Challenging the notion that Dow Jones & Co. is the stodgy traditionalist of
the financial indexes, the firm Thursday revealed it will issue its first
indexes of telecommunications bandwidth prices in the second quarter of 2001.
The Dow Jones index unit last week met with a group of telecom carriers and
energy trading companies — including AT&T, Sprint, Global Crossing Ltd.,
Enron Corp., El Paso Energy Corp., Koch Industries, Dynegy Corp., Aquila
Broadband (a unit of Utilicorp United Inc.), and Williams Communications
Group — which are already trading bandwidth. The companies will supply data
on the prices of telecom bandwidth between pairs of cities to compile the
indexes.
According to Antoine Eustache, global index editor for Dow Jones, the
indexes will use the prices from actual sales and purchases of telecom
circuits, not prices quoted by buyers and sellers. Each of the companies
supplying data will be required to sign an agreement with Dow Jones
attesting to the accuracy of the data. Dow Jones will retain the right to
audit all participants to validate the data.
The indexes will cover bandwidth prices of circuits connecting major U.S.
cities — including New York-Los Angeles, New York-Chicago, New York-Miami,
Seattle-San Francisco, Dallas-Denver and Washington D.C.-San Francisco — as
well as circuits connecting certain cities in Europe — including
London-Amsterdam, London-Paris, Frankfurt-Berlin, and minor routes like
Paris-Madrid and Paris-Milan or Rome — and transatlantic circuits
connecting New York and London. Eustache said other routes could be added to
the indexes if enough data exists.
The capacity of the circuits covered will range from DS3 to OC192
domestically and from DS3 to STM4 in Europe. The transatlantic circuits
covered will initially range from DS3 to STM1 but could eventually cover
capacity as high as STM16.
The first indexes will cover six-month and one-year periods and will most
likely be a three-month lead time between publication of indexes and the
delivery date for the bandwidth covered by the index.