Disruptive Technologies For Next 5 Years

prostoalex writes "America's Network magazine, the publication serving to telecom industry, takes a look at the disruptive technologies over the next five years. Disruptive, naturally, for telecom industry. Virtual keyboards, DWDM, broadband connections using powerlines, wearable computers, free-space optics, low-power devices, UltraWideBand, voice over 802.11b and numerous others are discussed, as well as their potential for development over the next five years."

Comments

Disrupt business? Only if you're stupid.

[bigberk]

The technologies mentioned are, I think tremendously exciting! DWDM is something I've always thought of ever since I got into computer engineering; a natural use for fiber. And the electrical power line broadband --- this can truly extend broadband to the far reaches of the globe in areas where the power distribution system allows it.

But note the negative tone in the article - "Here are the technologies ... that are coming to disrupt your business". Am I misunderstanding the meaning of "disrupt"?

I think there's something wrong if our business leaders are looking at technology advancements as problems. Adapt, you stupid sh*ts! Get off your lazy asses, hire competent people in the new fields, and make a fortune.

There was an article in the December 2002 issue of IEEE Spectrum ("Paving the Last Mile With Glass") that talked about phone companies struggling to match cable companies in offering services via fiber optic connections in homes. Same idea. The phone companies that adapt to this technology advanacement remain. The others ("oooh no, it's disruptive, I'm scared!") disappear.

Re:Disrupt business? Only if you're stupid.

[athakur999]

"Disruptive technology" more or less means something that'll change the way business is done. It means, as you said, that companies will have to adapt and find new ways to make money. It doesn't mean anything negative.

Re:Disrupt business? Only if you're stupid.

[bstadil]

It means, as you said, that companies will have to adapt and find new ways to make money

Not really. The term was defined by Clayton Christensen from Harvard University. It has to do with technologies that initially is inferior to what the market "needs" but improves at a rate faster than that market. Eventually making it the dominant technology displacing what was there before. He uses disk drives as example. The book Innovators Dilemma is worth a read.

Re:Disrupt business? Only if you're stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, "disruptive technologies" is an idiom. It means something other than what you think it means. Geez. Easy on the coffee.

Re:Except that some of these are already dead

[thebigmacd]

I don't know if I am arguing with you or supporting you or what, but I believe there was an article a while back on slashdot that talked about technology that used optical fibre as the structural core for last-mile power cables. I thought it was neat and appeared to be doable because fibres are light and strong, and would have a dual purpose. As it stands, last mile power cables are currently made of a steel core wound with aluminum. Imagine the savings and benefits (granted, not for the steel companies) of using optical fibre as the core, or even using stronger composite fibres (think carbon fibre/nanotubes) as the structure mixed with optical fibre for data.

They aughta put virgin on the list

[jcsehak]

You can get a cell phone from Virgin for $60. Talk time is 25 cents a minute for the first 10 minutes, and 10 cents after that. What's so great about that? NO PLAN. You just buy these cards with extra minutes on them whenever you need more time to talk. Why should I spend $38 a month on home phone service? I rarely talk on the phone. Even if I make one 4-minute call each day, it'll still only add up to $30 a month. For the young single person, these are perfect.

Ethernet is not a WAN technology

[mobileone]

by extending optical Ethernet into the carrier network
Ethernet is a local area network technology. The main advantage of Ethernet is the extreme simplicity of deployment with spanning tree protocol (SPP) taking care of proper frame forwarding. SPP is terribly unstable in a WAN environment, it has substandard QoS support and most implementations lack the proper management tools.
There is absolutely no advantage of expanding Ethernet into the backbone. In the backbone you really need a layer 3 protocol such as IP or MPLS. Only reason I can think of is to invent a new technology and calling it Ethernet for marketing purposes.

Re:Except that some of these are already dead

[cats-paw]

I'm not convinced that you will be able to demonstrate tremendously better power utilization in practice vs. a spread-spectrum system with similar characteristics.

Huh?

You're not trolling me are you ? There is a very clear AND appreciable difference and the differences are rooted in communications theory. For similar data rates UWB has a dinstinct power advantage for multiple reasons which include the back-end processing. In other words the digital circuitry which handles the data is simpler and so there is a structural advantage. I guess we'll have to define "trememndously". As much as batteries still suck, I define trememendously as may be a 3x or 4x improvement, i.e. I claim that a 10Mbit/s radio which needs 1W, like 802.11B for instance, will only need .25 - .3W. And that's very conservative.

I do agree that there is plenty of hype to go around on the UWB front and one should always be skeptical. The fact is that the hardware is significantly simpler than other radios and that includes bluetooth. So it will always maintain a cost advantage. Now if that advantage is $0.5 then yeah - who cares.

And remember that Bluetooth had a lot of kool-aid associated with it. So far it is failing to deliver spectacularly, at least in the states.