Category: Tumblelog

So Moore’s law talks about the speed of processors doubling every so often (specifics aren’t that important at the moment). Invariably, games, apps and whatnot other myriad things come along to suck up that juice necessitating upgrades, new hardware and so on. It’s essentially a personal issue, however, one that, so long as Moore’s law stays unbroken, you can overcome it by buying or upgrading your computer or being conservative about the technology you use.

The bandwidth problem, however, has no equivalent Moore’s law. Even as faster wireless standards emerge, the series of tubes that make up the internets aren’t getting any fatter. And yet more and more race horses, poker chips, blow-up dolls and lottery balls will be being sent thru the tubes the more people go online. And already, at least in the states, our bandwidth is retarded compared to Europe (as in “being late” or “behind”). So I’m kinda sittin’ here wonderin’, y’know, what’s the big plan moving forward? Are we just waiting to turn on the dark fiber? If so, turn it on already! If not, ok, what? Lay more fiber? I mean, what’s to guarentee that, as we rely evermore on the cloud, that the pipes that we rely on to access it are going to be able to bare the burden? I mean car makers don’t built the roads — what is our civic interest — nay, duty — in making sure that we have unhindered, unthrottled bandwidth into the future?