rrier studies, points to the underlying problem that has to be solved before the industry can effectively move forward and deliver services in a sustainable, EBITDA-positive, and preferably net-profit-line-positive manner. Right now, when the largest group of customers want in the range of 10- to 100-Mbps throughput per building (considering the million or SO Frame Relay ports that are cur- rently in use), the issue is the building fiber spur cost. One way to address this issue is for the forward-looking carriers to establish joint construction agreements with companies that have rights of way, such as utilities, rail- roads, bridge and tunnel authorities, and so on. Skepticism is understand- able when you realize that the focus of the industry has not been where it needs to be; the focus has been on developing new Layer 2 MAC protocols rather than on lowering the per-building fiber access cost, which is com- prised of the spur cost and the in-building equipment cost. "Another impor- tant realization in 2001 is that the anticipated opportunities for new data-centric service providers have not materialized, leading to a much slower pace of technology adoption."10 Table 1-5 makes another important point while plotting the same data. In this case, technology represents, on average, 12.4 percent of the expense. Therefore, being extremely smart about a carrier's technological baseline would, in the best instance, modify the bottom line by 12.4 percent, or more realistically, 1 to 3 to 5 percent improvement. Transmission, mostly in the form of spur costs, represents on the average 33.6 percent of the total cost. As noted, this is an area that urgently needs attention, but it is important to understand that it is generally the building access component that must be improved upon, not the access backbone or the core backbone. (Table 1-6 shows that except in cases where customers pay for a full gigabit service, Advances and Opportunities in Next-Generation SONET Four 10-Mbps Customers per Building Figure 1-23 Cost element