The Past, Present And Future Of Internet Access
In twenty years, internet access has evolved from a temperamental and painfully slow luxury to an integral part of daily life. Where did this journey start? How will it end?
Many people made their first journey online by plugging a desktop computer into a phone outlet and attempting to connect with the internet service provider whose software they had just installed. Following a series of high-pitched screeches from a dial-up modem, a web page would laboriously begin displaying large hyperlinked buttons and some rudimentary advertising. These early attempts at creating a multifunctional web portal represented the beginning of internet access for millions of people.
In High Demand
As website design evolved, and programmers began exploring the multimedia capabilities of animations and video content and the connection speeds of dial-up became unsuitable. By the early years of the new millennium, 3G was introducing people to internet access on the move while offices were installing high-speed T1 or ISDN lines whose performance far outstripped domestic connections. After aborted technologies like BT’s short-lived 128K Midband service, broadband became established as the Ethernet-powered replacement for modems.
It’s fair to say broadband has revolutionized internet access. Without it, social media wouldn’t have become ubiquitous and entire industries like esports and podcasting may not have existed in their current form. Our lives are increasingly digital, yet it’s unlikely that the breakneck pace of post-Millennial internet development is going to slow. Instead, we are about to take another leap forwards as the internet expands beyond computer or smartphone screens to encompass everything from heating thermostats to toothbrushes.
Enter the IoT
The Internet of Things will see billions of formerly passive devices going online, where they can upload data or receive instructions across the internet. Clearly, this will require a more sophisticated platform than today’s wireless routers, which fight to be heard across a congested 2.4GHz frequency range shared with everything from car alarms to baby monitors. Wholesale improvements in internet access will be required, and these are likely to take three main forms:
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Infrastructure advancements
Seven-core fiber optic cables have the potential to distribute content far faster than today’s cabling, which explains the constant increase in line speeds offered by broadband providers. In time, broadband lines should be able to progress from tens of megabits per second to hundreds or even thousands. This would comfortably support the imminent explosion of media streaming and IoT-enabled devices that will become ubiquitous in our homes, workplaces and vehicles.
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5G
Consortiums of technology giants are feverishly developing the next generation of mobile telecommunications standards, potentially capable of downloading a high-definition movie inside a couple of seconds. Latency will effectively be eradicated from mobile communications – crucial for self-driving vehicles and any devices reliant on always being connected. It’s anticipated that 5G will change our web habits as much as 4G did, providing seamless connections wherever we happen to be.
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New distribution methods
Wi-Fi is an accepted standard and Li-Fi may be its logical successor. Turning LED lights on and off far faster than the human eye can detect, Li-Fi uses the uncluttered light spectrum to deliver hypothetical speeds of 224 gigabits per second. It doesn’t interfere with sensitive equipment, making it ideal for use in hospitals or on board planes, while clunky cables and routers would be eliminated. A global non-profit consortium is already developing Li-Fi protocols to ensure international standardization from the outset.
Although predicting future technology is a fool’s errand, it seems likely that a combination of 5G, ultrafast broadband and Li-Fi could give us the ability to access any information at any time in the blink of an eye. By 2030, today’s “high-speed” internet infrastructure may seem as inefficient and outdated as the dial-up modems that powered us through the new millennium…