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With the increasing popularity of MPLS, WAN interfaces are being replaced by ethernet, anyway.

But if you really need ATM, Fore/Marconi/Ericsson sells Forerunner OC-3 and OC-12 ATM NICs. The higher end cards support a lot of VPi and VCi numbers. I have been happy with them under Solaris. Linux is not listed as a supported OS under the datasheet, but then, that's not surprising.

Simpson was bought in as a deal maker. He took GEC, sold off the defence business to BAe, renamed the rump of the company Marconi and turned it into a telecom company. So far so good, and the share prices soared. Unfortunately neither he nor any of the team he bought over from Lucas knew anything about telecoms. You had to go about three levels down from Simpson before you found anyone who could stand up at an industry meeting and not look like a fool.

The next big deal was for Marconi to buy a big ATM equipment manufacturer in the US named FORE Systems. They had shares inflated by the bubble. We also had shares inflated by the bubble. But we had to pay cash because our shares could not be traded in the US at that time. Oops. The deal meant that the four founders, who had most of the intellectual capital, now had FU Money as well. So they said FU. Eventually Simpson managed to promote someone else from Fore to be CTO of Marconi. But he wasn't one of the guys who got FU Money, and there was a reason for that. His idea of a technical strategy was to get the engineers to build a bigger, faster box than the last one.

Orders dried up. The company almost went bust. I got laid off with a whole bunch of others, and Marconi is now a shadow of its previous self.

Managers don't need to be technical wizards, but they do need to have a decent understanding of what the engineers are talking about. Middle PHBs can sometimes get by, especially if they are not directly managing techies. But if the guys in charge of strategy cannot tell which way the wind is blowing in your industry then get out while the getting is good.

Paul.

I'm seeing lots of conjecture about greenhouse gases but no information on what the new invention actually produces. Until we get real information, let's be optimistic, OK?

"Many scientists of the day believed that wireless waves travelled only in straight lines from the transmitter and hence range was restricted to line-of-sight. Marconi proved, however, that the curvature of the earth was not an obstacle for wireless telegraphy over great distances." ~ Marconi's Atlantic Leap

In St. John's, Newfoundland in 1901 Guglielmo Marconi's kite received the letter "s", as transmitted in Morse Code from Cornwall, England.

AT&T, Verizon and AOL received $0.00.

The End

I think they had about 8 sites, connected in a ring topology using some Marconi ATM switches connected via a local ds3 or ethernet connection to the towers.

The toplogy was basically like this:

Customer House---802.11b---Ethernet/Tower--Microwave--Tower /Ethernet--Router/switch--Internet

Depending on the size, either a point to point style network could be configured or a ring style topology. With a ring, you have some level of redundancy.

This works very well for them and allows them to grow the network easily. A starter node shouldn't be that expensive either..so if you can put up a tower or two, you should be in great shape.

The network spans many hundred miles over microwave..so distance really isn't a problem for them.

Good luck, and you should come back in a year or so and let us know what you decided on doing!

It's a relatively new technology being deployed by Bellsouth now. Digital Fiber in the Loop (DFITL) makes use of a new card that gets installed into your fiber pedestal (ONU), manufactured by Marconi. It essentially acts as a mini-DSLAM.
Then inside your house, you use a regular ADSL modem on your phone line, and you'll get maximum speed no matter how far you are from the CO.

The problem is that Marconi is the only company that manufacturers cards such as these and they are proprietary from what I understand. However, for those like me that were stranded on dialup for months before this was finally available, it's a wonderful thing to have.

No, dumbass. When he said "Marconi," he meant Marconi. I don't know what this Galileo company has to do with Sun, though.

Here in Ontario we have a newer toll highway (the 407), and because they charge absurdly high amounts they could afford to put photo license reading equipment on every onramp and offramp, and you get mailed a bill the month following. Of course, all they've proven is that a particular car drove on that highway, not that a particular driver drove on that highway.

Personally I see no privacy invasion from this whatsoever : Cars are licensed equipment, and it seems fair to me that they can track where your car (note: Not you, your car) went on the roadway system. If you're concerned about getting caught on a booty call, then let your friends borrow your car for a while for some deniability.

You can read the detailed history of the transformation from GEC to Marconi here.

I was part of Reltec when they were bought by (then) Marconi Communications. The link to Marconi was tenuous at best but his face would still appear on many internal materials. During the past few years, GEC Marconi have been radically consolidating under the Marconi name to give more of a cohesive sound to the name.

Also, what is interesting is that Marconi is actively participating in centenary activities.

You can read the detailed history of the transformation from GEC to Marconi here.

I was part of Reltec when they were bought by (then) Marconi Communications. The link to Marconi was tenuous at best but his face would still appear on many internal materials. During the past few years, GEC Marconi have been radically consolidating under the Marconi name to give more of a cohesive sound to the name.

Also, what is interesting is that Marconi is actively participating in centenary activities.

Once upon a time, I worked for a company called Marconi. Marconi's DISC*S MX product muxes a bunch of ADSL modems (also DS1's, POTS, and video) together on a single fiber. I was fascinated by the technology. Check out the marketing data!

Anyway, the technology is definitely available to go from copper or coax to fiber. After reading all the commentary, I am curious whose solution the telco companies will chose, and whether they will pony up the money anytime soon. As far as the equipment is concerned, the engineering has been well under way for quite some time.

We do. Unless you work on the NT helpdesk team, we are almost 100% Solaris and just about every developer has a Linux box on their desk. :) We hire plenty of interns from what I've seen.

Marconi has some pretty advanced products in this field.. Check out their webpage.