A connected home.

LAN, WAN, and WLAN, etc has been part and parcel of corporate networking connectivity. These islands of topologies will eventually merged into a seamless entity driven by higher Internet bandwidth and lower costs of access. In the previous few years, we have seen furious and fast paced innovations and development that lead to the convergent of Computers and Communications as a single cohesive technology that drive business reengineering, work habits, and value added deliverables. A personal computer will no longer be a simple word processing machine or spreadsheet emulator. A personal computer will evolved into a much more powerful information and communication device that can handle simultaneous parallel applications at high speed. The personal computer, in certain business sense, will be a window to the world for data and voice messaging, client server transaction applications, remote workstation, etc.

The next booming frontier will be the integration of Computers, communications, and Consumer Electronics (CCC) in the minds of home users. Ultimately, in the not so distant future, the homes will be driven by PC and broadband Internet access. At the moment, the Internet bandwidth of the Malaysians' homes centred around 1 M bits - still not fast enough to carry the payloads of the future. As a result, we are still relying on the unstable Astro's satellite TV programs for entertainment, separate phone line for voice communications, and separate line and equipments for data and applications transactions.

In 1993, the bandwidth of Internet is probably around 33.6Kbps. Now, the average bandwidth has reached 1Mbps. That is approximately 3000% increase in performance over the last 10 years ! For the next 10 years, most likely the Internet bandwidth will reach 1Gigabits speed for home or personal users.

What will happened when the Internet access bandwidth hits 1 Gigabits ? One thing for sure, people will be well connected electronically. A lot of the traditional "high tech" companies such as Astro, Telekom Malaysia, Maxis, Redtone, etc. will have problems surviving based on its existing products and services. For example, for as low as RM100 one time charge, home user can install a small piece of software and start receiving TV programs from all over the world free of charge. Would it make economic sense then for you pay Astro RM 100 a month for TV entertainments ? For telephony services, we will end up having small pocket size computer with wireless access, be able to make voice & video calls to and from anywhere of the world without being encumbered by the existing telephone charges and cross border protocols. I believed, Apple Inc. is quietly doing R&D in this area. They just launched their iPhone! So, for those who are thinking of investing in technology company as long term investment, think twice, you may end up having pieces of useless papers or electronic accounts.

In the home front, the PC will be become a very powerful media centre integrating phone, video, audio, games, and a whole host of intelligence features. In fact, all electrical and electronic equipments will be linked into the PC to provide comfort, security, computing, and entertainment to the home users. Already, Microsoft has announced at the recent Consumer Electronics show that Windows Home Server software will be available during the second half of 2007. The new backbone software will function as the center of a home's computer network, from photo and video storage to television to accessing computer files when away from home.

So, what will it be, between now and the next 10 years ? Personally, I would think the homes will be very well connected, and the home will be driven by media computing technology. Maybe, sitting in the comfort of our living room, we will even be able to have satellite view of the garden party held by friends and relatives in another part of the world. For a price, we may even indulge in real life virtual sexual fantasy without incurring the risks of sexual diseases ! etc. etc.

Well, what else can I say ? Like Nokia ads' "I believe in miracles, you sexy sassy things......." Welcome to the shiok new world of media connectivity !

Digital Tsunami ?

Internet is such a beautiful technology. We conduct our business using Internet, entertain ourselves with Internet contents, keeping in touch with each other using Internet text and voice messaging services, and, we even incorporate Internet technologies into our work procedure.

We depend on service availability of Internet technology and we live in it. Whether we like it or not, Internet is the culture of the 21st century. The question is, what if the major backbone of Internet topology is disrupted ? What will be the economic and social consequences ?

On 27th December 2006, mother natures gave us a sampling of what life will be like for millions of so called "Internet savvy" netizens.

A 7.1 magnitude earthquake at southern coast of Taiwan at 12:07 a.m. on 27th December 2006 caused major disruptions in Internet connectivities in many Asian countries. According to TMNET, the Internet service provider in Malaysia, the Asia Pacific Cable Network 2's ( APCN2) submarine cable between Shantau ( China) and Tanshui (Taiwan), and between Lantau (HK) and Chongming (China) has been severely faulted by the earthquakes. As a result, service outages occurred at several TM Net international transit and peering links causing Internet users in Malaysia to experience severe access degradation for contents and websites hosted outside of Malaysia.

So, this morning, a lot of Internet users in Malaysia experienced the digital tsunami caused by the breakdowns of information super highways at APCN2. For those whose work depend on interacting with contents and websites hosted outside of Malaysia, it is a frustrating start for the day. It look like Internet users in Malaysia is going to live with this digital discomfort for the next few days, maybe weeks, or even months. Digital tsunami won't caused losses of lives, but it will definitely cause a lot of discomforts and financial losses to business which depend on Internet connectivities.

In terms of economic losses due to non availability of service to on line trading, Internet based IP telephony, web based applications, etc., it is anybody guess. Probably billions of dollars will be lost in opportunity costs and disruptions of business transactions. So, the fallacy of reliability of Internet to drive digital economies is glaringly vulnerable. Isn't it.

Man can put up the best and most advance broadband internet technologies and its redundancies, but mother natures still decide. Okay ?