It is a subject the media seems to be pre-occupied with,
and most of us likely have some idea about
broadband – what
it is, how it’s making our lives better, and where
this technology will take us into the future of communications.
As a recent article from Harvard Business School’s
Working Knowledge sums up:
“When true broadband arrives, everything will change – work,
play, and society.”
So what is the difference between broadband – as it
is now – and true broadband – when everything
will change?
First we need to look at how we are using the technology
now.
Defining Broadband
What is Broadband? Quite simply, it’s the method
of sending and receiving data over high speed networks.
The benefits are that it’s fast – between 10
to 80 times faster than a conventional dial up connection.
As sourced by the BBC, broadband connections currently allow
users to connect at speeds between 512 kbps and 4 mbps compared
to 56.6 kbps for standard modem connections. In addition,
new services are being developed specifically for users with
broadband connections, allowing consumers to do things which
weren't possible previously - such as viewing good quality
live video or downloading large MP3 files.
Another benefit is that users are always connected to the
internet and are using it a flat, fixed rate.
The current broadband options are:
ADSL – This technology enables broadband connections
between existing telephone networks.
Cable - This requires the installation of a special cable
connection.
Wireless- Using wireless technology, a
receiver on the outside of the house sends the signals through
to connection points
inside. These in turn then send the data through to a computer.
Currently, it is not possible to receive wireless broadband
services in all areas.
Satellite - For some people in remote areas satellite – which
requires installation of a satellite dish - is the only option.
This service is comparable to cable or adsl in terms of monthly
charges but uses a dial-up connection for uploading content.
What kind of equipment is needed?
1) Computer and software – and not necessarily the
latest model either.
2) A High Speed Modem
3) A Broadband Connection point
This is the extent of how broadband technology is currently
being applied in every day technology and consumers’ lives.
True broadband, as professors Robert Austin and Stephen Bradley,
call it, is a more encompassing change. In their new book,
The Broadband Explosion, they talk about how “real-time
communication” will be able to greatly enhance interaction
across geographical distances.
Changes
Austin and Bradley state that a broadband bandwidth connection
is roughly twenty times faster than most cable modem connections
(in the US). Once broadband becomes more consistently reliable
at this speed, then people will start to figure out new ways
to create value from it.
For business, this means changes in operations. It means
changes in what a business can sell and how they can sell
it. Increased power and speed in our broadband connections
will create new platforms for business, virtual communication
and computer interfaces, yet many of these benefits can’t
be seen clearly right now.
In an interview with the Harvard Business School, Robert
Austin talks about how the tendency to predict what will
happen in the future is to “extrapolate in a straight
line from today.” The shortcomings of this are made
clear by a similar parallel that occurred in the 60’s
and 70’s. As Austin explains:
“Moore’s Law was at work making chips more
and more powerful at lower and lower prices, but early on
people could not see what we would do with all that computing
power. At the time they were mostly using computers as big
calculators or big transaction-processing machines (for doing
accounting or payroll, for example). And they looked around
and asked themselves: “How many paychecks are there
to process in the world?” Today we have some skeptics
saying pretty much the same thing: “What will we do
with all that bandwidth?” I suspect the answers will
be similarly surprising.”
We are used to thinking about computers in terms of efficiency.
A pending reality is that increased bandwidth could be used
to create a much more interactive experience in communication.
Much of this is pre-commercial. Yet from the “data
glove” to haptic computing, these technologies could
become more commercial once the infrastructure is in place.
Broadband – what connects our networks together – will
certainly not be in the form as we know it now twenty years
from now. Take the data glove, for example, a product where
researchers are visioning how a user can touch something
with his or her fingers from a thousand miles away and feel
it push back at them.
The Here and Now
Yet back to the here and now. How are different countries regulating and investing
in practical broadband technologies, right now?
Point Topic’s World Broadband Statistics for mid-2005
show a couple of clear trends:
•
Europe is pushing to take over the leadership of broadband
growth
•
Asia and N. America are slowing down
•
Russia and India are making substantial investments in broadband
growth.
•
The four expected future giants of the world economy - often
referred to as the “BRICs” - are Brazil, Russia,
India, China. China is steadily gaining on the US to become
the biggest broadband country, and Brazil already has over
2.5m broadband lines.
South Korea is still the country that uses the most
broadband in the world, but it is not nearly as ahead as
it used to be. The general trend is that leadership in
broadband growth is shifting from Asia to Europe.
The following graph shows broadband growth rates in terms
of the number of broadband lines per 100 population.
Source: Point Topic's World Broadband Statistics
The countries above the trendline in the graph are growing
the fastest. These include Finland, Norway and Switzerland.
Countries below the line include many of those that led the
broadband boom in the first half of the decade, among them
the US, Canada, Germany, Korea and Japan.
Most countries are currently in the infrastructure stage,
ensuring that populations are increasingly connected with
broadband through wireless and satellite technologies.
The world is positioned to take
communications in broadband to the next level, the realities
of which we can only speculate now.
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