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Planet Broadband
When I first received the book, my initial thoughts were focused on the cable Internet environment, but the book addresses the DSL side as well. This small book of 140 pages, including index, not only explains how the concept of broadband communication evolved, but also delves into possible directions it may head.
This book is clearly a history of how the concept of broadband was developed and the growth of the Internet that it has led to, not a how-to-guide suited to setting up broadband service. I can foresee future generations of children reading this book in a college course on Information Technology. When one considers that only three to five percent of the American public use any form of broadband services, the growth potential presented is unbelievable.
For me, a detail-oriented reader, it took about eight hours to read Planet Broadband. That may seem slow, but considering the topic and the scope of events occurring within the world of telecommunications, it's better than I expected. As I read this book, I would pause from time to time and comment to myself on how Yassini's predictions and descriptions of possibilities offered by broadband access are already manifesting themselves. Some of the concepts presented include virtual training (which many universities are now offering) and virtual meetings with individuals all around the world. While Yassini does point out that not everything is available on demand in this day and age, in time we will witness more and more bandwidth-heavy services that are.
Yassini points out the concept of being able to check the items in the refrigerator from work, or have the washing machine place a service call to the manufacture before you know there is a problem. These are features of a true broadband planet -- and perhaps time our children and their children will not know a world where analog modems are still used to connect to the internet. But as you read, you realize that while today is the birth of broadband, this book is more the introduction to tomorrow's internet. To prove the point that Planet Broadband is an introduction, my baby-boomer mother (who works in the cable industry in customer service) took the book from me and read it cover to cover one day and told me 'This is where we are going.' If a 50+ year old parent can see it, we know that the world will be there some day.
Near the end of the book, Yassini focuses on telecommuting and a comparison of that to working at the office. While he clearly points out that telecommuting is not for everyone or all the time, it has productivity advantages and will only grow with time. I think one of his best examples is in Chapter 6, where he recalls an MCI commercial depicting a woman working at home and changing a presentation on the fly for clients and co-workers halfway across the country. That image is an example of how the world has changed thanks to the advances of broadband.
This book is not designed for the IT world, but for the general public. Just the same, I would recommend this as an excellent addition to anyone's library and especially to individuals in the information technology community. For management or others it is an excellent resource to justify a telecommuting policy or practice, or a good reason why they should upgrade from the modem and narrow band to the world of high-speed Internet.
You can purchase Planet Broadband from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews. To see your own review here, carefully read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
The Bangels, They are a broad band, right?
Here in Brazil there are companies providing 128/64 DSL services and calling it "broadband".
This book is not designed for the IT world, but for the general public
/. if it is for general public? This is supposed to be for us geeks/nerds.
Seriously. Why is this posted on
When one considers that only three to five percent of the American public use any form of broadband services, the growth potential presented is unbelievable.
1996 called. They want their statistics back.
An effective signature identifies a particular user amongst a base of thousands.
"... a new book by Rouzbeh Yassini which answers the question of where the term 'broadband' originated ..."
Is it just me or does this sound like a great premise for, oh, say, a paragraph or two?
In all matters of opinion, our adversaries are insane. -Oscar Wilde
It is the title of a new book by Rouzbeh Yassini which answers the question of where the term 'broadband' originated and why is it used when discussing cable internet services."
Seems a little obvious to me. Even back in the days of modems, we used the term "bandwidth" to mean that "this much data fits in band during this time period". "Broadband" simply meant that we had a very wide (i.e. Broad) data width in band.
As for the author's "ideas" on what Broadband was supposed to mean, give it time. People are still getting used to having an always-on connection. It's going to take them awhile to adapt to the idea of plugging the bandwidth as a home utility rather than a feature of your computer. Which is actually a good thing, because the bandwidth doesn't quite yet exist to play true TV or Movies on demand. So this adjustment period gives us time to eat away at the problem by both creating better algorithms and lighting up some of our dark fibre.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Two Greek words: "broad", mneaning "a word", and "band", meaning "that has something to do with the internet."
ResidntGeek
The introduction to the review is silly. The book would be better described as the history, present, and future of various aspects of broadband. Work, miltary, science, family life -- broadbands impact on all of these type of things are explored.
:)
Several of my friends who are in the venture-side of investing are using this book to see where they need to put their money. The author has a good vision.
And yes, it's already a little out dated. It still takes a while to publish these prehistoric things the public calls books.
Davak
Honestly who in the general public would want to read this. My guess is that it will just sit on a few college library shelve for a couple students over the next 30 years to look up a couple things in. What is the point of writing it?
Evolution or ID?
Actually, the question should be "Do we really need TWO books dedicated to broadband?"
The author has a good vision.
The author HAD a good vision. He's the one that created the Cable modem. He's also the one that started the DOCSIS standard and he's also the president of LANCity cable modems (if they still exist).
There's nothing new to develop with cable modems now. DOCSIS takes care of most everything users could want (upgrades over the wire, bandwith throttling, etc).
I seriously doubt that the analong modem will go away anytime soon in favor of "broadband" devices. Much like everyone predicted the floppy would go away, here we are in 2004 still using them (although fewer people rely on them as each day goes by). There are people in remote areas that will probably never see a broadband provider in their rural neighborhood and they will rely on a 56K modem for their internet access. There will be a few people that may think that broadband isn't necessary because they only use the internet for email and the occasional stock quote, news, or whatever. There are 2 other factors that the providers themselves need to address before there is a more widespread broad band uptake: Price and Availability.
BB right now is too expensive for what it is. if the price of BB can come down to something more reasonable (ie $15 per month) then people would consider it over analog, but it's availability in all areas will keep that from becoming a reality. No matter how cheap it gets, if it's not in your area, you're stuck with a modem.
I think we'll see BB overtake analog in about 10 more years, but it'll be another 10 or so before we see the analog modem go away completely.
Fifty watts per channel, baby cakes.
Does anybody really want the Washing Machine to call its own repairman? Ok, maybe if there was a new Washing Machine firmware update. But, repairmen are expensive and come at inconvenient times -- I don't want somebody trying to charge me $60 for a missed appointment that my Whirlpool made on my behalf. Heck, the thing's broken and who in their right mind lets a broken washer spend their money?
Then there's the idea of having the refrigerator keep track of how long things have been in the refrigerator: how does it know what's in there? Is it going to recognize the 3-day-old leftover lasagna or the jar of homemade jam? What happens when my little girl decides to stick her baby doll in there? I really want a fridge to tell me which shelf the mustard is on, not when I'm almost out of milk -- that I can figure out for myself.
Traditional household appliances are not good users of broadband networks. Now, if I can remotely program my TIVO to record Law & Order so I can download it and watch it later from my laptop, that sounds good.
It wasn't mentioned in the review or any of the followup postings that I could find, but Yassini could be considered to be the father of the cable modem. He was responsible for leading a team in the development of open standards and certification of the DOCSIS Cablemodem specifications.
"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!" -- Dr. Strangelove