Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : LAST MILE TECHNOLOGIES - Let's Discuss Them Here -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: elmatador who wrote (10068)	1/6/2001 4:02:42 PM
From: axial	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12823

Hi Mike, elmat - Yes, we've been through many of these things before. At some point, somebody, perhaps government, will address the issue of overall energy consumption, but I think the analysis would be a big task. On the hardware side, there are obvious steps that could be taken, immediately. The new flat-panel displays use much less energy than the old CRT. Possibly an energy-saving tax incentive could be given to exchange these. Multiply that saving times the number of on-line users, and I suspect the amount would be significant. New chip technologies could be used. Transmeta's technolgy could be adapted for many home users. IMO, the the two-layer strategy of the chipmakers should be discouraged: that is, the production of energy-efficient CPUs for the static user should be encouraged, and there should be a way to reward manufacturers/users for simply going straight to the most energy-efficient CPU, as opposed to saving it for the high-margin "mobile" user. I'd like to know the electrical "cost" of a copper-based network, vs. the cost of a fiber-based network, especially when the increased capacity and throughput of the latter is considered. Certainly, at least from the viewpoint of initial construction, the energy required to build radio LANs and WANs is much less than their wired equivalents. I do not know if such networks, 'always on', will or will not require more energy than an equivalent wired network, over time. That would be a subject worthy of study. Education: small, local centers, containing real-time interactive displays, and distance learning for the home. Compare that to the energy efficiency of busing - what? millions? - of students every day, and heating/cooling/maintaining tens of thousands of schools. Real time videoconferencing - what is the energy equivalence of taking 100 people, putting them on a jet, and flying them 1500 miles to see each other, then flying them home? Intuitively, real-time interactive videoconferencing wins, hands-down. There is a host of reasons to suppose that e-infrastructure, when implemented with a view to energy efficiency, will provide the best possible answer to our needs. It doesn't take a whole lot of imagination to visualize other ways in which e-infrastructure could improve our energy efficiency. IMO, the implementation of VOIP and IPv6 over fiber would be a big step. Somebody needs to perform a real good study of the matter: if the results confirm this belief, a strategy should be laid out. Of course, that would get back into the question of the public interest, and regulatory bodies ;-) Regards, Jim