I telepresenced using the Tata marketed CISCO system in New Delhi few months ago and was converted. Three locations and after a few minutes, you just assume that you’re talking to people in the room. The clarity of the pictures and audio was astounding. Now with the costs and hassle of air travel increasing, this is clearly the way to do business. But you need a minimum 5 MBps link for a two-way; we used 15MBps for the three-location conference.
A recently released survey indicates Japan has the best quality broadband Internet services, with Sweden and the Netherlands completing the top three. Researchers used download/upload speeds, and internet latency when compiling numbers from eight million tests completed in May 2008. Sweden and the Netherlands were able to be the top European broadband nations because of their efforts in “increasing investments in fiber and cable network upgrades, coupled with competition diversity, and supported by strong government vision and policy.” Even though it’s difficult to define quality internet, regardless of how questions were reworded, Oxford University Said Business School researchers found Japan remained on top of 41 other nations in the “Broadband Quality Score.” Latvia, Korea, Switzerland, Lithuania, Denmark, Germany and Slovenia are the nations that round out the top ten quality broadband nations, according to researchers.
A consortium of technology companies, including I.B.M. and Cisco Systems, announced plans Tuesday for a vast wireless network that would provide free Internet access to big portions of Silicon Valley and the surrounding region as early as next year. The project is the largest of a new breed of wireless networks being built across the country.