re : stanford project - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - forwarded by stinson gibner / hou / ect on 01 / 03 / 2001
08 : 54 am - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
stinson gibner
12 / 27 / 2000 05 : 04 pm
to : nick bambos @ enron
cc :
subject : re : stanford project
nick ,
hope you had a nice christmas . best wishes for the new year .
it would certainly be great to see you and to meet eric some time in the next
few months . everyone here
was very impressed with giuseppe and we are eager to have another of your
students come to enron .
enron broadband is continuing to evolve and the current vision is to rely on
enron ' s trading expertise while trying to
minimize our role as an engineering company and innovator of technology . i
spoke recently with jim fallon , the current
head trader in ebs , and we put together a short list of topics of interest
where you might be able to help educate us .
i put these in the order of interest ( to mr . fallon ) .
1 . where will bandwidth prices go ? the direction of prices , obviously is
the concern of any trader . we realize that
technological innovation will continue to drive down prices , but are still
interested in trying to quantify how fast prices will fall ,
if there are likely to be certain bottlenecks in the fiber network where you
could see prices stable or rising for some length of time ,
if there are applications on the horizon which would use such prodigious
amounts of bandwidth as to have some effect on pricing ,
and if there is a rational way of trying to quantify the timing and effect on
prices of new technologies .
the term " bandwidth " might primarily mean lit fiberoptic capacity , but could
also incompass dark fiber , or ip transit and transport
pricing .
2 . during the last year , enron purchased a company known as " warpspeed " in
order to acquire their metarouter technology . to quote from the enron press
release :
" metarouter sends signals throughout distributed networks to determine the
optimal connectivity paths for any size bandwidth capacity from anywhere in
the world . capable of processing thousands of connections per second ,
metarouter significantly enhances enron  , s ability to automate circuit
provisioning . "
there may be two separate questions to ask here . first , in the context of
the current market ( or the market which may develop in the next 1 - 2 years ) ,
will the metarouter be a commercially viable product ? that is , will it
address an actual need in the market , or would it be more cost effective just
to use technicians with jumper cables to provision circuits ?
the second question ( our first real technical question ) : is the metarouter
technology scalable ? before starting on this project , vince and i will
need to make the proper introductions with the principles who are
implementing this technology .
3 . aggregation of loads . a recurring question comes from a number of areas
such as ip , network storage , and streaming media transport sales : what
value can i get form aggregating customers , each of which has some type of
stochastic load profile ? giuseppe touched on this problem as it relates to
ip transport , but it may be interesting to try and look in more detail .
the main stumbling block may be that we currently have basically no actual
customer data . i am told that in a few months we will have some more useful
history . my understanding is that what will be available will be 5 - minute
averages of usage , so we still will not know on a short time scale what the
distribution of load looks like .
i hope that this gives you enough information to get some idea of what our
concerns are at this point . please let me know your thoughts about these
topics . i would expect , for instance that question number 1 may not be
reasonable as a research project , but might be a question which you would
feel comfortable in addressing by giving us your qualitative opinions , maybe
in the form of a talk here at enron .
again , let me know your thoughts , and i look forward to seeing you again
soon .
stinson
nick bambos on 12 / 20 / 2000 12 : 14 : 40 pm
to : vince . j . kaminski @ enron . com
cc : stinson . gibner @ enron . com
subject : stanford project
hello vince and stinson ,
first of all ,
best wishes for happy holidays ! ! ! !
if you are in the stanford area during the holidays , let ' s get together
some time to have dinner .
i have formally established the project - thanks again for funding
it - and i have also recruited the second phd student . his name is
eric cope , and he is a top - notch student , very mature , and entrepreneurial !
we have started working on some interesting problems in this area . i would
hope that eric could spend the coming summer at enron to get immersed into
the " problem / opportunity generation environment . " that really helps the
student
to develop a realistic vision about their research .
perhaps , our whole team could visit enron again some time in the next quarter ,
say in march or so , to discuss the research issues we are pursuing . and of
course
you could visit us before that too .
with my warmest wishes ,
nick
re : stanford project
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - forwarded by stinson gibner / hou / ect on 01 / 03 / 2001
08 : 54 am - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
stinson gibner
12 / 27 / 2000 05 : 04 pm
to : nick bambos @ enron
cc :
subject : re : stanford project
nick ,
hope you had a nice christmas . best wishes for the new year .
it would certainly be great to see you and to meet eric some time in the next
few months . everyone here
was very impressed with giuseppe and we are eager to have another of your
students come to enron .
enron broadband is continuing to evolve and the current vision is to rely on
enron ' s trading expertise while trying to
minimize our role as an engineering company and innovator of technology . i
spoke recently with jim fallon , the current
head trader in ebs , and we put together a short list of topics of interest
where you might be able to help educate us .
i put these in the order of interest ( to mr . fallon ) .
1 . where will bandwidth prices go ? the direction of prices , obviously is
the concern of any trader . we realize that
technological innovation will continue to drive down prices , but are still
interested in trying to quantify how fast prices will fall ,
if there are likely to be certain bottlenecks in the fiber network where you
could see prices stable or rising for some length of time ,
if there are applications on the horizon which would use such prodigious
amounts of bandwidth as to have some effect on pricing ,
and if there is a rational way of trying to quantify the timing and effect on
prices of new technologies .
the term " bandwidth " might primarily mean lit fiberoptic capacity , but could
also incompass dark fiber , or ip transit and transport
pricing .
2 . during the last year , enron purchased a company known as " warpspeed " in
order to acquire their metarouter technology . to quote from the enron press
release :
" metarouter sends signals throughout distributed networks to determine the
optimal connectivity paths for any size bandwidth capacity from anywhere in
the world . capable of processing thousands of connections per second ,
metarouter significantly enhances enron  , s ability to automate circuit
provisioning . "
there may be two separate questions to ask here . first , in the context of
the current market ( or the market which may develop in the next 1 - 2 years ) ,
will the metarouter be a commercially viable product ? that is , will it
address an actual need in the market , or would it be more cost effective just
to use technicians with jumper cables to provision circuits ?
the second question ( our first real technical question ) : is the metarouter
technology scalable ? before starting on this project , vince and i will
need to make the proper introductions with the principles who are
implementing this technology .
3 . aggregation of loads . a recurring question comes from a number of areas
such as ip , network storage , and streaming media transport sales : what
value can i get form aggregating customers , each of which has some type of
stochastic load profile ? giuseppe touched on this problem as it relates to
ip transport , but it may be interesting to try and look in more detail .
the main stumbling block may be that we currently have basically no actual
customer data . i am told that in a few months we will have some more useful
history . my understanding is that what will be available will be 5 - minute
averages of usage , so we still will not know on a short time scale what the
distribution of load looks like .
i hope that this gives you enough information to get some idea of what our
concerns are at this point . please let me know your thoughts about these
topics . i would expect , for instance that question number 1 may not be
reasonable as a research project , but might be a question which you would
feel comfortable in addressing by giving us your qualitative opinions , maybe
in the form of a talk here at enron .
again , let me know your thoughts , and i look forward to seeing you again
soon .
stinson
nick bambos on 12 / 20 / 2000 12 : 14 : 40 pm
to : vince . j . kaminski @ enron . com
cc : stinson . gibner @ enron . com
subject : stanford project
hello vince and stinson ,
first of all ,
best wishes for happy holidays ! ! ! !
if you are in the stanford area during the holidays , let ' s get together
some time to have dinner .
i have formally established the project - thanks again for funding
it - and i have also recruited the second phd student . his name is
eric cope , and he is a top - notch student , very mature , and entrepreneurial !
we have started working on some interesting problems in this area . i would
hope that eric could spend the coming summer at enron to get immersed into
the " problem / opportunity generation environment . " that really helps the
student
to develop a realistic vision about their research .
perhaps , our whole team could visit enron again some time in the next quarter ,
say in march or so , to discuss the research issues we are pursuing . and of
course
you could visit us before that too .
with my warmest wishes ,
nick