I DEMAND MORE! MORE! MORE!

WHY WE’LL ALWAYS WANT MORE BANDWIDTH

PART ONE:  EDUCATION

No matter how much you get, you want more. You’ve always wanted more, and you always will.

No, this isn’t about your love life. It’s about your insatiable demand for internet bandwidth. No matter how much you get, it will never be enough. This is mainly because as the pipeline expands, you will think of ever more material to fill it with.

What Makes the Web Different from Older Technologies

In this respect, the internet differs from previous means of communications. In over a hundred years of home telephone service, bandwidth usage for it changed hardly at all. Innovation brought modest improvements in convenience and sound quality, without fundamentally altering the nature of voice transmissions. The internet, though, is constantly evolving. Increasing bandwidth promotes innovation, and innovation promotes demand for increased bandwidth.

Increased bandwidth doesn’t just improve the speed of e-mail. It makes entirely new functions possible. At the dawn of the internet age, few of us would have guessed that it would become a major medium for commerce, telephony, streaming video, or social media such as Facebook or Twitter. Now these uses are so commonplace, we could scarcely imagine living without them.

Education

Technology is forcing massive changes in education. A few decades ago, knowledge was quarantined, and difficult to find. Seeking information in libraries was tedious and cumbersome, and the most important and timely information was in the hands of corporate and government elites.

Now, though, we carry nearly all of the world’s knowledge in our pockets. Whatever we want to know, we can usually find it in a few seconds. Education is now mostly guidance in what to look for.

It was inevitable that greater access to information would affect demand for formal schooling.

MOOCs and Home Schooling

As college tuition rates skyrocket climb into the stratosphere, and millions of students take on crippling debt, and with many of the most prominent universities mired in stifling intellectual conformity, demand for alternatives multiplies. Multiple open online courses (MOOC) are one answer. They cost far less than standard university courses, and are often at least as effective, perhaps more effective, in communicating course content. Unlike textbooks, material on the web can be updated constantly. Students can log in for real-time class discussions on video, download their assignments, and upload their homework.

The web is also becoming vital to home schooling (elementary and secondary levels). Parents can tailor course content to the needs and aptitudes of their children, and students can learn at their own paces, without being either rushed or slowed by the learning abilities of classmates.

Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality

We have learning tools that previous generations could scarcely have imagined. No longer bound by school schedules, we can learn as we need to. Without waiting for others to teach us, we can constantly upgrade our professional skills online.

Virtual reality (VR)  and augmented reality (AR) can hugely enhance effectiveness of online training.

VR is digital simulation of 3D environments.  With VR, you’re not held to one fixed perspective, as when you’re watching a movie.  You can look around and ‘move’ in the digital environmental.

At a trade show in Barcelona, Spain, a reporter climbed into a control booth owned by a heavy machinery firm. Wearing a VR helmet and manipulating levers in the booth, he operated an earth mover in real time in Sweden, 1500 miles away. Think, then, of VR’s potential alter construction, inspection, and manufacturing. It has already changed training for skilled trades. We could learn surgery, piloting of aircraft, and other skills without all of the risks that come with learning them in real environments.

Augmented reality is the overlay of a digital environment over a real one. With AR, an apprentice mechanic or plumber can see a repair diagram laid over real pipe or a real engine. The AR app provides constant feedback on his work, so he can see and feel how the task should be done.

AR and VR can revolutionize education, because they help develop habit or ‘muscle memory’. When he tries his new skills in real environments, the student already understands them from memory. VR and AR are much more effective for skill training than written manuals could ever be.

Of course, such forms of education require huge amounts of bandwidth. For this reason, among others, we’ll always demand more.

(Demand the best internet connection. Demand the best deals in internet service. Talk to us. We can help.)