Telecosm

by George Gilder

A great contribution to this topic.

Genres: Technology, Business, Science, Nonfiction, Economics, History, Audiobook

269 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

Reviews

[Paul Bard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Any book by Gilder is a feast of factual and solid material about the real world.

Because Gilder deals in hard realities in both their archetypal and algorithmic expressions, his prose is varied. With this book he has helpfully broken the tone changes down for us:

Books 1 and 2 - science and history.
Books 3 and 4 - business and investing.
Book 5 - questions.

The key idea is this:

The electronic age is over.

Why? Because: "photonics beats electronics."

Major implication: dumb networks beat smart networks."

The key questions are not really questions but 2 statements of challenge to business waste and inefficiency: customer's time is wasted, and online business can now happen at the speed of light. Why not adapt to the new reality?

[Larry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tech-cheerleading companion to Microcosm: The Quantum Revolution In Economics And Technology.
It interesting to see how the authors predictions have stood the test of time, 21 years later. Bandwidth is not so abundant as to be "too cheap to meter", as he put it (quoting claims from a generation earlier about atomic power).
I wish I could have read this 21 years ago when I was starting at Qwest. He has a chapter that is mostly devoted to Qwest and how Q blew its early lead in the fibersphere by going with SONET.
Not a political book, although he does occasionally mention the importance of unregulated capitalism for his dream of virtually unlimited bandwidth to be realized.
Covers a lot of ground, networking history, satellite, fiber, the problem of the last mile, the business side of things. Occasionally a bit too sensational. On the other hand, it's fairly fun with lots of insider gossip. Not a dry tech manual.
My only important gripe about this book is it's 21 years out of date.

[Thomas Hettich · Rating 4 out of 5]

My review follows more than 15 years after reading the book. After reading an article in the Economist (http://www.economist.com/node/360381) I picked up this book while the dot.com was bursting. I found a lot to like in it. Gilder's authoritative voice and unwavering faith in unlimited bandwidth was exactly the kind of vision I was looking for. (Less so, his tech poetic-style of writing.) The book and the main premise have stayed with me and informed my views during all these years - and while there has been and there still are challenges to abundant bandwidth (such as the re-emerging topic of net neutrality) the world is clearly moving towards making his vision a reality.

[George Crofts · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s interesting to read this book 25 years after it was published because while some of the predictions about companies and technologies came true many did not.

The book is very well written and fun to read. I picked up a great deal of technical insights from it. For example his comparison of powerful signal/narrow bandwidth: as exemplified by the telegraph, telephone, and radio frequency communication; versus low power/high bandwidth Giga-Hertz transmissions via microwave towers and fiberoptic multiplexing.

[Doug O'laughlin · Rating 3 out of 5]

HILARIOUS BOOK. This was pointed to me as "the" telecom bubble book, and it did not disappoint. It is freaking promotional and very new age-y. very good zeitgeist read if you were looking for what optimism in 1999 for the telecom / internet revolution felt like. That being said, meh book.

[Arthur · Rating 3 out of 5]

二十年前的趨勢書，如今讀來已是歷史。

[Travis Daggett · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ok.

[Larry Van Valkenburgh · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little dated since it was originally written in 1996, it still provides a good history of the early development of the Internet, and the technologies and personalities involved. Guilder makes several statements that are simply not true and he also makes many predictions, some of which came true, some which didn't. But generally his book was very readable.

[Kurt Geisel · Rating 4 out of 5]

After 16 years, this is still quite prescient. There are some misses (Java, WorldCom), but also some spot on previous. I would still recommend if need to think about the scarcities and abundances in the information economy.

[AttackGirl · Rating 2 out of 5]

When discussing the technology around the internet it’s important to understand they are time appropriate the year, month and now day and perhaps location and now with a level of historical understanding.

[Douglas Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stupendous

[John]

nonfiction,science,futurism,computing

[Lynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very informative book regarding progression of internet world.

[Shivansh Chaudhary · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good follow up to microcosm. Futuristic and visionary. Don't try reading in one go. Re-read.

[Nick Tredennick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Economics of scarcity and abundance