Bill Schrader, the chairman, president and CEO of PSINet Inc, which now designates itself as an internet super carrier (ISC), contrasting it with what he likes to call the former dominant carriers, or FDCs, believes his company now has the best infrastructure on earth. ISC is a self-coined term that PSINet says characterizes a company that has a single brand, encompassing worldwide fiber networks and optronic equipment and e-commerce and web hosting centers. Most importantly, the company should own its own network. This strategy is the only one, in my view, that will work, says Schrader.
Schrader believes that only two or three companies will achieve the status of an ISC, which he says is not just a marketing slogan; rather it is a detailed blueprint. He warned the FDCs thus: reject these guidelines and die, embrace them and prosper. Those FDCs are the kind of companies that populate the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a body that Schrader does not have much time a lot of time for, indeed he told ComputerWire yesterday the fact that they only meet every four years goes to show how little innovation they expect to happen in their industry.
