COMMENT
Written in a hotel just outside Cadiz and dispatched to silicon.com via a low cost wi-fi service
The many reasons cited for the dot-com crash include greed, stupidity, insane optimism and an almost religious belief in a change model that was clearly unworkable. But what you never see mentioned is the lack of broadband access.
How could the dot-com revolution in entertainment, leisure, trading and working happen if people couldn't connect? And believe me, in 2000/01 there wasn't enough bandwidth to the home to support these services.
So here we are again, it looks as though history may be poised to repeat itself with web 2.0. Everywhere on the planet conferences are being convened on the topic and it is being hailed as a new beginning that will change everything. Well, not so fast!
Among the tenets of web 2.0 are:
- Location-based services are prime
- User-generated content dominates
- Long tail activity equals thousands of relatively small contributors
- Bi-directional working is essential
Hmm, I can see a couple of impediments to success here.
Starting from the last: bi-directional working means equal bandwidth for upstream and downstream transmission. Unfortunately most of the world has made the dumbest of decisions and opted for ADSL, or asymmetric digital subscriber line. This was sold by the phone companies which came to the table with an old entertainment services mindset. They also had a vested interested in selling their tired and outdated copper networks, mired by cross-talk limited performance, making it impossible to approach optical fibre transmission rates.
For starters ADSL means videoconferencing and medical applications will be severely limited and mostly doomed to failure, especially on large plasma/LCD screens that demand lots of bandwidth for lifelike communication. And of course, anyone wishing to upload homemade movies, or engage in real-time mixed reality games is going to have an equally difficult - if not impossible - time. Likewise, almost all future group networked activities will be severely limited.
I do believe the business models to support user-generated content will ultimately emerge, although it isn't clear right now just how anybody is going to make any money. And I can even see the 'long tail' activity of the thousands of contributors that will undoubtedly fail, or be consigned to the ranks of the mediocre and irrelevant, may prove to be a useful training and testing ground. But I don't see how location-based activities demanding bandwidth in both directions will make it.
So look out, it may be another 'whoops!'. Web 2.0 is fundamentally based on true bi-directional bandwidth - which most people don't have. I just hope all those people who voted for an asymmetric world back in the mid 1980s, and denied the deployment of optical fibre to the home throughout the West are feeling as sick as the proverbial parrot! So far they have lost us the games market to South Korea, and in my view that is just the beginning!
Comments
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1. Engineer
Huh? Nobody voted for an asymetric world Peter.
ADSL has enabled most people to get high speed broad band cheaply and NOW, without having to wait or pay for expensive new cables or fibres. The only reason it is asymetric is because most download far more than we upload and so more of the available ADSL bandwidth is dedicated to that.
ADSL has been a great idea without which most would still be using old style modems at 56K or less.
The vast majority of "Web 2" users are viewers who do not upload anything.
However I do appreciate that faster upload rates are now required for many at an accessable price, especially with regard to file sharing. Some kind of ADSL3 with variable tradeoff between upload/download would be ideal.
2. anonymous
Peter correct me if I'm wrong but didn't you work for BT when the 'vote' was happening?
Engineer seems to think there isn't a long term plan for these large infrastructure businesses, like Telephone companies, Gas, Electric, etc.
BT chose the way to go way back when it all probably seemed quite sensible, and that a completely equally connected world sounded like an unreachable and unrealistic node utopia.
Each time I upgraded my internal network speed (now at 1000mbit) I found my workflow speed up and get easier because of it. I can't see my kids or certianly theirs being satisfied with a pathetic 256k or even 1mbit upload speed, I know I'm not even now!
Don't be content with the status quo. (or any other British rock band, sorry couldn't resist)
3. Non-techie Reader
Engineer's comment makes more sense to me than Peter's. Without ADSL, we would have had a mighty bored and depressed society!
4. anonymous
I work away from home a lot, and use ORB while I'm away to watch TV recorded on my home PC. The quality of the video is therefore dependent on the upload speed provided by my ISP. I'd like to find the best peforming ISP for this, but they only advertise their download speeds.
5. Peter Cochrane
Engineer
Actually it is assymetric because of cross-talk on the cables. And this fundamnetal property forced the decision to ADSL instead of DSL.
Peter
6. Peter Cochrane
Anonymous Perth
Yep - I was in BT at the time - leaping up and down saying don't do it.
My PhD in 1979 said abandon all copper networks in telecoms.
By 1986 I had fibre into the home cheaper than copper.
We even built two factories to manufature the plant.
Guess what? The programme was stopped by the government because a unique all fibre network was seen as anti-competitive at the time.
Ho Hum!!
Peter
7. Peter Cochrane
Non-Techie
With true broadband our GDP growth figures would be 50% higher and we'd all be a lot lot happier!
Peter
8. Peter Cochrane
Anonymous London
What they don't publicise is their contantion ratios. In Korea and Japan 100Mbit/s is yours and yours alone. In the UK you are sharing whatever miserable bit dribble you are getting from your ISP with the rest of the street!
Peter
9. Richard
I'm grateful to Peter & his colleagues for funding Web 2.0 start-ups.
I'm also grateful to keen "Gamers" and ring-tone "addicts" who've helped to pay for the infrastructure.
It's hard to see how many of these companies will survive, long term, but their services are fun while they last!
Even if only one person in a thousand uploads rather than just downloading, that's a far higher proportion than for traditional broadcast or print media.
At last, the traditional media is feeling the pain and starting to change.
Yes, I'd like a higher upload speed: My "bargain basement" 2Mbps cable broadband provides an upload rate of 128kbps?
To upload my 100MB videos, I usually book a public terminal in the Library.
10. Peter Cochrane
Richard = It is disgraceful that they dare call a contested 128kbit/s broadband. It clearly isn't anything close.
It is sad to reflect that 25 years ago that the fastest data links we had was a truck full of magnetic tape.
Today it is still a truck full of DVDs!
It is as if optical fibre never happened.
And the despite 100 years of history the industry still keeps asking that same old dumb questions: What do people want all this bandidth for, and what will they do with it?
Ho hum, Peter
11. Andrew Lovatt
Aside from the argument about how we all got into ADSL, I find your first questioning of Web 2.0 interesting. Was disappointed you only covered the last of your points. When are you going to speak about the others?
It's very important to be a nay-sayer in this business. Tis a world full of spin and high hopes.
Thanks for questioning!