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Written by Ken DiPietro
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Wednesday, 18 May 2005 |
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 In a speech given at a trade show made up of digital printers,
Brian Roberts (chairman, president and CEO of Comcast) threw down the
gauntlet.
"Comcast
Corp. is working to give its Internet customers download speeds of 200
megabits per second, its chairman, president and CEO said Tuesday.
"The day is coming when, in 45 seconds, you can download a movie (to a personal computer)," Brian Roberts said."
The article this quote was taken from can be found here
Please Note – Mr. Roberts has been saying this type of thing for quite
some time now and I do not see this as a specific announcement of this
service starting on Monday – any Monday.
We need to remember that the throughput levels he is discussing are a
technical reality with the equipment now being available and ready to
deploy should Comcast choose to do so.
Nice!
Could I have some more spam, please?
If we allowing Comcast five years to actually implement this technology (yes, I pulled that number out of my ass)
what will we have to meet this level of service? Comcast certainly has
the money and the network infrastructure to handle this while we would
be looking at a forklift replacement - if that were economically
feasible. Verizon in that same five-year tineline should have a large
percentage of their customers connected to their Fios network allowing
them to deliver ultra high speed service.
WISPs, however have
nothing that can even begin to approach this technology, at this time
or in the foreseeable future for that matter. As lead times for product
development is measured in years and the necessary production scale up
then needs to be put in place, I can't see us meeting the five-year
timeframe as things stand now. In order for the WISP industry to be
able to meet this challenge we will need to demand that our suppliers
start to design and manufacture this equipment right now, in earnest, if we are ever to become anything more than a footnote in the history of connectivity deployment.
It
would seem a shame to have had so much potential and have wasted it
because we couldn't read the handwriting so clearly painted on the
wall. Conversely, if we claim we are an industry that is focused on
providing broadband to areas that are not covered by the cable
companies or the ILECs it would seem that we will be creating and
maintaining the next generation of the digital divide, one that I like
to think of as the multimedia and communications divide(tm).
The battle of the "haves" and the "have nots" still continues in earnest.
One
thing I do see being clearly foreshadowed is the ability of many of the
larger service provider to use their network to provide targeted
advertisement directed to the end user. While this is certainly not a
new concept by any means it does provide an glimpse into one of the
ways this network will generate revenue aside from direct billing to
the end customer.
Think of this as GMail on a much larger scale.
“Comcast
also is trying to develop verbally controlled remote controls and
technology that allows it to deliver personalized ads to customers,
Roberts said.” Comcast (or any capable provider)
would now look at monitoring my surfing habits and generate a profile
of exactly what my interests are. This profile could then be marketed
to advertisers so that they could tailor their advertising to only be
fed to people who have an interest in their product, perhaps on a fee
per shoving it in my face basis.
Aside from the privacy issues
(which I am unwilling to address here) we are now looking at a service
that will soon turn my Internet experience into something almost as
enjoyable as commercial television. I would expect that Comcast would
encapsulate this “service” into their Terms of Service agreement making
it mandatory for me to accept this more than likely unregulated barrage
if I want their service.
The
insidious flaw in this plan is that as the Internet evolves into a
communications medium I have to wonder if as I setup my high definition
video conference link to my customer, will I be treated to “Sorority
girls gone filed!” as I am trying to explain the value of my services
and why he should spend his hard earner money on me to provide them.
There
was a time when communications was held at a near sacred level in this
country or more correctly, the industrialized world. Are we now going
to allow this critical function to become simply another medium for a
continuous stream of brain-numbing commercials to be fed to us?
I
believe it is time for us to take a hard look at what we are creating
here and what this technology could do for us or to us. Will we be
facing a future of more advertising shoved down our throats? Will
subliminal advertising be allowed in this new medium further
distracting us from what we are trying to accomplish? Will I be caught
in a world where there is no way to have a conversation without
advertising (even if it is targeted advertisement tailored to my
“tastes”) forced upon me?
We do reap what we sow. Incredibly, this does not hold true, in any meaningful way, for manure. |
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