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Discussion of Comments on Hyper-Connectivity

By John February 11, 2007 9:40 pm

Location: In the Ottawa Airport

As I mentioned in my last entry, I’ve modified the format of my few weeks’ old blog a bit so that I can interleave some of my more formal postings with dialog around the comments that people have been leaving. This is possibly an unconventional way to do this, but I think it’s important because a number of threads have emerged that deserve further dialog.

One of the most interesting threads was the view that hyper-connectivity may increase the digital divide. Ben Roome described it as “the gap between the technological haves and have nots.” I’m not sure that hyper-connectivity would by itself be the cause of this. More impacting in widening the gap, I think, will be connecting more and more entities without consideration of how they get connected, or the economics of their connection, or their impact on society.

One of the reasons, in fact, that I am so excited about some new technologies in wireless broadband is that they have the potential to lower the economic barriers of connecting to such networks. I remember when the first WiMAX work started in IEEE 802.16 and my lead architect in that space came to talk to me about this new technology. Our dialog was centered around the fact that this technology could simplify large-scale wireless deployment to a level where it could “even be deployed to connect rural Africa to the Internet.” That dialog happened almost a decade ago, but even now, as we begin to push this technology into full production, the economic advantages of that idea have not disappeared.

Consider, for example, that if the cost of connectivity for an MP3 player in the developed world must be low enough that you and I will pay for it (maybe hidden in the cost of our music service subscriptions), then that same economic level might just make it cost effective to provide Internet access to people in other parts of the world where 3G costs have been prohibitive.

I have no doubt that the 4G wireless world will have dramatically different economics because, in order to be hyper-connected, a per-device monthly cost of US$50+ is not realistic. Additionally, if we drive down the cost of connections to a level that supports hyper-connectivity in the developed world, we may be able to achieve full connectivity for people in the developing world. Today, the technology elements are coming together to make that possible. What we must now decide is what we, our governments, and the world will do with the technology in order to close that digital divide.

Another interesting thread in the comments was in the consideration of what exactly would be connected in this new environment. I hadn’t thought about the idea of connecting my lawn sprinkler system, but when one considers its value it does not take long to find a reason for its connection. Maybe the sprinklers should communicate to your network-connected automobile and shut down when you are five minutes from your house to make sure you don’t have to walk through puddles to get to the front door. Maybe the sprinklers should provide information to the water company, or vice versa, to optimize water usage. The ideas are certainly out there and, while sometimes seemingly minor in impact on their own, if we consider some of them at scale - e.g., the sprinklers of every house in the world - the overall impact could be profound.

The final comment thread I wanted to discuss in this entry is the question of how far we go in terms of connecting things. Is it every blade of grass, or as David Skowronski commented, every “photon of sound?” Well, I don’t think we can put network interfaces on photons yet, but maybe that would be a good project for folks at CERN or other research labs.

In reality, I think we should consider that hyper-connectivity, like all trends, has phases: a ramp where there will be huge initial gains; then a steady growth; and then - once we’ve already derived the most value from it - diminishing returns.

Considering the fact that most classes of consumer electronics and most industrial and transport systems are not yet connected at all, the first wave is still in front of us. Once we start to feel that we are hyper-connected, then we may need to consider how far to take it. For now, I think we should get ready for the initial ramp and make sure this trend does not disrupt our networks and systems because of unpreparedness.

Thanks again for the dialog. It’s great to have the interaction.

This coming week, I’m at 3GSM in Spain and am looking forward to the tone of that show. I’ll share my observations on it later in the week.

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  1. […] year or so ago, I began talking about how moving toward the 4G world of WiMAX and LTE (and UMB at that time) would enable a broad range […]

    January 29th, 2008 at 3:00 am from Boradband’s Kindle Paradigm - GigaOM

  2. […] a guest entry at the invitation of Om that you might find interesting … A year or so ago, I began talking about how moving toward the 4G world of WiMAX and LTE (and UMB at that time) would enable a broad range […]

    January 30th, 2008 at 1:20 pm from John Roese’s Blog » Blog Archive » Guest Blog on GigaOM: Broadband’s Kindle Paradigm

Comments

  1. I’m really glad someone is looking deep in to the future rather than the immediate buck. I really loved the discussion and would like to add a thought.

    As we progress to “hyper-connectivity”, what is important might be not the technical side but rather something more personal. I believe that as networks become more ubiquitous and more an integral part of out lives, the “digital world” should becomes a world which portrays our physical world. One very important thing in our world is the fact that everyone is different from others and there are things that distinguish one from the other (outer appearance, habits, traits, etc). It seems inevitable that people would want and strive to be different in the digital world. For example, people generated traffic should be different from machine oriented traffic. Maybe nodes corresponding to people should be different from machines. For the current network, the difference is mainly in the content of the message. But this does not provide a way in which to distinguish the two easily. This “distinguishing” needs to get much further where each individual is different from the other. In content, encryption, header difference, … etc. I would like to discuss this further but I think the comment is already too long. ^^

    I believe that technological advance will meet the demand although it requires hard work. In my opinion, what more important is not how we provide the network but what we put in it.

    February 15th, 2007 at 12:44 pm by Chang-Woo

  2. To Chang-Woo’s people vs machine nodes.

    I submit that in a hyperconnected society people ARE the nodes…

    February 16th, 2007 at 9:10 am by Steve DiMillo

  3. I’m glad you remembered my little phrase (Photon of Sound) that needs to be defined :)

    I see some applications in the auto industry. Here are some new phrases. Caravan Mode and Smart Horn.

    Caravan Mode: a button that links up to some number of vehicles (of varying quality) to act as one unit (I assume that they are adjacent). The unit’s info can be passed along to devices (stop lights, other units) to help with traffic flow.

    Smart horn: a device that sends out a warning signal to other devices. This can trigger safety events to prevent loss of life and property. (This could be Photon of Sound)

    I am thinking that this would be apart of 4G.

    February 19th, 2007 at 10:22 am by David Skowronski

  4. I have a question for you John…

    By way of examining the breadth of scope as to what the future of ubiquitous computing as enabled by hyper-connectivity and true broadband will likely soon present, we may note the room (or vehicle) that is aware of one’s presence and provides auto-access to one’s personal content/media per embedded device. The safe-floor that senses when someone has fallen down and is no longer moving, or the toilet (now produced in Japan) that analyses your bio-waste and delivers that analysis directly to your medical practitioner – and onward…

    If we view these presentations of computing potentially as “communication-enabled applications” that exist beyond the desktop or mobile device, we can remove the spatial limitations from our idea of presence by placing ourselves as individuals and groups “within the device”. This may remind one of the original promise of Virtual Reality but instead surrounds us with data while we continue to function as animate beings released from the binds of Head-mounted displays and CPU’s.

    I offer that the success of such developments will not reside based so much upon technical advancement, but rather in our ability to understand and create the human narratives that will allow these advancement to add value to our lives. In fact, it is the modeling of human behaviour that should drive developments of the technologies and applications required.

    Typically we find that this experience is held by storytellers such as filmmakers and theatre directors who best understand human narrative, predictable behaviours, and 3 dimensional space.

    My question is this: What might Nortel be doing, (perhaps within your new association with Microsoft) to define, understand and predict, the human narratives that will drive and assure the success of hyper-connected experiences? I imagine this to be an extraordinarily exciting space for opportunity!

    March 7th, 2007 at 5:05 pm by Laurie-Shawn Borzovoy

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