AT&T claims that the Internet will run out of bandwidth by 2010 and thus their massive investments in deploying new infrastructure to handle new demands. Then, the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems reveals in their study that Cox and eleven other ISPs are blocking BitTorrent traffic during all times of the day. Gary Audin recently wrote about the biggest source of security threats in the world being from the U.S. Then, we've heard again about the Chinese government's deployment of very deep-inspecting firewall technology (Great Wall of China Exploit) embedded in the routers from Cisco, so users can be blocked or censored.
AT&T claims that the Internet will run out of bandwidth by 2010 and thus their massive investments in deploying new infrastructure to handle new demands. Then, the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems reveals in their study that Cox and eleven other ISPs are blocking BitTorrent traffic during all times of the day. Gary Audin recently wrote about the biggest source of security threats in the world being from the U.S. Then, we've heard again about the Chinese government's deployment of very deep-inspecting firewall technology (Great Wall of China Exploit) embedded in the routers from Cisco, so users can be blocked or censored.The Internet isn't so free and open and I'd bet the arguments that have hinged so far on keeping the Internet open or less restricted are going to escalate above and beyond what we've heard regarding net neutrality. The Web, for as wide and wonderful as it can be, hasn't always been so great. Maybe it does need regulation to the degree of what we've had in the past with the Telcos and utility companies. Or, maybe we need an understanding and appreciation that the world-wide-web should serve in the public's best interest.
The same marketing pressures I've noted before are increasing energy costs; national infrastructure improvement costs in the trillions along with the associated increases in pollution, wasted commuter energy and time; personal U.S. consumer debt of $2.51 trillion USD and the devaluation of consumer's net worth are all indicative that for a economy such as ours that is indeed based upon the flow of information, we can't afford to monkey around with the thing that we are all glued to. The Internet is part of the energy solution and remains largely unlimited and still untapped with new opportunities explored and unexplored; provided of course we all can agree on how.
A recent study from ACEEE found that U.S. energy consumption cut in half by one major measure since 1970, and since this time, energy efficiency has met about three-fourths of the demand for new energy-related services while conventional energy supply has covered only one-fourth of this demand. The 60-page report (U.S. Energy Efficiency Market) goes on to say that:
energy efficiency is an invisible power house. Unfortunately, efficiency resources and investments are currently hard to observe, to count, and to define because they represent the energy that we don't use to meet our energy service demands. Moreover, energy efficiency gains are often distributed across the many productive technologies and market behaviors that are part of the normal course of doing business. Our very inability to observe, measure and quantify efficiency acts as an impediment to smart policy, planning, and investment. A concerted data collection effort, smart investments and investment mechanisms, and a smart policy framework are essential.
Along the same lines of conservation and efficiency; no one can argue that the Internet isn't somehow entwined with what we all do on or off the job. The web is another "power-house" that can save energy through efficiencies. The concept that an IP solution must cost the same or less than a TDM system or solution isn't necessarily going to stand up against any business that concludes that paying a little or even a lot more to gain efficiencies that make local, regional, national and even global impacts are worth the effort and added costs. So as strategic thinking goes- the carriers cannot afford to act like chumps counting change for every bit and byte used; security as in we, remain our own worst enemies and in unlocking the potential that the ACEEE talks about in energy efficiency and beyond to impacting lives and reducing pollution. What an opportunity.
"Energy efficiency is a sleeping giant," said Robert Wilder, CEO of WilderShares, which manages two clean energy indices. "It doesn't have the sexy allure of solar power or huge wind. But we have Saudi Arabia-sized oil reserves under our feet in America through energy efficiency." (Source: DeMonte 2006)
