Why Broadband?

Imagine yourself going for a movie, to the races, and the shop where you

usually order weekly groceries, simultaneously. All this, while you’re on a

train en route to home after a hectic day at work. Is this a scene from a latest

Hollywood blockbuster? Is it Arthur C Clarke’s 2020? Believe it or not, it’s

now and it’s here, thanks to broadband.

Here’s how broadband fits into our lives.

Enabling convergence

Increasingly, all forms of electronic information–telephony, data traffic,

and TV and radio–are being converted into digital format, making it possible

for a single network to handle all of them. Also, there’s a continuing demand

to transport more information, more quickly. The result is a need for

communication links with huge bandwidth. Broadband is a possible answer.

Broad connectivity options

High-speed Internet access and Remote LAN access are just the beginning of

broadband. Other applications that will be made possible include

videoconferencing, desk-to-desk video, interactive CAD, and collaborative

working. 3G wireless networks (based on broadband) will lead to applications

such as mobile multimedia, mobile videoconferencing, etc.

Service providers will be able to provide demand-based differentiated

services such as Internet access combined with voice and video on demand to

customers, and in turn benefit from improved revenues. Demand-based services

will allow users to choose the bandwidth they require.

Here’s how broadband wireless networks will provide solutions.

Disaster control and management The Gujarat earthquake

is a case in point of where broadband wireless networks could have been

deployed. Ad hoc wireless broadband networks would have come in handy in Gujarat

when all means of communication failed, especially for sending multimedia

information. This could be online help from a surgeon to a medic who’s

providing aid to disaster victims; or schedules, distribution plans, and remote

monitoring of relief material.

Military and defence Wireless broadband networks would

enable military to exchange multimedia information while on the move. In many

tactical scenarios, the effective use of these networks may become the

difference between victory and defeat.

Mobile videoconferencing For the busy business

managers of the future and for telecommuting workers operating from anywhere,

wireless broadband data communication may become a great asset.

Remote monitoring of industrial plants Engineers can

monitor industrial plants right from their mobile handset, rather than go to the

plant or its monitoring station.

As you can see, broadband access can lead to more useful

applications for end users and new revenue generation models for network

operators providing broadband services.

Venugopal S and Navneet Bhushan, Comfactory, SETLabs, Infosys

Technologies