I’m reviewing the week’s news about the National Broadband Network (NBN) and I’ve come to a conclusion. Labor government spokespeople, and communications minister Senator Stephen Conroy in particular, have been dismal at selling the concept. Couldn’t you do better?
The government’s expensive-looking TV adverts are nothing but vague generalities.
Back in August, Conroy was enthusing about his smart dishwasher that negotiated cheap electricity, seemingly oblivious to the fact that it wouldn’t need any more bandwidth than dial-up. I haven’t heard anything specific from him since then, just more hand-waving about improved health and education.
Even NBN Co chief Mike Quigley, in an interview for KGB TV at Business Spectator, couldn’t present a compelling scenario that’d make sense to a “normal” voter. Just waffle about video conferencing.
[W]e are at an age now where video is just beginning to really come into its own online. So we are going to see more and more video applications and not just entertainment, but applications such as teleconferencing. Right from here in NBN Co in Sydney we’re using a system that’s high-definition, low-latency to our Melbourne office, three big 1080 screens. That requires quite a bit of bandwidth and that is going to become more and more widely used, I believe, even for people for teleworking, for example. So I think we’re going to see more and more video, which is going to drive the requirements for bandwidth up, and there are not many infrastructures that can carry that type of traffic successfully. Fibre is one of them.
None of this explains why we might want or need vastly more bandwidth than is available today. None of it explains why the NBN should be a taxpayer-funded project for all Australians, not just the few who might want video conferencing and could pay for it commercially. None of it explains why we might want the cities to cross-subsidise the regional areas.
And yet there are applications sitting there right now, or that will emerge any day now. Real applications crying out for more bandwidth. And not just gaming and more TV. It shouldn’t be hard to list a few. And that’s why I want your help.
I’d like a few examples for tomorrow’s Patch Monday podcast. If you can list them here, great. If I can record you saying it in your own words for a minute or two, even better.
So what have you got for me?
[Update 10.00pm: If you’d like to leave your suggestions as an audio comment for the Patch Monday podcast, just Skype to “stilgherrian” or phone Sydney +61 2 8011 3733 and leave voicemail.]
[Update Monday 25 October 2010, 1.40pm: This week’s Patch Monday podcast has just been posted: Why can’t Labor sell the NBN’s benefits? Enjoy.]
Video conferencing would give regional residents access to doctors. Show a 24-hour clinic in Melbourne your baby’s rash and let them hear the cough to find out if it’s serious.
Telerobotic surgery, with haptic feedback. Specialist surgeon in Sydney operates on patient in Perth. This technology exists today, but needs the bandwidth. Admittedly, not an argument for rollout to regions unless the bots get cheap enough to be installed in GP’s offices.
Centralised data hosting for geographically spread-out workforces: If an engineer for Woodside can access large amounts of company data quickly and securely from home (and can videoconference with supervisors), she has access to that job without having to move to the big smoke. Same goes for access to learning for regions.
There are, of course, plenty of recreational benefits – low-latency gaming, streaming HD movies, chat. But you’re right, they’re not things the govenment needs to pay for.
The real answer, of course, is “We don’t know.” We can’t predict the NBN any more than we could, 20 years ago, have predicted the current ubiquity of email. We don’t know what the applications will be; and that’s precisely what’s exciting about it. All we can reasonably predict by extrapolation is that there will be applications, and they will require more bandwidth.
Over the years of my dabble with the internet in gaming, web pages and video the most enjoyable experience I have had is with the use of virtual worlds. Starting in 2007 I arrived in Secondlife , surprisingly at the virtual location of the ABC Island.
One of the bigger drawbacks I have found with gaming ( think Doom, COD etc not cards/money) is the poor connection speeds available . These poor speeds resulted in lag or high ping rates which had two effects, 1. You got shot very quickly or 2. You reduced the game environment to a crawl for all playing. This resulted in being booted from the server.
With the spread of ADSL slowly across Australia those ping rates where greatly reduced and the environment opened to a few US east state servers and a couple in Australia, allowing those with a lag problem to at least try out the gaming on line experience.
The games packages of those early years included everything you required to play them, all installed on your PC via the CD you purchased, The only info required to be transmitted to the host server was your location, type of weapon and direction moving. All the artwork for the game was on a fixed map, common to all.
Enter Virtual reality worlds (VRW). They have been about for a decade in various forms as MUDS, MUSHES and MOOS, under development and change before going general public. Second Life ™ from Linden Lab is one such VRW where the user base create the environment in which they socialise. Since this VRW and other Grids allow rapid change of the scenery that information, sounds, textures and meshes That data needs to be downloaded to the viewers computer as fas as possible. It still contains the positional data of the Avatars as well as directional data. A jump in the throughput required to even function. I chew 20GB a month in data and that was before iView , with out resending movies or music as buying a DVD is cheaper for a remote location.
These VRW have allowed me to not only communicate with friends and artists overseas in a new fashion but also made it easier to share that art and builds with in the VR environment. They have allowed me to participate in University lectures , assist teaching in Primary schools, discuss community and even have input to TV series content. I have learnt to explore my arts side via these experiences, as well as sit in on NASA lectures in real time.
This is only one form of increased band width programs that are available and in use by a number of Educational facilities around the world. And the VRW grid chart is increasing every week depending on its specialty.
I’m in strong belief that the quality and direction of programs will increase very quickly, requiring even more bandwidth.
Thats why I am Pro NBN . Oh and I live in Woomera XD.
@Bondles and @Gumby Roffo: They’re great examples, thank you. Keep ’em coming, folks! I’ll respond in more detail tomorrow. I’m still gathering thoughts and editing audio tonight.
Meanwhile, here’s some of the suggestions that arrived via the Twitterverse:
One example I can think of would be in the engineering and construction sectors. A few years ago, I was working in the design office of a major brownfield upgrade of an alumina refinery. They were on the cutting edge then, using laser scanning of the existing pipework and equipment to produce “point clouds”, which could then be incorporated into 3D CAD models.
From these, the design and manufacture of new & replacement pipespools could be done to millimetre accuracy, and would fit perfectly in place, instead of having to be fitted and welded on-site – a costly and somewhat dangerous proposition.
The problem we had, was that these point clouds ran to several GB for each location, and we ended up transferring them on external hard drives, either carried back by someone visiting site, or mailed back to the design office in Brisbane. A NBN would make it much easier for this sort of technology to be used, and integrated into design-fabricate-install cycles.
The one thing I should note is the issue is bandwidth That’s the NBN’s selling-point. I ridicule Conroy’s dishwasher example because that’s all about ubiquitous access, not massive bandwidth use. I’ll talk more about that point later.
I’m currently working on a project with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra to allow the orchestra to play interactive concerts with remote schools using NBN. The requirements for musical timing and very high media quality make such concepts impossible with other network technologies.
The smart grids concept (those dishwashers etc) may not need the speeds and bandwidth of the NBN but the ubiquity and availability of NBN makes them feasible and useful rather than the current patch work of (lets face it) not very reliable networking techniques built on the back of the telegraph.
These factors also play into the feasibility of the medical applications of the network far more than is recognised.
Another real world application which becomes far more useful with FTTP is offsite networked back-up systems. This is a major consideration for another project I am working on with the orchestra to develop a digitised archive of the orchestra’s media, such an archive will grow to many terabytes so high bandwidth networked back up is ideal to protect these assets.
Oh, and yes I will comment about these applications for your podcast if time allows.
;D
@Jason Langenauer: That’s a great example the speaks directly to the issue of bandwidth. There’s a point at which moving 5GB of data online becomes easier than schlepping a hard drive across town. At that point you get the carbon savings from having reduced transport.
@Dan Animal: The other factor is that the sheer speed makes all of these new cool things possible all at once. Granny’s heart monitor may not need much bandwidth on its own, but it’s kinda inconvenient if Dad watching the hockey on streaming HD TV wipes out her comms to her doctor.
And more from the Twitterverse:
Since the suggestion is bandwidth, I’ll take a slice of video applications.
My two have already been mentioned but I will second them.
I’m sure there are other things, but in bandwidth terms, these are two things I would like to see pushed.
Many of the comments and applications listed so far are pretty good, however I’ve got a few observations to add. As already noted above, the NBN delivers two fundamentals: The first is ubiquitous access, which is also intended to be affordable as well (unlike mobile data services). The second of course is bandwidth, lots of bandwidth (here though, you get what you pay for).
Also, it’s important to distinguish between mass market services (like communication and entertainment) and the bespoke opportunities (like data transfers between hospitals/broadcasters etc), I’ll focus on the mass market opportunities as the NBN is fundamentally for households.
The affordable ubiquity aspect of the NBN will support:
The greatly increased bandwidth aspect of the NBN will support:
And that’s my 2c worth, hope it helps.
I second Shane and Michael’s comments about backup/restore. But in particular source control. Committing source to the cloud for us is cumbersome with large projects/solutions. A colleague in New York commits his code to our cloud server in barely a minute. It then takes us up to half an hour to get it back down at this end. Productivity nightmare, especially when we’re Skyping live and need to be on the same page while discussing the code in question.
Even the simple things: being able to up/download business data, and databases – like, say, several gigabytes worth – quickly. Instead of having to wait an hour, or more usually several, due to terrible uplink bandwidth.
Satellite and Aerial Imagery on demand, using proper cloud architecture.
Thanks for all the comments so far. A selected few ideas were mentioned on this week’s Patch Monday podcast, which has just been posted. That was a quick-and-dirty run-through, so I’ll return to this list for a deeper analysis in due course.
The problem with the majority of these suggestions is that they boil down to
Entertainment uses for the home (High definition TV, gaming, streaming a lot of data through multiple devices)
OR
Companies, business etc etc that should already be running Fibre (something that has been the oppositions argument the whole time)
Even teleconferencing doesn’t actually need a FTTH connection, telesurgey can be done at the local hospitals/clinics (which again should be connected to Fibre, no one is debating it here)
Really the reason why its hard to sell the speeds of the NBN to the average Joe is because, and as backed up the Nielsen’s Law, right now we don’t need those speeds. Speeds of 100mbit are only expected to be “required” in around 2020 (at the very minimum) and so you will find very few reasons (for Today) to justify EVERYONE needing FTTH (as opposed to the people that actually require it)
@deteego
You’re right in that a massive part of the economy is built on stuff we don’t need and solve a problem that we didn’t know needed solving. The average joe not conceiving the need just means the average joe isn’t going to invent the next Facebook, Apple, Google, etc.
I don’t think it matters because companies are already investing in the next generation of products that will use FTTH, it’s just that previously they haven’t looked at investing in Australia first. A guaranteed rollout timetable means a predictable market size for investment in FTTH products such as gaming, iptv/paytv etc, and means we’re likely to see them coming into the Australian market pretty quickly, instead of relying solely on an uncertain US market.
For the government, they just need IT businesses to invest now in data centers etc and announce new services just prior to the next election to ensure there is enough momentum that there would be lobbying outcry if the rollout was threatened. Apple just spent 2 Billion on a US data center, and we’ll probably see quite a few smaller versions from companies here, but it’s not something you’re going to take lightly if the opposition pulls the rug out from underneath your carefully planned investment.
Apple has proven that you can build a business on stuff people don’t need and couldn’t conceive of from nothing to 40% plus market share in a very short space of time if the ‘envy’ factor is right.
The gaming industry I think has the biggest potential because it’s the industry driven by the people who will accept FTTH the easiest. The under 18’s. Companies such as OnLive are interesting because they will use FTTH to remove the major impediment to getting at a parent’s wallet. Expensive initial outlays of cash on expensive hardware.
I’m the next market for this because hardware gaming devices are hard to justify to partners who don’t game :0
The computer gaming industry in Australia is already bigger than pay tv and will use a big slice of the NBN. It’s much more sexy for the household sector than video conferencing, and will be up there with paytv + iptv + ondemand video as a massive industry that will grow with the service.
Instead of purchasing expensive hardware, gamers will be able to use cheap controllers to play games running in data centres which do ALL the processing and just pump the output down to your ipad etc. OnLive is already trialling these kinds of services which need efficient local data centers, high bandwidth and low latency. The business argument for a renting a game that will play the same on cheap hardware vs endlessly upgrading is compelling for households.
Still on the gaming front, a lot of games require data to be loaded from a DVD onto a hard drive, but with fast connections, games will load data directly through the net. As others have mentioned, Second Life was a good first introduction to this, but once gaming giants such as Blizzard with World of Warcraft make use of it, then virtual worlds as games will become a massive industry when they are no longer restrained by the humble DVD.
Viruses and malware are a massive problem for industry, but a problem that can almost certainly be solved with the NBN. Where now most people have both their operating system and data on their local computer, it will be straight forward to boot directly from a data center, and just cache or backup data locally. This solves a big problem where people don’t update their computers. Instead the computer image is maintained separately from data in the data center, and you boot from something that is always up to date and virus free. This is something that is done in companies now but will become household and small business friendly.
The endless upgrade of computers every 3-5 years is unsustainable in the long run. With increasing electricity prices, household electronics need to be small and efficient and are moving that way. It’s much more efficient for the processing power to be hosted in regional data centers that are designed with efficiency, scalability, and redundancy in mind. One typical high density server in a data center can serve the needs of 10s to 100s of households or small businesses without breaking a sweat (depending on the application).
Opponents of the NBN don’t get that the industry is not the connection anymore, the industry that will surround the connection is what is important. If we rollout with speed and at low cost to the consumer then Australia will be first to market and an exporter of a lot of services that utilize fibre, instead of playing second fiddle to the US.
I think the issue of ubiquity is very important. When you have fragmented technology access it doesn’t matter if you are prepared to pay or not, quite simply if your exchange is not equipped, you won’t get it. Or there will be a patched solution (if you are big enough) which will have its own limitations. The pair gain systems which are in place all over the country are a good example of this.
If no matter where you are ( within reason ) you can simply hook up to the network and run your application, this is a major benefit to both users and the economy.
Just a thought Stilgherrian why not interview suitable people from the Asian countries who already have large bandwidth for their ideas.