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Broadband: The Future
What does tomorrow hold for broadband?
How about eyeglasses with an Internet link? Refrigerators, cars and elevators with computer screens? Digital web tablets that fit into your wallet? PCs and e-appliances that respond to voice commands? Computerized paper?
Don't laugh. The future, whose mantra will be "faster, cheaper," isn't as far off as you think. As Wilf Corrigan, the chairman-CEO of LSI Logic Corp., has said, "The broadband-enabled global communications infrastructure represents the mother of all technology opportunities."
As costs drop, installations get easier , and hardware and software applications evolve, broadband connections will be as widespread as electrical outlets. Some predict that 35 million of us will have broadband links in a few short years. They'll foster new services that will become standard threads in the fabric of our lives, accessible on a wide range of appliances, from PCs and TVs to cellular telephones, personal digital assistants and other mobile devices.
In this point-and-click universe powered by fiber-optics, digital technology and laser-beam transmission, the consumer will be king, and technology will be the courtier, acting on commands at the snap of a finger.
Go directly to the weather and skip the sports on your local broadcast TV channel. Do your own commentary for an NBA game, and share it in real time with a pal at the other end of the country. Send e-mails with audio and video elements. Work on a degree from a college in France out of your home office. Electronically pay bills. Connect all of the appliances in your home.
At work, use broadband to videoconference, link up with suppliers at a moment's notice, continually stay in touch with customers, and boost productivity by letting employees telecommute.
Remember black and white TV? Rotary telephones? Travel by train? Soon, we'll add dial-up Internet access to that list, thanks to the speeding pace of technological change.
In a June 2000 section that looked at new media and advancing technologies, The New York Times wrote that broadband-driven interactivity "will be knit seamlessly into children's and grownups' toys, into our kitchens, backyards and every place we go. The high-tech possibilities seem limitless, and the consumer [will be] suddenly powerful, deciding the shape and feel of the near future."
