by Collin LeGault Rountree
18. December 2009 11:17
In the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 Congress directed the FCC to come up with a plan and metrics for measuring this plan to get broadband accessible to all Americans. As a result, the FCC has published a request for comments here.
Excerpt: Driven by technology and market forces, this evolution of communications services to broadband creates many opportunities for our country, but it also has a significant impact on the circuit switched Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), a system that has provided, and continues to provide essential services to the country.
What does this mean for the end user? Hopefully this will open the doors to a whole slew of new application opportunities for developers. Take Google for example; the chromium OS that they are touting is 100% a browser. There is nothing else to it from an end user perspective. Why? I think the idea is to increase mobility and give you access to your data no matter where you are. All you need is connectivity. I read an paper a long time ago entitled "Rise of the Stupid Network" written by David Isenberg. It described a dumb pipe. Google is trying to reverse this by making dumb computers with a smart network. What better way to make use of blanket broadband for the population than to make the services live in the cloud?
One project that jumps to mind is Bespin found on mozilla labs. Its a great project that puts a developement environment in the cloud and lets multiple developers collaborate on code, no matter where they are. Its all about mobility. I love having access to my email from anywhere, any device. Using apps like Bespin let me and my colleagues have access to my coding environment from anywhere. Its no longer tied to my laptop. I see a bright future ahead for all end user as these technologies slowly roll out to the world. [More]