> On 28 Feb 2016, at 12:17 PM, Tom Worthington <[email protected]> > wrote: > > On 27/02/16 05:07, Frank O'Connor wrote: > >> It’s a bit sad really that we can’t imagine a dynamic future ... And >> I think that is Tom’s problem … not enough imagination. > > The future I imagine is one where people use data when out and about, which I > think is "dynamic". High speed broadband limited to home seems to me lacking > in imagination: a quaint old fashioned view of the future, like a 1960s black > and white documentary about future transport, with atomic powered cars on 24 > lane freeways.
So all the observed trends, the increase in speeds from 300 (or even 9600) baud 25 years back to (lets call it) 12Mbs ADSL and cable, the usage of ‘plans’ that went from 10Mb per month, to an average in the metropolitan centres nowadays of 100GB per month (sorry, don’t have the rural stats), the explosions of Internet usage, the phenomenons of the first the PC, then game platforms, then cable TV, then the smart phones and tablets, now watches and the projected Internet of things, usage pay-TV-on-demand services like NETFLIX, the explosion in social networking (which I’m not much interested in, but it seems pretty well everyone below 50 is). And new services, devices and uses aren’t gonna appear, new devices, new forms of communication and interconnect-ability? And all that bandwidth that gets absorbed on software updates, software, music, film, content and game purchases, game playing and entertainment is gonna reduce? And of course … all Australians are gonna solely be consumers of the limited amounts of network traffic you envisage, so no need for synchronous services either. And the phone plans that charge for data over the cell network at a rate of 20 times or better of what is charged on a comparable internet plan … they’re not gonna push people away from the carriers and onto their home network where possible. Those smart phone thingies certainly pushed the data budgets up, didn’t they? In 20 years time, even at the trends observed for limited Internet network usage in say the 1990’s (I was content on 56K modems in the early to mid 90’s) that have increased to todays 12Mbs average in cities (a leap of more than 200 times in speed) … you maintain that we’ll be cool with the government’s estimates of an average 15Mbs in speed (not 15GB consumption per month) as needful in 20 years time. (They won’t guarantee 25 Mbs … but they’re shooting for it - it’s a target, and I haven’t seen any estimates on average monthly consumption figures as yet.) If you do … as I said, you have no imagination. The MTM NBN won’t be able to meet demand on the day it is ‘completed’ (and I use the word loosely) let alone what is required 20 years down the track. It should have been done once, and done right … because now it’s a technological lodestone around our necks, and the necks of the young who will have to pay to do it again. > >> … the range of radio frequencies (and >> hence channel and data carrying capacity) is vastly limited ... > > Cell phones were invented to overcome the limited spectrum. > Huh? What the hell does that mean, Tom? … Please, I’m interested in knowing EXACTLY what you were trying to say. Cell phones were invented to make communications whilst travelling viable. Cell phones were invented so that people could take their work wherever they went. Cell phones were invented to provide a new revenue stream for telcos. That they were adopted so enthusiastically was a surprise to everyone, including the inventors. That they became ‘smartphones’ surprised the original cell phone inventors … and opened up whole more lucrative markets that the telcos had ever dreamed off. Telcos are now peripheral to most of the moolah being made on their cell networks … which doesn’t stop them charging more than 20 times what they charge for data on the home line internet. But … please tell me what you mean by that statement, Tom. I may have misunderstood you … because it had nothing to do with the point made in my original missive (that light can carry far more bandwidth, much quicker, and with less errors than radio). Elucidate, Tom … no pun intended. :) Just my 2 cents worth … _______________________________________________ Link mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
