[OZ] NBN 101: The Internet or applications?
The Internet is often seen as a single point of contact with the outside world, but faster broadband could change those preconceptions.
James Hutchinson | Computerworld | 12 July, 2010
This article is part of Computerworld Australia's NBN 101 series, in which we take a look at the arguments surrounding the fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) network, and dissect them one by one. The articles are meant to be an overview of the debates central to the National Broadband Network (NBN) to give you a grounding as more and more media outlets and commentators speak out on the project. We encourage people to take the discussion further in the comments section. In our first article we took a look at how Australia’s NBN plan compares to the rest of the world and the statistics and graphs from the OECD, and then we strapped in for a tour of speeds. We also had a look at wireless technologies versus fibre optic and, most recently, we delved into the economic argument for a high-speed national broadband network. This week, we take a look at how applications and potential service packages may play a role in the NBN.
Cont.: computerworld.com.au
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FAC: OZ may be 12,000 miles away, but the issues remain constant. "Applications" referred to above are of course the spoon-fed application "services" (cabletv, pstn voice, mail, cloud, etc.) that are productized by ISPs/SPs/Operators, as opposed to the things we do for ourselves that are based on software found mounted at the edge of the network - the latter "edge" referring to you and your own devices, both desktop and handheld, which are now often combined with or dependent on apps found on the client-server Web. Someone asked earlier today if this author was clueful or clueless. Whether clueful or clueless, an author's job is not that of an architect, although sometimes it would help. My answer is that it's not the author so much as it is about the architecture and proposed availability, and the very nature of that connectivity, that needs to be examined, since, in the case of this CW article, at least, the reporter is merely echoing the nation's intended goals and the implications that ensue from implementing the network in accordance with those goals.
Yesterday I came across a paper illustrating how the AU NBN will go about accommodating smart-grid requirements. The paper makes clear that the government is not only shaping the market, but also the types of technology and the specifications that are being recommended for interfacing on system software and hardware as well. This stopped being a slippery slope and entered the realm of bad news when the government intended supplying the types of gear that would be used for FTTH connectivity in the first place, never mind specifying the interfaces on interface devices, which are universally defined as PON optical network terminals, or ONTs, making only passing mention of the use of wireless for the boondocks.
Perhaps this will all be very pleasing to vendors with an "in" there, but what does it say about economies of scale enabled by more "open" forms of architecture, and the level playing field ethos responsible for enabling opportunities to flourish? Equally, what does such an approach as that of NBN portend for end to end, unfettered capabilities of Internet?
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