Nayel Shafei, CEO, Enkido

Demand for bandwidth has always been there. But since early '99 we warned the world: Even if Wall Street is stupid enough to fall for the current suggested business models, the total GNP of the country is not enough to light all the fiber that has been laid. Joe Nacchio said in Business Week in 1998 that telecom was the second most profitable business after smuggling cocaine. I say telecom is the second largest scheme since S&L.

A duopoly — that's what we're leading to. Omnibus carriers that cover everything, like AT&T. One intravenous bill coming under your skin. In about two years, there will be, at most, three carriers, and included in those carriers will be vendors. Probably Lucent and the like will be folded into the newer, reconstituted Ma Bells. Somebody will grab the name AT&T, whether it's the current company or another one. The duopoly will be AT&T and Microsoft — and maybe a third that's AOL.

This is great news for companies like us. Nimble, small companies that know what to do. There will always be a niche for that. But the FCC is very supportive of big RBOCs.

Just one week after he came into his position as head of the FCC, Michael Powell said deregulation — letting RBOCs into long-distance — should be an appetizer, not the dessert. This is the wrong approach. The FCC has to play a role in enforcing an environment for smaller companies to compete.

Today, optics and bandwidth are both two orders of magnitude overpriced. The hope really is with the big, well-established non-telecom equipment vendors. They'll have to do something courageous.—As told to Ed Gubbins