Sam, Agreed, land communications will still exist and thrive in the future also, especially fiber optics. The interaction between the two is what Franklin is addressing. I see the future as being a very judicious utilization, consisting of both. But wireless, even with its initial cost of putting up a bird, still comes out to be cheaper, by almost half, over the costs associated with laying lines. I just read an extensive article regarding this exact issue, and if my memory serves me correctly the cost per customer of a land line is around $1600 while a satellite is about $800. The other issue sited is bandwidth, even on FO there exists constraints, yet via wireless there is none.
That tells me that the cost/performance issues that dictate the future, lie in favor of the satellite technologies. The other issues that come to play are that of Corporate needs verses personal and small business needs. With wireless an entire new Internet network could easily be implemented that would allow dedicated frequencies. DigitalXpress is a good window pane into what I am talking about. For example, you are a business and non-urgent data ie email, could be sent over normal channels, but when you have urgent data, you hit the Xpress icon and whamo, it's airborne in a blink of the eye. Take that one step further and lets say it's urgent and needs top security, or you need your voice to be attached to that packet of data, as in videoconferncing in realtime. The traffic in ground networks may constrained due to bandwidth considerations, the air has none.
Just like motorcycles replaced bicycles, both still exist. If you need to get there via the expressway, I would suggest you consider the former. ggggg
RB |
