Sunday 18 February 2001

Pic of the day: Broadband? Sorry, couldn't resist ... (My name is Magnus and I am a pun addict. A-pun my word.)

Waiting for the broadband

And no, I'm not talking about an all-female music group.[1] I'm talking about the AORTA of the information society (Always Online, Real-Time Access). Coming soon to a wall near me. But not quite as soon as I'd like.

Living on the outer fringe of suburbia, cable is not really an option. And besides I don't have a TV or want one, so that makes cable less interesting anyway. Satellite too, and besides there isn't much competition in that market. So I'm waiting for the Asynchronous Digital Subscriber Loop - broadband over ye olde phone line. Last I checked, only a few city areas here in Norway had ADSL, but it's spreading. It's uncertain whether the whole country will be included, but I live in a fairly well off suburban area. It's bound to come eventually. Probably not for several months, though. Which may be just as well.

I don't think I'll use this computer on ADSL. The digital line cannot use a modem, but needs a dedicated network card in the PC. For a portable, that will be very expensive - it will be a pretty good excuse to get a new desktop computer again. I can probably buy the ADSL card along with the computer ... I have a bad track record for screwdriver accidents with my previous computers.

***

So why would I want broadband in the first place? Well, to be honest it's only in small part for the speed. It would of course be nice to be able to download anime faster, but the main benefit is that download speed wouldn't matter so much anymore. With these connections, you pay a fixed sum per month, and can stay online all day. The price would not be much more than I pay now, perhaps less. (Expect broadband prices to fall, as competition heats up. Electricity companies are experimenting with Internet access through the socket.)

You know what that means, staying online all the time. It means that it will be even easier than now to turn to the Net for all things, from looking up weird words to shopping clothes. And I can look at webcams whenever I want. In fact, I can have my own webcam and let the world share in the glory that is my physical manifestation, at little extra cost. Now that would broaden people's horizons, or what?

***

Norway is already one of the most networked countries in the world. We might be on top of the international list if not for the sorry state of e-commerce here. With 4.5 million inhabitants, there is simply not room for much of a national e-commerce industry; and buying from abroad is made difficult by bureaucracy. In order to import anything, you need to fill in forms and pay a fee in addition to the VAT (value added tax, a kind of sales tax). The end result is that people often don't bother. (Distribution from overseas would anyway take some time, even before the Norwegian postal system starts to slosh the goods around. The only time I ever tried, it took months. I had more or less forgotten the whole thing, and it wasn't really relevant anymore.)

People with broadband access typically are on the Net more than 4 times as long as those with dial-up access, according to The Economist. This means that it is much easier for a small country to reach critical mass for e-business, e-government and e-ducation. Luckily, so far the government has done little except let competitors in on some parts of telecom. This is not a best-case scenario, but it is much better than the most likely alternative: That the government decides to favor some inferior venture started by old chums, the way they did with the Fornebu "hi-tec city" project.

The broadband nation will not be very different from today, except some of the shopping will move from mail-order to Net. OK, there will probably also be more home schooling and distance learning. The most important change is in news and entertainment, where television will for all practical purposes be swallowed by the Net. Why would you sit up waiting for a movie when you can get it off the Net now? Why would you wait for the 8 o'clock news when you can have them on your screen right away? Television is simply not competitive against a medium that has the same content and more, but is not bound by schedules.

Of course, for all this to happen, broadbands need to be a bit broader than today. And backbones need to be stiffened up quite a bit too. I often find that even my dial-up connection has to wait for stuff from America (which is where most of my favorite sites are). When millions of people start to fetch movies, the current structure will simply not be enough. There will need to be more bandwidth in the main lines, and more and better proxies.

(I'm not the best to ask about proxies, since I tend to go for a whole other list of sites than the average Norwegian. So it is rare for a proxy to have something in its cache for me. But the idea is generally very sound, and you might just make the Internet a better place if you check your ISP's FAQ about proxies and try it out. If you know you use the same stuff online as a reasonable number of other people, go for it.)

I may get back to massive peer-to-peer networking and the future of the Internet later, perhaps. Right now, I'm just waiting for the broadband.

The Maestro says it's Mozart
but it sounds like bubble gum
when you're waiting
for the miracle, for the miracle to come.

Leonard Cohen, Waiting for the Miracle, from the CD The Future.

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[1]: Note for younger readers: When I was young, American men used the noun "broad" about adult women of questionable morality, but often also as a belittling phrase for adult women in general. Somewhat like "chick" about young women today, I think. It's been a while since I last saw it in current publications.