Published January 17, 2001
In this year of 2001, Commcos may begin to replace Telcos for delivering voice and data services. Electronic-communication companys’ functions will include call-waiting, video-chat and instantaneous Web browsing.
As the new and faster global networks near completion and high-capacity fiber-optic cables become more common-place, data flow will be less restricted. However, the “last-mile-access” remains an obstacle for rural communities.
Telephone companies who were in the best position to expand with support for Internet data communications chose instead to resist the change. Swiftly data networks like PSI-Net, Global Crossing, and UUnet moved in, with the blessing of FCC to stimulate demand for bandwidth.
In this year, all elements of communications and entertainment will blur. Examples of telephone, television and Internet will meld into a single connection over light cable from a Commco that does it all. The frequency of business trips will lessen thanks to interactive video conferencing (television by way of computer).
Data-intensive services like distance-learning and movies-on-demand are being promoted. Convenient, time and cost-saving services like these will be joined by local yellow-pages access and renting software from Application Service Providers (ASPs).
The data bandwidth capacity on the planet is incomprehensibly immense and expanding. Demand must increase to fill it, and thus pay for it. In 1998, 23 million miles of fiber-optic cable were laid. Renaissance Strategy consultants predict that by the end of this year, 11,500 million more miles will be in place.
Each strand of light-carrying glass is capable of 16 million separate circuits. Expressed in another way, a single carrier’s network, like Qwest, could deliver all European and US data traffic 20 times over.
North American, European and Asian telcoms are offering or testing video services. Qwest, for instance, lets 16,000 Phoenix subscribers view any movie from a catalog at any time, starting and pausing as if this service were a rented video, except it comes over the wires. Expect to see this at inns and motels.
Unfortunately, market forecasts for DSL and cable carriers of this capacity will only reach about 10% of US household by 2003. DSL and cable are the copper-wire jumper from the consumer and small business to this mainstream. Wireless two-way radio transmission for data may fill the rural void.
Japan leads the world in wireless Internet access with more than twelve million subscribers. Cellular phones also continue to outpace predictions in Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan. Out of necessity, China should have 70 million wireless subscribers this year. The region’s crying need for a reliable telephone infrastructure has driven the market.
The governmental element of Internet expansion shall attempt to find the middle ground between practical control and moderated fairness. Issues ahead include intellectual property and copyrights, privacy and security, email viruses, and unsolicited advertising known as spam.
Antitrust watchfulness of mergers and monopolistic behaviors will become global obligations. Simultaneously, laws of one country prohibiting certain Internet activity are legal in another. Violators who interrupt commerce can escape prosecution in one jurisdiction while innocent Web surfers may be classified as criminals for their reading unencrypted classified documents. We live in interesting times.
Politicians have been stodgy in their recognition of fuel-cell development as an energy supplement. If not here, energy deprived regions of the world are eager for the fuel cell and its enormous potential for inexpensive and plentiful energy. Investors have committed themselves to it.
The fuel cell converts water into its elemental parts, oxygen and hydrogen. The energy from the separation process alone is enough to generate enormous energy, if it can be harnessed efficiently to generate electricity. Fuel cell technology is destined to be a significant advancement, as was the computer chip. However practical, limitations abound.
The business of developing drugs smarter with the newly mapped human genome data has led to an explosive reinvigoration of biotech, thanks to supercomputers and specialized machines. However, science is still probing the relationship between genes, proteins and disease.
The discovery of the genes responsible for cystic fibrosis, obesity and Huntington’s disease is not the breakthrough but just the first step. Dr. Mark Boguski of Rosetta says, “Multiple context-dependent functions of genes with proteins may never be fully understood by sequence analysis alone.” He sees “functional geonomics” as the study of all genes and proteins at once, rather than the age old practice of one at a time. The union of computers and pathology testing has made this possible.
The Internet is still an unregulated network, unattached to any one application or proprietary commercial or governmental interest and remains the platform for innovation and advancement.