Quote:
Originally Posted by multiweb
Gary is in a black spot In Mt Kuring-gai and I have no doubt transfer and connectivity issues are an hindrance to his business so he's an avid supporter of the NBN. In a perfect world we're all are. But there's a bigger picture.
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Gary has also been thinking about these very things since at least 1979 when
it became self evident to him that the advent of high performance, low priced,
microprocessors when linked to the world's communications systems, would bring
about an economic and social revolution.
But this was also self evident to the computing and communications engineering
fraternity at large and the professional literature at the time clearly foretold that the
future would be digital.
I can still remember that sense of marvel in the early 80's when we were first able to
email between universities a few km apart here in Sydney and soon after communicate
to the University of California in Berkeley.
The data rates were slow, only initially kilobits/second, but it began to provide
a free-flow of ideas including the ability to transmit new software for the projects
we were working on the time, namely nascent CAD software for integrated circuit deign.
By 1987, I was heavily involved in integrated circuit design. Though I was able
to email modest sized messages to the design foundry in Silicon Valley, the foundries
design libraries and the final data for the chips were too large to transit via the Internet.
Instead I would book a ticket on a QANTAS 747 and literally carry the 90MB
cartridge tapes across the Pacific as precious hand-luggage in a brief case.
In other words, to convey that set of 90MB cartridge tapes would literally take
around 14 hours of flying time. You had to get visas, book into hotel rooms,
arrange hire cars, fill out travel allowances and so on.
At that same period in the late 80's, I would estimate the total digital bandwidth
requirements of the average household would have been around zero.
Today household plans providing multiple gigabytes of data allowances per month
are commonplace and the trend curves show that increasing rapidly
over the years and decades ahead.
There would be few engineers or computer scientists back in 1987 who would
have naively predicted that their 1987 vintage computers would continue to
meet all their computing requirements by the year 2013.
But I suspect some of the lay public, if asked the same question at the time,
would have predicted that their own 1987 personal computers would still be adequate
today.
In a similar vain, if you were to ask many of the lay public to predict what the
bandwidth requirements of households will be in the first-world 25 years from now,
many would fall short of the mark.
What's not entirely fair is that many of us in the engineering community have been
able to hone our predictions from being able to see what emerging applications are
being showcased.
I will provide one example. Every few months the major semiconductor manufacturers,
companies such as Freescale and Texas Instruments, will pass through cities
such as Sydney and provide presentations to electrical engineers on their latest
generations of silicon offerings and emerging market opportunities and trends.
One emerging market is related to the fact that in countries such as Australia,
the United States and Japan, the demographics show we are collectively ageing.
The advent of compulsory superannuation was one response to this. There simply
won't be enough revenue from everyone else younger than us to pay for our pensions
and there won't be enough of them to each care for us one on one twenty-four seven.
They will need some smart leveraging.
As I mentioned in a previous post, over 50% of the budget goes into social
welfare, health and housing.
An enormous amount of money.
So if a country can delay the average time from when someone needs to go from
being able to live in their own house to having to move into a nursing home by even
months, then the savings are enormous.
What the semiconductor vendors have been showcasing for several years now
are an array of new products that can help provide health care monitoring to
those who would prefer to live in their own homes as long as possible as they
grow old.
These products connect to the net and rely on a communications infrastructure
where bandwidth is readily available and cheap. High definition video monitoring,
low cost blood pressure and heart monitoring machines and network connected
wearable monitoring appliances are just some examples. The schematics and
bills of materials for many of the devices are available today and reference designs
built. What the industry has been waiting on here is the NBN as the missing
piece of the puzzle. Everyone is geared to go. This market alone is predicted to
be valued at billions of dollars globally.
Imagine in the not too distant future you are 89 years old and living on your
own. You are perfectly happy, willing and capable to largely look after yourself
and in fact you would prefer to live in your own house that you had spent a good
part of your life paying for. But you need a little assistance and you do need someone
to keep an eye on you and monitor your vital signs. You could move to that
nursing home but don't relish the thought.
You glance up and in the kitchen is a HD camera that has been streaming video to
a care monitoring service. You give a wave. You are OK.
You look at the watch on your wrist that has been streaming your vital signs.
First sign of trouble and an ambulance is on the way.
Now and then the doctor wants you to check your blood pressure.
You hate having to go across town and wait in the doctor's office with all those
people with pesky coughs and colds. Instead you teleconference with a medical
practitioner who asks you to put on the blood pressure machine and they check
you out in real time.
Whilst this is all going on you ponder what the bandwidth requirements for just you
are at that moment and then you think of the millions for others like you within
Australia that are similarly networked. You are not watching a video, just walking
and breathing, but your digital bandwidth requirements are significant.
And you might think back 25 years ago and it then becomes evident
that those clever engineers that predicted we would need fiber to home got it
right and that lo and behold, it was no luxury, it was essential.
And this is just one example of what the future holds.
So with respect Marc, you say you are seeing "a bigger picture" and I see your picture
but I am seeing an even bigger one that surrounds yours again.
But that's what engineers do.
Best Regards
Gary Kopff
Managing Director
Wildcard Innovations Pty. Ltd.
20 Kilmory Place, Mount Kuring-Gai
NSW. 2080. Australia
Phone +61-2-9457-9049
Fax +61-2-9457-9593
sales@wildcard-innovations.com.au
http://www.wildcard-innovations.com.au
...my lip is bleeding 
... just an accidental comment 
