WAN Industry Now Touches Addressable Market 6 Times Bigger

Global Cloud XChange CEO Bill Barney argues that the wide area networking industry "now is the computer bus." What he means is that data now moves between peripherals and processors and storage over the wide area network, as cloud computing becomes the new paradigm for computing.

Where one might have argued that the addressable market for WAN transport providers was perhaps $232 billion in 2012, the addressable market now is much bigger. In fact, Barney argues, the addressable market is six times larger.

That includes involvement in the $600 billion "software" business, as most software now is delivered or used "in the cloud."

The market also touches the $965 billion enterprise "information technology" business and the $103 billion data center business as well.

That doesn't necessarily mean WAN transport and services will displace most of the revenue in the extended ecosystem, only that WAN providers now play more central roles in those other areas, and for that reason will be generating additional revenue within the ecosystem.

When Barney talks about a new "golden age of fiber," that is the sense in which he means it.