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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."
as a disruptive technology.
I can't wait for VOIP to be a viable solution.
As someone who had a feud with the local phone company and refused to pay the outrageous bill that I wasn't responsible for (~ $750, defrauded by a roommate.. long story, phone was in his name, and he switched it to mine with a huge balance), I can no longer get service from them, and my credit is so screwed that the deposit on a cell phone is huge.
It seems that I'll get phone service in 7 years or when VOIP becomes viable, whichever comes first.
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.
Do they talk about cable infrastructure did anyone catch?
Forthcoming improvements to cable technology might be considered disruptive. There's stuff pretty close to market that uses 860 to 1000Mhz for up and downstream, split right down the middle. Supposedly capable of a whopping 100Mbps. Problem is that the bulk of cable plants in the country are only capable of frequencies up to 750Mhz and some of the real backwoods mom-and-pop's only something like 360Mhz.
"I can be self-referential if I want to," said Tom, swiftly.
hope that technology isn't on the list ...
Life sucks.
Powerline networking. It's sort of like one of those bad movie monsters that you just can't kill. Every few years, another sequel. It has tremendous promise if you can just work out those little technical problems. But you can't. Too much noise, and they radiate, and have all sorts of reactances along the way to mess up your signal with attenuation and reflections. The best proposal for powerline networking I've seen has been to use long-distance power lines to duct microwave transmissions. But that's not broadband to the home, it's a cheap backbone with medium speed, and imagine how much better it would work if they just put a fiber along the same right-of-way.
Ultra wideband for low power, local devices is going to lose because the other transports for those devices, like bluetooth and 802.11, won't be more expensive and have fewer problems. Maybe UWB will have a few uses, but it's not going to be a big deal.
Virtual keyboards?!?! Disruptive, right.
Folks, take all of this with a big grain of salt.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
The entire system will fly even more out of control of the courts, lawyers, suits, VPs in charge of things even more so then it is now.
People will be running encrypted private channels to each other all over hell's half acre and sending mp3s, videos, and pr0n everywhere and no one will even know its happening.
Creativity no one could possibly imagine will explode even more so than now.
The politically incorrect will run their annoying but harmless web sites much to the caterwauling of certain loud people, and, yes, the kiddy porners will run their kiddy porn and the cops will have a hard but not impossible time tracking them down.
People will be taking advantage and other people HATE when that happens.
The call will ring out for a crackdown, but the only place it's easy being a policeman is in a police state and that's what we will be moving AWAY from with these new disruptive technologies
Then, one day, it will all come to a head.
The whole net in the USA goes through a few choke points (more ever day but still only a few)
By sizing these few points, banning cryptography (except for their friends the credit card companies of course) and implementing Total Information Awareness the US government can ALMOST control the whole net. They can certainly screw it up real good.
Then, treating censorship as damage, the world's data flow will go AROUND the USA and America will have lost the net.
Who does the net belong to? The users or the suits?
This matter will get bigger and bigger, approaching critical mass.
And then, one way or the other, it will tip.
It's Christmas everyday with BitTorrent.
Am I the only one that looks at this like the list of things that will stop the telcos from making gobs of money (and of course hiding it all) DWDM works it works well and realy it's a good application of resources. Once it's in place adding circuts is easy and has not realy month to month cost just an initial cost to buy linecards and you can get a dedicated peice of fiber for less that the local loop of a DS3. It's all about the distance the in state media length runs that are the bread and butter of your average telo may go away. T1's are getting replaced by wireless and open laser for the short runs like main office to satalite office in a city etc. And lets face it DWDM lets one very important thing be done use ethernet for the connection. I can get a DWDM setup from CT to NYC in a building that has 30 IPS's or so (The old port authority building) that one run will cost me less than the local loop on a DS3. I can provition it as 100bt ethernet so each end can go to a switch and get agrigated up to the router or go to a virtual router interface on the switch itself just like a common rack and bandwith customer. Thats a cheaper connection for each side. Now I can also go to any of the 30 other IPS's and get bandwith from them the same way I get the advantages of cheaper line cards on my router they can use there existing line cards for customer access. I am also not stuck with a single provider or long buildout times to get to a new provider some fiber in the building is easy to get installed and often can be setup in days not weeks or months.
What does this boil down to getting rid of the metered bandwith middle man that the telcos are mostly because they have relied on time division muxing for so long. DWDM changes that once a single circut is provisioned you can pretty much keep adding channels as needed. This could lead to lots of mini naps being formed where carriers get some fiber into it and cross patch with customers and the funny thing is the telcos could be the perfect place they allready have buildings on nearly all the fiber runs and definatly a building every 70km or so for cheaper optics and lasers to be used. Last mile fiber could become a reality just plug your intermediate reach gbic in and get a provider on the other end a flat 100 bucks per megabit average and pay the telco for the fiber.
No sir I dont like it.