On Mon, Mar 26, 2012 at 8:04 PM, Jacob Broussard <shadowedstrangerli...@gmail.com> wrote: > Who knows what technology will be like in 5-10 years? That's the whole > point of what he was trying to say. Maybe wireless carriers will use > visible wavelength lasers to recievers on top of customer's houses for all > we know. 10 years is a LONG time for tech, and anything can happen.
Hi Jacob, The scientists doing the basic research now know. It's referred to as the "technology pipeline." When someone says, "that's in the pipeline" they mean that the basic science has been discovered to make something possible and now engineers are in the process of figuring out how to make it _viable_. The pipeline tends to be 5 to 10 years long, so basic science researchers are making the discoveries *now* which will be reflected in deployed technologies 10 years from now. There is *nothing* promising in the pipeline for wireless tech that has any real chance of leading to a wide scale replacement for fiber optic cable. *Nothing.* Which means that in 10 years, wireless will be better, faster and cheaper but it won't have made significant inroads replacing fiber to the home and business. 20 years is a long time. 10 years, not so much. Even for the long times, we can find the future by examining the past. The duration of use of the predecessor technology (twisted pair) was about 50 years ubiquitously deployed to homes. From that we can make an educated guess about the current one (fiber). Fiber to the home started about 10 years ago leaving about 40 more before something better might replace it. Regards, Bill Herrin -- William D. Herrin ................ her...@dirtside.com b...@herrin.us 3005 Crane Dr. ...................... Web: <http://bill.herrin.us/> Falls Church, VA 22042-3004