The man who put the 's' in telecom

George Gilder is a fan of the writings of Tom Wolfe, and it shows. Despite the content chasm that exists between them, Gilder and Wolfe actually have a lot in common. They have both been active in their craft since the 1960s. They are both highly regarded by some and despised by others in their respective disciplines. They both keep their followers in suspense for years between books. And they are both quirky, colorful, eccentric, sprawling writers.

Gilder professes a respect for Wolfe's work but stops short of naming him as an influence. In a sense, though, their work is almost complementary: While Wolfe has focused his efforts on social and political commentary and satire, the essence of Gilder's work has been to relate technological development to social, political and economic trends. There are even some similarities of style when you consider that both writers tend toward long but elegant and erudite sentence structures, and meandering yet fascinating and timely tangents.

Even though George Gilder is often tagged as an industry pundit or a technology futurist, he is first and foremost a writer. He was even more like Wolfe in his early years, when his books explored topics such as welfare, race relations and sexual politics.

Gilder has since become a technological guru. In more recent books and in his regular contributions to Forbes, he has embraced some technology developments and trashed others, defining new categories of thought for developers and investors to ponder. His bold predictions and outspoken style simultaneously command the respect and admiration of his followers and incite the ire of his foes.

Some time ago, Gilder gave it all a name: the Telecosm. It is not only the name of the annual conference sponsored by Gilder and Forbes, and the title of Gilder's long-awaited upcoming book, but also the category Gilder has created to describe what he believes is transforming the future of technology.

In search of the Telecosm The fact that Gilder labeled his theory is not surprising because everything associated with him seems to have been given a name. There's the Gilder Paradigm, the overarching category that encompasses all of his thinking. There's the Gilder Technology Group, the research arm and storage unit for the facts and figures backing his projections. There's the Gilder Technology Report, the monthly newsletter published jointly by Gilder and Forbes.

Of all of it, the Telecosm is probably the most difficult to define. It is Gilder's theory of evolution, the one that says telecom industry development centers around a group of ascendant technologies that represent a radical departure from conventional thought and business practices.

Gilder calls it "disruptive technology," borrowing a descriptor from Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen. It is anything that defies convention and challenges stodgy notions and practices.

"The essence of it is that for the last 30 years or so the whole telco establishment has been focused on using switching to compensate for inadequate bandwidth," Gilder says. "That really has shaped the system. All the large, software-intensive technologies are devoted to compensating for the copper wire links and their limitations. This assumption has been overthrown massively."

Gilder's theory puts optical networking at the center of that coup. Optics-particularly technologies such as wavelength division multiplexing-have made bandwidth abundant, rendering traditional telco mindset about compensation for bandwidth scarcity obsolete (Figure 1).

"I do believe that fiber is made by God for communications," Gilder says. "It's the ultimate communications medium. It will provide an elegant fibersphere that will enable an amazing efflorescence of creativity."

Despite that seemingly single-minded devotion, the Telecosm dictates that other technologies exist that will support fiber in its ascendancy. They are the access methods of choice that will extend fiber into areas where it has not yet reached. Chief among them is spread spectrum wireless and cable modems.

Gilder is a strong supporter of Qualcomm's developments in code division multiple access (CDMA) technology. He predicts that the next generation of Qualcomm's pdQ phone-a CDMA handset with a built-in organizer and a 2 Mb/s CDMA modem-will revolutionize wireless communications and make the convergence of computing and wireless a reality.

"This means that wireless Internet access at T-1 rates will be available anywhere," he says. "This isa breakthrough that renders ADSL Lite slim, indeed. It will start with everyone getting on the Internet at airports all around the country."

It is part of Gilder's way to dismiss some technologies in the course of embracing others. Digital subscriber line is one that, in Gilder's estimation, will not withstand the advance of fiber and the ascendancy of wireless and cable modem access (Figure 2).

The main problem with the Telecosm is that technology is not developed in a vacuum. The technologies Gilder defines as disruptive and ascendant are logical and practical in theory, but the challenge of implementing them becomes imminently more complicated when they are applied to the current muddled world of telecom.

There are no rules Gilder refers to the current regulatory state of the telecom industry as "this labyrinthine array of regulations applied to telecom around the world," which has created massive tangles in U.S. policy. If the Telecosm theory he propagates is meeting resistance, he says, it is the fault of regulation.

"The deregulation law did change some things, but at the cost of tremendous thickets of regulatory ambiguity and conflict," Gilder says. "The [Bell companies] have been reduced to lobbying and litigation."

Where some observers blame the establishment-namely, the incumbent operators-for lack of innovation, Gilder gives them the benefit of the doubt. He believes the telcos are trapped by the rules that politicians have created in their flawed attempt at fostering competition, an effort that is stifling technological progress.

"It's assumed that competition in itself is somehow a desirable objective," he explains. "I don't care about whether we have more competitors. Regulations designed to promote competition are obstructing the emergence of new technologies that might win."

It's a theory that seems to run contrary to all the talk emanating from established telecom operators: Gilder believes that incumbent telcos are actually products of their environment and that unless they are freed from current requirements for equal access and network unbundling, no innovation will emerge.

"They reflect the regulatory environment in which they operate," he says. "Carriers can create advanced local loop technology, but then they have to give it to all of their competitors at cost. That's a system that can't pay for a risky venture. I don't think you can blame people for being conservative when that's the rule they're under."

How, then, can the system be structured to allow what Gilder views as the natural law of the Telecosm to rule over the competition he believes the current regulatory situation has manufactured? By removing all barriers to competition, especially the involvement of government regulators, and letting the system define itself.

"The regulators have a notion that nobody wins," he says. "To make Internet access and broadband services available everywhere at once will prohibit progress. Regulation is the chief obstacle."

A portrait of the artist Gilder's complicated personality and radical notions would seem to suggest a reclusive character who quietly releases his theories to the world. On the contrary, Gilder makes his living as a public figure and has created an entire organization dedicated to supporting his work with cold hard facts.

What happened, says Gilder Technology Group Vice President Chuck Frank, was that Gilder decided some time ago that the Telecosm concept had enough momentum to forge a whole organization.

"He said that one of the toughest things about writing about the Telecosm is trying to find relevant and current data that's verifiable and measurable," says Frank. "Many times this whole thing is moving so quickly that data that's six to 12 months old doesn't help him when he's trying to make a point."

Frank and GTG colleague David Minor helped Gilder create a research facility that would serve as a sort of data warehouse: a place where Gilder could track down facts and figures and serve as a home base for Gilder's work.

"We undergird the technological aspect of his writings. We are principally the research and data collection point," Frank says. "He hands off the assignment, and we have research people who pursue it."

That ultimately developed into a joint venture with Forbes under which GTG creates the monthly Gilder Technology Report and Forbes markets and distributes it.

"That lets us concentrate on being able to feed George without distraction," Frank says.

Unlike other industry consultancies, the Gilder Technology Group is not an investment company. Its focus is to track technology that applies to and supports Gilder's theory; if potential investors get guidance from its work, that is an added benefit.

"The technologies we support, track and promote are those that exploit bandwidth," Frank says. "The newsletter is about ascendant technologies. To the extent that we get company-specific, it is because they are pursuing what is essential to the Gilder Paradigm."

It is that underlying objectivity-that steadfast devotion to supporting the Telecosm-that Frank calls Gilder's greatest quality.

"The biggest upside to working with George is that he is intellectually ethical. George stands absolutely true to his discipline," he says. "It doesn't matter if a company has had him out for a half-dozen speaking gigs-if they turn from the direction he believes they need to go, he immediately pounds them."

Beyond that, Frank says, the whole process of Gilder struggling with his muse is fascinating to behold.

"He's a somewhat mercurial personality," Frank says. "He's writhing with the whole process of thought, and that's very much the way he writes when he's around here."

At the close of the recent Forbes/Gilder Telecosm gathering in Lake Tahoe, Calif., in mid-September, Gilder presented conference attendees with an advance copy of his book, Telecosm, and invited comment.

Like Tom Wolfe, who recently published a new novel after a hiatus of nearly 10 years, Gilder's newest work has been hotly anticipated-at least in technology circles. Every year for the past several years its delivery has been promised, and every year its delivery gets pushed back.

Gilder-again like Tom Wolfe and his use of Rolling Stone-has serialized much of the content of Telecosm in his writings for Forbes. But magazines are by definition periodical. By the middle of 1999, the Telecosm will have moved from ethereal form to take permanent residence on the pages of a book.

If Gilder possesses some hesitancy, it is not likely that the act of publishing has created it-after all, he is already a widely published writer. The hesitancy likely comes from the theory itself and the potential danger of dating or limiting it by publishing it in one all-encompassing volume.

Until now, the Telecosm has been fluid. Gilder may be afraid that a book on the subject will dry it up.