I was part of a conversation today on the notion of open access municipal broadband, and what it would take to make it work?
It’s the usual deal: suppliers, ie tech types, see it as easy and the “Right Thing to Do” but utility providers want to see a compelling reason to build it. “If you build it, they will come” is not good enough.
Even as an early adopter, I can’t see a compelling reason to have 100 MBit networking to my house: I’m not missing anything at 384 Kbits, so far. The talk is all about video, interactive or otherwise, but we’ve had the internet’s interactive capabilities in wide use for 7-8 years now, and I think content programmers have learned that people don’t want to interact. They may play games — there’s lots of that — but that’s a different thing altogether.
And we know the content companies are resistant to video on demand: they don’t even like TiVo, so I have a hard time imagining a world of movies or other programming on my schedule. It’s still appointment television, “must see TV” and looks to stay that way for a while.
ISSAQUAH MIRACLE
Explaining the magic of networks, Bookey asks you to imagine a car plumped down in the jungle. Checking it out, you might find it a very useful piece of equipment indeed. A multipurpose wonder, it would supply lights, bedding, radio communications, tape player, heat, air conditioning, a shield against arrows and bullets, and a loud horn to frighten away fierce animals. In awe of the features of this machine, you might never realize that the real magic of a car comes in conjunction with asphalt.
For the first 10 years of the personal computer era, according to Bookey, we have used our computers like cars in the jungle. We have plumbed their powers for processing words and numbers. All too often, home computers have ended up in the closet unused. We have often failed to recognize that most of the magic of computing stems from the exponential benefits of interconnection.
Bookey was one of the guests in the meeting today. His personal history/introduction took half an hour, none of which seemed wasted.
I understand the importance of networking and how it increases the value of each node. I have everything in my house networked, ranging from 10 Mbit and 100 Mbit wired to 11 Mbit wireless. If it can’t be networked, it’s of no use to me: my old Newton MessagePad even has a network card. So I can access everything from everywhere.
I’ve used modems in the mid-80s to broaden my exposure, from CompuServe and GEnie to the WELL and local user group BBS’s.
My office on the UW campus is 100 Mbit and the new building we’re moving to is going to have 802.11a [56 Mbit wireless] throughout.
I’m a believer. But I’m not seeing anything that requires 100 Mbit when so many things aren’t networked at all. For example, while I was waiting for the bus home, I thought how useful it would be if the route map had actual buses on it, showing where each bus was relative to the terminal on Campus Parkway. Not hard to do, if you think about it: the ferry system does it in a web page.
The smart bus sign could be a wired or wireless application: it doesn’t matter since the bandwidth requirements are so small.
I think the trend is not toward faster networking but more networking: connecting more things, a la BlueTooth and Rendezvous, rather than fiber to the desktop. For all the talk of how copper is not good enough for what we need today, all the Cat 5 cables that connect the fiber segments together are copper. Just a chain is as strong as its weakest link, a network is as fast as its slowest segment.
And while not specifically a networking technology, there’s also FireWire 2:
All the new FireWire 800 products are based on the `b’ version of the IEEE 1394 multimedia standard, developed by the 1394 Trade Association. 1394b delivers speeds starting at 800 megabits/second, scalable to 1.6 Gigabits/second, then to 3.2 Gigabits/second. It also extends the distance that FireWire-equipped devices can send video and audio to more than 100 meters over CAT-5, plastic fiber and other media.
Of course, where fiber wins is on distance: for WAN use, networked communications or campuses, fiber is the clear choice. But for short distance, wireless or plain old copper may be sufficient.
Call me skeptical but not without hope . . . . . what’s missing is what we’re connecting and why. This essay may offer some insight.
We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate. –Henry David Thoreau