Business-to-Business Internet Marketing, Fourth Edition - Lifecycle ...

6 BUSINESS-TO-BUSINESS INTERNET MARKETING
cable connections is commonplace. It’s only a matter of time before
Internet access is bundled with electric service. The end result will be
the same: the massification of the Internet.
One of the biggest concerns has been the bandwidth associated with
delivering Internet service. As more people sign up for Internet access
and actively use the Internet to conduct business, the Internet can become
choked with traffic. The demand for bandwidth rises exponentially,
but even the bandwidth problem is on the way to being alleviated.
Massive technological improvements are being made to the Internet infrastructure
by leading networking companies.
Innovations are coming from all sides. Most cable companies are
becoming broadband enabled. Broadband is basically Internet access
over cable, and it is feeding hungry Internet users with electronic information
at blazingly fast speeds. Broadband is one significant advance,
but it is not the only way that consumers and businesses are getting
high-speed Internet feeds. Through faster ISDN (Integrated Services
Digital Network) connections running over ordinary phone lines, and
with the new higher-speed modems that are hitting the market every
day, fast access will be a diminishing problem for even the smallest businesses.
ISDN is fast being replaced by ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber
Line). Telecommunications and cable companies alike are
introducing DSL rapidly throughout the United States, targeting both
business and home use with the hope that DSL will be the killer Internet
access application. That is because DSL can share phone lines, using
modems that are 50 times faster than conventional modems.
DSL and other technologies mean that Internet access soon will be a
utility. People will not even need to think about turning it on and off,
because it will be like the telephone, cable television, and electricity.
Lately, talk is about the “second Internet,” an industrial-strength
Net that may be only a few years away.
Infrastructures are being built today that are expected to solidify
the Internet economy and make it a global reality. And those infrastructures
may not even be underground. Cisco Systems, the leading manufacturer
of networking devices, introduced a wireless Internet in the
year 2000. The company planned to offer Internet connections up to
ten times faster than DSL via low-frequency microwave transmission.
Even today, wireless connections to the Internet via cellular phones
and PDAs are possible, and although Europe and Asia are on the lead-