This is an interesting interview from Vint Cerf - one of the pioneers of the internet:
netinsider.com
(here's part of this interview)
Vint Cerf
SVP, Internet Architecture, MCI
SCHINDLER: Plenty of bits on the backbone, but a
small pipe to the household. Which solution do
you favor for that last mile?
CERF: It depends on where you are in the country.
The cable modems which have been demonstrated
work quite well, but they work best when the
cable system has a hybrid fiber/coax network to
support it. Not all cable companies are prepared
to make an investment in hybrid fiber/coax, and
as a result, they may not be able to support that
solution.
The telcos, working with our old friend
twisted-pair copper have demonstrated up to 52
megabits on relatively short hops, down to, let's
say, a megabit or 1.5 megabits as far as 18,000
feet, which covers 95 percent of all homes on
twisted pair.
I have left out things like point-to-point radio
links, which also might be a solution to the
problem.
There is even something quite exotic. Power
companies may decide they want to have the
ability to control appliances on an
appliance-by-appliance basis, because they will
save money, not having to build excess power
generation, if they can control the appliances that
are the most energy consuming during periods of
peak load. If you could save several billion dollars
by not having to build a power-generation plant,
you might spend some of that money on optical
fiber to go to someone's house, then turn around
and resell the capacity, which you didn't need to
control an appliance -- and you only need a few
bits per second for that.
We could have some surprising solutions become
available that might not have been anticipated. |
