The why of tech
The why of tech
THIS morning the paperboy's noisy scooter roused me and it made me realize big change is on the way. Digital format
is blending major
services in your homeRight now, there are 10 major networks connected to your home, which you probably take for granted. In no particular order, they are: mail, Internet, phone, radio, television, package delivery such as FedEx, water, electricity, newspapers and garbage.
These, more than anything else, are the definition of civilization.
In the analog, or physical, world, we naturally consider these services as different from one another, requiring completely unrelated systems to deliver them to us.
For example, radio stations use highly specialized equipment that requires a substantial investment as well as compliance with federal regulations in order to get their service to our homes and cars.
These requirements are very different from running a phone company, which has buildings full of expensive and sophisticated equipment, connected to each and every house with millions upon millions of miles of wires it has installed in the ground. Nothing like radio stations, in fact.
But thanks to the world of computers and the increasing transcription of information into a digital format, six of those networks that have been set up to serve us can be combined into one.
Now that we use digital as the universal format for information, we can divide services to us into two main categories, physical or informational.
All the physical services, garbage collection, sewer, electricity and package delivery, will remain separate tasks run by separate companies.
But all the information services (mail, newspapers, Internet, television, radio and telephone) can and will be delivered by a single company.
Cable and phone companies have the biggest advantage of the six in the group, because they have already converted much of their systems to digital and both have a wired network to your house, ready to provide any and all of the information services.
Services like newspapers and mail, on the other hand, still require hundreds and thousands of people working together to make sure the product is safely delivered to your house.
The reason why large mainland corporations have purchased Oceanic Cable and Hawaiian Tel is because they both have plans for displacing each other as well as the other services on the list to become the single provider of all your information services.
So expect both the phone and cable companies to continue to offer more and more services to woo you into picking one over the other.
Having been one myself, I hate to say it, but one day not too far away, we are going to tell our grandchildren about how a paperboy used to have to get up at 4 a.m. and ride his bike around the neighborhood to deliver the Star-Bulletin.
Steve Jefferson is a Honolulu-based freelance writer
and section editor for InfoWorld. He can be
reached at: stevej@lava.net