
“Metcalfe's law states that the value of a network is proportional to the square of the number of users of that network. Every single user adds exponentially more value to that network.”
On , Thomas Stanton, President, Chief Executive Officer & Chairman at ADTRAN HOLDINGS INC, spoke about network value during Tom Stanton, Chairman & CEO, ADTRAN on BroadbandWorldForum.
About Thomas Stanton
In a September 2014 presentation, Tom Stanton, Chairman & CEO of ADTRAN, discussed the accelerating pace of change in broadband and networking. He attributed this to the combined effect of Moore's law, Gilder's law, and Metcalfe's law, the last of which he described as stating that "the value of a network is proportional to the square of the number of users of that network." Stanton argued that speed remains a "bottleneck to innovation" and that increasing access speeds will unleash new capabilities. He also stated that the network is not scalable if built for all users to have everything, and pointed to software-defined networking (SDN) and network functions virtualization (NFV) as a path to economical scaling. Stanton compared the current technological shift to the impact of Johannes Gutenberg's printing press, saying it "completely changed society by making knowledge and education available to everybody." He referenced futurist Ray Kurzweil's prediction that the century could see the equivalent of 20,000 years of progress if bandwidth bottlenecks are unlocked. Stanton asserted that "the demand for broadband is infinite" and that it is impossible to foresee where broadband requirements will peak.