Given the fate of some early broadband business models, and the slower-than-anticipated deployment of broadband in general, today's managers pinning their hopes on the convergence of voice, video, and data networking technology might agree. Early victims of the broadband mousetrap suffered from inflated expectations; it isn't difficult to find a breathless article or white paper dated from late 1999 proclaiming the era of broadband was upon us, a multihundred-billion-dollar market ready to explode, blooming fully by mid-2001. But, of course, the future never arrives on time. Economic cycles ebb and flow, and legislation drags on, while supply and demand do their courting dance. The current economic situation has been especially troublesome for the broadband market; in an attempt to cut costs, RD budgets have been slashed across industry segments, from telecom equipment manufacturers like Lucent and Alcatel to infrastructure mainstays like Cisco, Nortel, and Broadcom. Following suit, the incumbent (ILEC) and competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs) that make up much of the manufacturers' customer base have cut back on their purchases of next-generation equipment.
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