Celebrations of the birth centenary of Sir Arthur C. Clarke will take place across the world, including Colombo where he lived and died, this month. Sriganesh Lokanathan will be speaking on Future Data at the Colombo event. Yudhanjaya Wijeratne, our resident SF writer, is also playing a role. I thought of contributing to the celebrations with this eulogy I wrote for the now-defunct Montage back in 2008: Sir Arthur C.
The stimulus packages being worked up by governments the world over all seem to have a broadband component. Even the Sri Lanka government which barely has enough money to pay its bills, is thinking of launching a USD 100 million satellite for high speed Internet (I guess this means broadband?). Leaving aside the insanity of the Government of Sri Lanka operating satellites, even the other proposals to provide government subsidies to rollout fiber networks can have bad effects that need to be thought about, before taxpayer money is doled out. As the Economist points out: Another drawback with big state subsidies for broadband is that they could distort the market and create regulatory problems.
Desktop to Laptop. Fixed phone to mobile. Wired connectivity for the laptop to wireless connectivity through WiFi. All important steps in the untethering of people from places in the communication process. But one wire remains.