For nearly 100 years, the telecommunications service business was a monopoly. In most countries, the government controlled this business through the PTT=s. Even when the operators were privately owned (RBOCs and independent telephone companies in the U.S.A., for example), there were regulations leading to restrictions in business growth and deployment of new technology.With de-regulation now being pervasive in most of the developed countries, and the de-regulation fever spreading to developing countries, the communication technology evolution, development, and deployment started to accelerate. The adoption of newer technology by business, government, and consumers is exploding, propelling market expansion via demand.The Internet, for instance, is one such technology whose ubiquitous deployment has created opportunities for both systems suppliers, as well as semiconductor vendors.From ADSL to ATM, Ethernet technology to so-called network processors, no systems supplier can cover all the bases. Thus, the semiconductor technology suppliers are increasingly providing the intellectual property needed to cope with the break-neck speed in deployment of new communication technology.In this paper, we examine the communication technology trend as we see it and the implication of this trend on semiconductor suppliers, as well as semiconductor technology development.