Technology Futures

The first step in overcoming a problem is to admit you have a problem. The national focus on "broadband adoption" is not likely to have much impact without a parallel track that increases the availability of high performance AFFORDABLE broadband infrastructure. I started doing broadband adoption in 1993, when the take rate for broadband was 0%. What I learned the hard way is that people and businesses "adopt" broadband services when the infrastructure to support them is available AND affordable. Both conditions have to exist.

Right now, in the business community, business VPNs and videoconferencing are rapidly becoming common, even for small businesses, but the most common complaint I hear--everywhere we are working in the U.S.--is that the incumbent DSL and cable offerings don't support those two services in any meaningful way.

So businesses can't "adopt" VPN and videoconference technology if they don't have access to affordable infrastructure.

The national emphasis on adoption also ignores the fact that broadband has been adopted faster than any other consumer/business technology in the past hundred years. The incumbents like to promote the idea that adoption is the problem because it essentially blames their customers for the problem, rather than their stubborn attachment to antiquated business models. In a sense, they are saying, "Our customers are stupid, and someone needs to teach them to buy our over-priced inadequate services."

We're watching the death of traditional "TV" and traditional "radio" in slow motion. The networks are going to be the big losers. At one time, they provided a useful service as an intermediary between content producers and watchers/listeners, but today, the content owners can cut out the middleman completely. I just heard an ad from a radio commentator who was promoting her iPhone app. It is free, and allows you to listen to her radio show live from your iPhone, but also automatically downloads the podcast version so you can listen to it later....no radio "channel" required.

The idea that network owners like Comcast can somehow force their customer base to use their network by buying and owning content like NBC is really mis-guided, as there are so many other content options out there.

Once again, the old adage is true: "The Internet regards censorship (or control) as damage and routes around it." Comcast's control of NBC looks like damage to Internet users, and alternates routes to content will and are forming.

Color me skeptical about the buzz around "The Internet of Things." This is getting a lot of attention, because there is a lot of money to be made getting people to throw out their perfectly adequate $12 toaster and replacing it with a $60 WiFi-enabled toaster that you can control from your smartphone. But adding electronics to analog devices does not automatically make them a)more secure, or b)more reliable. The industry and government push to replace top-loading analog washers and dryers with energy-efficient front loading machines has had speed bumps, as the new machines have very expensive to replace electronics that don't always hold up well in a humid, wet environment. A mechanical control that cost twenty bucks has been replaced by a circuit board that costs $200.

And now let us consider this story, in which horrified parents discovered a complete stranger using their WiFi baby cam monitor to talk their child in the middle of the night. Cheap off the shelf WiFi chips and poorly tested network cards are being thrown into these devices as they are rushed to market, and few people are considering or can really even understand the security issues. It's a crazy world we are rushing into.

Fred Pilot, who writes the excellent Eldo Telecom blog, has started a terrific new site called Work Anywhere Nation. Fred has already posted some very useful stuff on the site, and his notion of "Work Anywhere" ought to be the slogan of every rural town and community in America. There is, of course, a prerequisite to being a "work anywhere" community, and that is "Gigabit everywhere!" You can't work "anywhere" if you don't have the big broadband infrastructure needed to support the work anywhere paradigm.