Some Musings on the Future of Broadband
[Over the Thanksgiving weekend, we had dinner with Frank Levinson and his wife, Monika. As we got into all sorts of interesting conversation threads, I invited Frank to write a Guest Column. Below is Frank’s piece on Broadband, which he calls somewhat whimsical. Enjoy!]
In a series of web essays (1), (2), (3), I have written about how delivered bandwidth is growing at a rate that exceeds Moore’s law – basically the rate at which bandwidth (measured in terms of delivered Mb/s per person on earth per month) is deployed grows about 10x every 5 years!
It is easy to think of this only in terms of being driven by that master drummer, Moore. But this really is a bit too simplistic. What really drives innovation everywhere are opportunities and needs, markets that can be fully empowered by that next breakthrough. We see this in the fact that there are so many technologies that are common in the average person’s life that simply did not exist 20 years ago – cell phones, DVD players, MP3 players, thumb drives. Honestly, I laugh every time I remember floppy drives and compare them to today’s thumb drive. 1000x the capacity at less than 10% of the physical size, universally compatible and so easy to carry.
So what drives bandwidth growth today? Video on demand. Soon NetFlix, Blockbuster and all video distribution channels will feel the pressure of this more flexible delivery. And we will be able to store and replay and archive 100s of videos in a console if we wish … it will only be a few TBs of data, it will fit on a single hard drive.
But what will drive the next wave of storage, computing and bandwidth? We have delivered text, audio and video to the edge of the network down to individual users. Each of these had their predecessors in newspapers, radio and television. This pretty much fills up the human senses that are used for rich communications, except for touch. (Taste and smell are related and both are relatively low bandwidth in terms of what they communicate.)
Communicating a tactile experience will require the invention of tactile read in and read out devices like those that already were invented for hearing and site. I wonder at the general value of this. [Yes it has been done for some forms of remote surgery and work in hazardous environments.]
Perhaps this comes next but I suspect not. We technologists have been midwifing now for probably 70 years hoping that something we create will be cleverly designed enough to just say “hello” and mean it. Our brains do this with the ability to compute at a much lower level than today’s computers. But with an ability to communicate that is far greater than today’s networks. It seems likely that the drive for ever more broadband is a critical element of success for this birthing process.
Frank, allow me to be the strategy consultant for a minute … what are the market-making applications for the tactile capabilities? As we have seen before, technology for technology’s sake doesn’t crack open markets. Killer apps do. As you so rightly pointed out - big bandwidth hoggers of today - audio and video - had their predecessors in radio and tv. The killer apps already existed. Are you envisioning a world of entertainment where we would be able to touch and feel movie characters online? TOUCH, Halle Berry, for instance? I think that would have a few takers
The other set of “better, more meaningful” communication capabilities may simply come from more ubiquitous and higher resolution video conferencing, giving the feel of a real global living room? I would love to have dinner with my family in India once a week, so to speak.
Sramana
Sramana, i have read an older biography on Edison a few years ago and it pointed out how the invention of the phonograph was one of his very best because it had no precedent in others work. It was totally original.
When it was first working Edison was famous enough that he took it to the White House (it could record and play back in the same unit) and Edison, the US president at that time, and some of his staff and family played with it late into the night.
The point is that while taking dictation was what Edison envisioned, it was play, music and such that made it a success.
So on the idea of tactile, it may very well be the more playful aspects of touch that are important. The Wii controller and force feedback joysticks, Dance-Dance Revolution pads are all fledgling advances in the tactile direction.
We are spacial beings and when we reduce our sensory input to sight (in 2D by video) or hearing by some simple speakers we reduce our ability to be social. Meetings that are face to face are much more likely to be successful because of the real presence of a moving person.
Still, more powerful comms are eventually vital to our reaching thinking machines.
Yes Frank, I was only half-kidding when I suggested applications like touching movie stars and having dinner with family in India. Entertainment financing also has a lot of momentum these days, and the stigma of either your technology is a “pain-killer” or a “vitamin”, and you don’t get funded unless it is a “pain-killer” - is gone. iPod proved beyond all doubts that success can happen without the product being either. What you are talking about, my guess, has its first set of applications in entertainment.