World's Largest Catalog of Bandwidth Unveiled!
Bandwidth Market, Ltd. has unveiled the world's largest catalogue of publicly listed bandwidth prices. The website lists over 300,000 circuits, with a cumulative value of over $1 billion per month. "On our website, you can find the price of bandwidth between hundreds of cities--Abilene TX to Altoona PA, Wichita KS to York PA, or New York to Los Angeles, London, Prague or Helsinki," said Howard Holme, President of Bandwidth Market, Ltd.
Bandwidth Market, started in July of 1998, was one of the first Internet telecom brokers, posting offers by sellers and bids by buyers. Its website, www.bandwidthmarket.com, lists more circuits than any other Internet site or public source. It uses a complex search engine to sort offers and bids by city of origin or destination or speed of circuit.
Telephone companies, Internet Service Providers, and businesses lease phone and data lines from each other. Previously, these services were provided at fixed or regulated prices, or sometimes were negotiated one on one at trade shows or over the phone.
Bandwidth Market charges companies nothing to post their bids and offers but does get a commission when a sale is made. Its customers include Level 3, Qwest, Ameritech, Epoch Networks, Inc., NextLink, ICG, Worldwide Fiber, Inc., IXC, WinStar, Bell Nexxia, Hong Kong Telecom, American Electric Power, GST, Atlantic Media, and others. "With all our providers, we will soon have more products and services than even the largest telcos," said Barbara Shaw, Vice President of Bandwidth Market. "We are also helping companies buy huge quantities, such as 20 billion bits per second for 20 years on 1,000 mile routes."
"The quantity of bandwidth is exploding," said Holme, pointing to the huge fiber networks being built by Level 3, Qwest, Williams Communications, Global Crossing and others. Meanwhile the price is dropping dramatically. The price listed at Bandwidth Market for 45 Million bits per second from New York to London dropped last week from $60,000 per month to only $35,000. The reason for the "quantity explosion" and the "price implosion," according to Holme, is the stupendous growth in the Internet and improvements in technology. "The performance-price ratio of computers increases by 2 times every 18 months, while bandwidth increases 20 times in 18 months. "We expect continued gains like that."
With competition fierce, quantities exploding and prices plummeting, the need to streamline the buying and selling of bandwidth is forcing companies to change the way telecom trading is done. Holme says that telecom trading will become like trading of any other commodity and will be done over the Internet. "We think our market is much more convenient and efficient for buyers and sellers than haggling at trade shows, or accepting standard retail prices." |
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