Great topic! One that is well worth trying to get insight on. I don't think my two cents will be anything new to many here but I'll help the discussion along. When I began my career at IBM in 1980 there were really only mainframe computers. Sure, as discussed in previous posts, techies like us had the TRS-80's, Commadore VIC's & 64's, HP kits, etc but the average person only thought of computers as big mainframes that took up whole rooms. At that point, there was only centralized computing and the costs for related services were very high. Obviously, the PC revolution changed things relatively quickly as far as putting power into our hands. But, everyone realized that all that power is not much good without being able to connect and use it. Fortunately, for a number of reasons, communications costs also lowered. Heck, I can remember when dedicated synchronous line cost tens of thousands of dollars per month. Then, you look at the software market. Using Microsoft as an example, I'm sure everyone remembers when Windows 98 was distributed on 60+ floppy disks. The cost of doing that along with upgrades and patches that were time sensitive added to the need for high-speed communications. Add to that online applications, VoIP, video, etc and you have an interesting conundrum: support the current model of running everything on the users end or let the process run "in-house". There are arguments for both or perhaps a hybrid model makes sense. Either way, since ISP's provide transport, we should understand the future in order to grow with it. I think we are in a position to mirror many of the services and applications on our networks if not for any other reason than to keep the network more efficient. Ultimately, I think we will be the distributor of the content that our networks are being utilized for. Considering the exponential growth of bandwidth usage, the profits of the unlimited access model is beginning to deteriorate. We've had some talk of bandwidth based pricing and some are doing that. I submit that this will evolve further to different scales of bandwidth costs such as higher costs for video and lower cost for email based on the priority of the traffic. Furthermore, even a higher cost for "on net" versus "off net". Once this new model takes hold, it will make even more sense for ISP's to warehouse and distribute content and data for our customers. One question is how we get paid for the warehousing and distribution? -RickG
On Sun, Oct 11, 2009 at 12:55 PM, Marlon K. Schafer <o...@odessaoffice.com> wrote: > Hi All, > > I was recently reminded of this white paper. I'd read it years ago (early > 2000's I'm sure) and it's helped guide my way of thinking about our > industry. > > After re-reading it a few minutes ago I'm amazed at how accurate it's been > in it's predictions of what could happen if entrepreneurs were to enter the > communications industry in any reasonable numbers. > > A question has popped into my mind though. One that's been percolating for > several months. When computers were new, the end users had terminals. They > shared time on the servers, but there was little or no actual computing > power at the end user's fingertips. > > Today, we have most of the computing power at our fingertips, very few of us > do any real computing remotely. Remote devices are always on data storage > devices more than anything else. > > Yet, as I write this, someone else is signing up for Quicken On-line. > Someone is listening to Yahoo Radio, online. > > Are we about to start the circle all over again? Are we moving from a > distributed, computing model back to a centralized computing mechanism. > > I'd love to read people's focused and articulate thoughts one what they > think the future will hold for us here. David was pretty right on over the > last decade. What will the next decade bring? > > marlon > > > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > WISPA Wants You! Join today! > http://signup.wispa.org/ > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org > > Subscribe/Unsubscribe: > http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless > > Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
