Genuine Pace

Morrissey would of course counter that headline with a dismissive ‘it makes none’, but his best days are behind him and (as far as I’m aware) he knows very little of the telecoms market. In fact, a more accurate response would perhaps be ‘it makes some, but not as much as you think’.

The fibre-optic driven broadband network capable of supporting 100Mbps speeds that BT have declared to deliver by 2012, would bring the UK broadband infrastructure bang into line with those of such broadband powerhouses as Japan and Korea. That means bang into line with download speeds enjoyed by Japan and Korea in 2008 however; by 2012 it’s highly anticipated many parts of the world will be revelling in 1000Mbps connections.

Will the UK be among this heavenly throng? Highly unlikely, although it’s worth noting Japanese broadband users suffer in much the same way UK users do in relation to broadband advertising. Up to 100Mbps broadband speeds in Japanese ads rarely means you’ll get a consistent 100Mbps connection. Speeds usually fluctuate between the 55 and 95Mbps mark.

Fast forward to 2012. The Smiths have reformed with Slash on lead guitar, Animal from the Muppets on drums and a visibly ‘heavier’ Morrissey finding that troublesome middle eight in ‘William, it was really nothing’ even more testing than usual. On a pertinent note, what will your broadband connection enable you to do?

Well, first and foremost, all the online essentials (emails, media downloads, Facebook housekeeping, shopping, paying bills etc.) should take ten times faster to complete in theory. Obviously a 100Mbps broadband connection isn’t going to make you type faster, but it will make data transfer (particularly involving hefty files) tangibly quicker.

The problem is applications such as Facebook, MySpace and YouTube are optimised for 3 to 6Mbps connections, so the actual impact a 100Mbps connection will have on these apps could be negligible or, at worse, destructive. It’s the equivalent of trying to swat a fly with a rocket launcher.

100Mbps connections to the home should see Internet Protocol TV (IPTV) finally become established after years of dithering on the sidelines. Triple-play bundles will be significantly shaken up and redesigned come 2012, with the old phone-TV-broadband model replaced by Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), IPTV and broadband. A 100Mbps connection should be able to support 3 HDTV channels running simultaneously, and still leave enough room for a little messenger action on the side.

The big winner will be video conferencing and holographic video capabilities. 100Mbps connections could allow us communication tools only previously fantasised in 60s sci-fi movies; I’m talking interactive holographic video, handheld high-res devices, streaming HD video and real-time mobile video interaction with pause and rewind functionality.

Although everyone wants faster speeds from their broadband connection, the conversion to fibre and 100Mbps speeds could be a bumpy one. Are UK broadband users ready for 4G capabilities? Can they handle 100Mbps? When will they be able to use super-fast broadband to its full potential?

In the future when all’s well, as a certain bequiffed Mancunian might say.

  Tron’s Hair Extensions

I read this week the internet could soon be made obsolete due to a superfast alternative built by Cern, the particle physics centre who initially pioneered internet technology nearly twenty years ago.

The new network, know eerily as ‘The Grid’, runs at speeds of up to 10,000 times faster than a typical broadband connection, and has been built with dedicated fibre-optic cables. Capabilities of The Grid include the power to transmit holographic images, and the capacity to allow instant communal gaming to groups of over 100,000 online gamers. That’s some round of Command and Conquer.

However, it was the following piece of information that really captured my attention:

‘The Grid will be able to send the entire Rolling Stones back catalogue from Britain to Japan in less than two seconds.’

Impressive, very impressive.

I’ve just got one quick question: why the hell would you want to do that?

Granted, from 1964 to 1972 they were absolutely on top of their game, no question, ‘Exile on Main Street’ is a modern masterpiece. I’m even prepared to allow side one of ‘Goats Head Soup’ and two tracks from ‘Some Girls’ slip in.

But 80s and 90s Stones, are you insane? You would need a frontal lobotomy to appreciate that stuff, let alone a superfast internet network.

Why are we designing internet networks that can send 33 albums halfway around the world in seconds, when all you need is 6? Perhaps even just a sturdy Greatest Hits might do it? This statistic also pales into insignificance when I tell you it’s possible to download, burn, listen to, evaluate and discard the entire Kate Nash back catalogue in under a nanosecond.

My advice? Get yourself an i-pod that holds eight songs, and download ‘Master of Puppets’ by Metallica. It’s all you need. In previous years, you would have been able to download this album for free from Napster. Unfortunately, the Metallica drummer and co-founder, Lars Ulrich, elected to drag Napster through the federal courts and ultimately destroy them. Oh dear.

Rather than sending duff albums by flamboyantly dressed cadavers (and I’m back onto the Stones now) to Sepang, how could ‘The Grid’ be put to a more practical use?

Well, ironing out glitches in VoIP and IPTV would certainly be one great innovation, as would an increased capacity to run your home security system (CCTV and all) from your PC.

Looking further ahead, holographic video conferencing looks a distinct possibility, creating the illusion that every conference participant is present in the room at the same time. This feeling of physicality between disparate entities would significantly aid communication between businesses, and emphatically crystalise the saying ‘it’s a small world’.

The Grid will ultimately sound the death knell for desktop computing, with the majority of net users turning to online applications to store data. Landline phones (already under threat from the ‘dongle’) and mobile handsets could take a major hit too, with VoiP and social networking all set to replace them on a permanent basis.

Having been in development for seven years, this parallel network is now built, using fibre-optic cables that run from Cern to 11 nerve centres in the United States, Canada, the Far East and Europe. Testing begins this summer.

So, my question to you is this: In the light of iplayer, 4OD and other applications decimating our frail, existing broadband network, how would you use all this extra bandwidth if it was to be introduced tomorrow?

What could you do with 1000Mb?

Answers on a holographically generated e-card please.