Travis,
The electrical grid is not as easy to manage and build as some people
might
think, even if it is one way so to speak. Found this out when I was building
rural cellular towers. When we would pull service to a new site it would be
built for 800-1200 amps capacity. In some parts of the country when we asked
the power company to plan for that they would go crazy. In parts of
Washington and Oregon we had to submit very sophisticated load planning
documents. In some cases they stated they could not deliver the amount of
service for the planned capacity the tower was built for. We had seen
carriers easily max out a 200 amp service in summer months with their big
shelters and HVAC units. In some cases AT&T or Nextel had to pull in a
second 200 amp service. Telling the power companies this in the rural areas
made them nervous. I eventually got to speak with one of the engineers, he
explained the in some places the grid was not built to handle large
commercial loads like what we had planned and it meant major construction
and upgrades for them to deliver that level of demand.
The comparison to the electrical grid in that article is more to the
point
of how they had the same challenges as we do with broadband, getting service
to rural areas they could not cost justify the build out. More importantly
back when they had the arguments about building the electrical
infrastructure, people had no concept what technologies would evolve using
electricity. They just thought it was going to bring lights. Look at all of
the things that developed in the last 100 years that required the use of
electricity. Now imagine (or try to) what will evolve from the use of the
internet in the next 80 years and beyond. I'll be the first to admit I have
been wrong about many technologies or things that I thought were not
possible just a few years ago. I'm a fool if I think things can't or won't
change over time.
Thank You,
Brian Webster
-----Original Message-----
From: wireless-boun...@wispa.org [mailto:wireless-boun...@wispa.org]on
Behalf Of Travis Johnson
Sent: Monday, January 11, 2010 12:43 AM
To: WISPA General List
Subject: Re: [WISPA] Broadband compared to electricity of the early
1900's
Hi,
I've kept this email since you sent it out. I just now read the article,
and I agree with many things stated there. About two days before you
sent this article, it came to my mind (because there was a discussion
about metered billing) that electricity is metered... yet, it's so cheap
now that people don't worry about leaving their TV or lights on while
they are gone from the house for a few hours. I think some day internet
access may come to that level as well... but it may be 100 years from
now before that happens.
The biggest difference with electricity vs. internet service is that all
the devices for internet service require two-way communication.
Electricity is easy... you put it out on the wires, and people use it as
they need it. There are almost no limits on the amount they can use,
etc. Internet is different... the biggest difference is that every
device that is connected can become infected, have bad hardware, or
essentially take on a life of it's own... thus using more resources than
what anyone realizes. A user could leave a bittorrent service running
for 29 days before it's noticed... and then get a bill for $500 for that
month's service... and nobody is happy.
I think this is the reason that telco's and cableco's took so long to
get internet going... they didn't know how to deal with two-way
communication... and having a device on the connection that could cause
an entire block, switch, router, etc. to have problems was totally new
to them. Cable was easy when it was "download" only... same with
telephone... a direct line back to a switch in a CO is easy... either it
works or it doesn't.
Will the internet evolve to something like electricity? I believe the
answer is yes... but that is still a long time into the future... I
doubt many of us will see it in our lifetimes.
Travis
Microserv
Brian Webster wrote:
> I have been of the thought process that Broadband needs to be compared to
> electricity and telephone service expansion and deployments of the early
> 1900's. Here is a nice article that draws a direct comparison to
electricity
> (and municipal networks). Should be good food for though to all:
>
> The Killer App of 1900 <http://publicola.net/?p=20687>
> by Glenn Fleishman <techn...@publicola.net>, 12/11/2009, 11:18 AM
>
> It’s instructional to look back 100 years, not long after the first
> electrical generation plants were built to bring power to towns and
cities,
> to assess the situation we find ourselves in with broadband availability
> today.
>
> http://publicola.net/?p=20687
>
> Thank You,
> Brian Webster
>
>
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