Spam, spam, spam

April 28, 2003
Many office workers today find the internet an indispensable tool.

Many office workers today find the internet an indispensable tool.

No, that doesn't mean downloading pirated music, playing online games, or "surfing" for salacious material on company time. (Where the heck do these folks find the time and the impenetrable cubicle to get away with this?)

OGJ editors make regular use of the internet: to conduct research for background, to monitor events that provide input for their own stories, and to trawl for wire stories and press releases they can use. As with every other computer-related tool, regular use of the internet presents frustrations and annoyances for the user. Speed in retrieving information is often a major frustration.

Which is ironic, considering that a reporter now can find needed information in minutes, sometimes seconds, vs. the hours or even days once spent making and waiting for telephone calls, faxes, telexes, etc. (under-40 readers may wish to ask colleagues over 40 what that last term means).

The spam threat

Internet annoyances are myriad, chief among them "spam." Unfortunately for marketers of the trademarked variety, these days that word conjures up for most people the daily flood of unwanted advertising and marketing messages cascading through their computers rather than the canned spiced ham product.

Forget about firewalls and spam filters—the spammers always seem to be one step ahead. Some of the pop-up ads take hold seemingly forever and lurk like demented gremlins, springing into life on your PC screen at the most inopportune times. But most spam messages are dispatched swiftly with just a press of the Delete key. No big deal, right?

That was the presumption, until these startling statistics emerged in a recent New York Times article: Spam-filtering software maker Brightmail says that 45% of the e-mail it tracks now is spam—a stunning jump from 16% a year ago. Internet service provider America Online puts the spam share of its customers' e-mail now at 70%.

Uh-oh. Is this junk going to become the cybernetic equivalent of water-hyacinth, the invasive South American weed that now threatens to clog and choke US waterways? Will file servers start crashing routinely now because networks are groaning under terabytes of weight-loss plugs and herbal Viagra ads?

Pipelining broadband

One energy company may have a solution for such frustrations and annoyances. Anyone who has a broadband connection appreciates the dramatic difference in speed, reliability, and security vs. conventional dial-up land-line connections.

However, while most telephone companies now have fiber optic long-distance lines, hookups to most businesses are still problematic because of the hassle involved in digging up streets and easements to accommodate the fiber optic cables broadband requires.

Enter Sempra Fiber Links. This unit of a communications subsidiary of San Diego gas and electric utility Sempra Energy has devised a technique for inserting fiber optic cables into operating natural gas pipelines. (Tulsa-based Williams Pipe Line Co. pioneered the commercial use of fiber optic networks in pipelines in 1985 [OGJ, May 20, 1985, p. 41], but those were empty lines.)

Sempra Fiber Links Pres. and CEO Michael Clover contends that while there is no significant untapped demand for residential broadband internet access, there is "one place broadband is very much in demand but largely unavailable: the 750,000 commerical office buildings in the US."

As new corporate transparency standards mandate posting financial filings on the internet, and as cost and security concerns make internet conferencing more appealing, that demand will only grow.

Clover contends that "providers largely failed to foresee the tremendous difficulty and cost involved in upgrading the so-called 'last mile' from the main line of the fiber cable to potential business users." That leaves less than 10% of US office buildings with high-speed internet access, while more than 39 million miles of fiber optic cable have been installed in US soil.

"It's a thorny issue," he says. "The logistics involved in digging up streets for any reason in Boston, Washington, DC, New York, or San Francisco are frightening. In fact, many cities have put 3-5 year bans on digging trenches for fiber optic cables."

Sempra Fiber Links claims its technique can insert as many as 576 fibers into a single line. Furthermore, says Clover, the technique costs 30-50% less than digging up streets. (Cost aside, avoidance of street digging will register with anyone who lives in Houston now.)

Sempra Fiber Links is working with telecommunications companies and local distribution companies to promote its technique, which it claims also can yield incremental LDC revenues of as much as $400/pipeline-mile/month.

Now all that's needed is a pipeline "pig" to gobble up all that unwanted internet slop.

There's poetic justice for you: a pig eating spam.