Unlimited Bandwidth

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Bee Balm

Taken today

I remember buying my first computer and having the wrenching decision of whether to get it with base 10M hard drive, or dropping some serious cash (for me, at the time) for the 20M version.

No, those are not typos. Megabytes, not Gigabytes.

Today, I have 250G raid on my main box (two 250G disks, one of which is solely a mirror of the other).

This increased storage space has changed things. You don’t purge/defrag as often – just don’t need to. Enormous file attachments don’t matter and so on.

Faster processors and increased RAM work in a similar manner. I currently have six SSH sessions open, two Firefox browsers with a total of about 20 tabs open, Outlook, an IE session (testing code), a music player and other misc programs.

And that does not count the services I have running on the box: Multiple DBMS, Web server, application servers and so on.

This RAM/CPU bump has allowed me – over the years – to change my work habits. I don’t have to close one pig of a program before opening another pig. Just open them both. No biggie.

I’m certain the shift to almost unlimited bandwidth for almost everyone will have similar effects, changing the behavior of individuals and anyone/anything that touches or is affected by unlimited bandwidth.

By unlimited bandwidth, I mean when bandwidth for (almost) everyone is an always-on connection almost everywhere (maybe faster at home/office over Ethernet, but damn fast in the subway via WiMax or whatever) that is robust enough to support stuff we can only dream of today.

So what happens when pipes get really fat? And trust me, they will.

Some prognostications:

  • Always On as the killer app– I’ve long posited that the primary benefit of broadband is not the broad, it’s the always-on effect. This is huge. You can just surf the web without the dial-up/log-in delay. This impacts a lot of other things. No need to turn on the news at 5:20 to catch the sports to see if the Cubs lost again – just surf over to this or that page and find out. TV news in general will be hurt, as will be newspapers. We’re already seeing this; imagine when unlimited bandwidth comes along with video clips and so on (CNN.com finally got this, and now offers at least a handful of videos for free).

  • Goodbye Desktop apps/storage– I’ve always maintained that Google is betting its future not on ad revenue, but on being an application company. Sure, I could be wrong about this, but considering the tremendous success of Gmail and all that it portends, it makes you think. If Google could offer, for example, a network word processor (possibly with an off-line component), why would we need to pay for MS Word? Keep expanding on this theme, and it’s no wonder Redmond is getting a little nervous about the Google guys.

  • Personal computers will need to change– An always-on connection is really only worthwhile if you can keep your computer running indefinitely. Right now, only Linux (or any *nix) works well this way, with Windoze boxes – while vastly improved with Win2000 and XP – still needing a reboot now and then. I really don’t know where Macs fall in the capability, but with BSD underpinnings, I’d guess you could keep it running a long time. This is vital, so the virus/OS patches can run at night, e-mail can keep downloading while you sleep so those big honkin’ attachments come in one at a time, instead of when you first fire up the computer. In addition, computers are going to need more RAM, to hold the network apps in memory, and better synchronization software to make network backups idiot-proof. Right now, this is still a job for serious geeks, for the most part.

  • Internet consolidation will increase– With more and more action – apps, storage, shopping, information gathering and so on – moving to the Web, consolidation is inevitable. While niche sites/companies will flourish, some big guns will have to join forces to make a mighty gun to survive.

  • Government will intervene– This is inevitable because consumers will push for it. Doubt it? How about the recent decision to finally approve a XXX top-level domain? The public clamored for it, who is going to oppose it and it’ll do little if any good. There will be more acts like this, such as taxes and privacy requirements and so on. But it’s almost too late – you can’t reverse engineer a decade-long explosion quickly. And – more to the point – the web is a world-wide-web. And how does it work? I live in Portugal, my servers live in Belize, my company is owned by a dummy company in Aruba and I sell Chinese-made stuff to both European countries and the US. What regulations do I have to follow? This is almost a UN issue. Uber-government. And the UN is soooo effective, especially in nuanced areas such as this. How can any country make rules for something like the web that is owned by both no one and everyone? It’s like China insisting Taiwan is part of the mainland country. OK, they can say that all they want, but Taiwan is not following China’s wishes, that’s for sure.

  • Rise of non-computer appliances– The much bally-hooed (sp?) internet home may inch closer to reality with unlimited bandwidth. What this all will mean I really don’t much care (I really don’t need to start a roast cooking before I leave work via TCP/IP), but it’ll be interesting.

  • Security woes– Always on means always vulnerable to attack, unlimited bandwidth means black hats can hit more folks more quickly and cover tracks more easily. I foresee some all HTTPS sites, home computers with built-in firewalls, more live patching of systems as vulnerabilities are discovered and fixed, instead of weekly updates.

Will any/some/all of this happen?

I dunno. The thoughts just occured to me, and I’m sharing..