Visions 2014

wireless technology continued to struggle with problems of security, interference, performance, and market saturation………..

So many Hackers were never headed in the period.
Organizations and companies had to
implement and continually update secure
encryption – using both hardware and
software means. Changes in Internet
protocols allowed enforcement authorities
to trace hackers; that helped for a short
time… until the hackers figured how to hack
that.
Security breaches limited the acceptance of
wireless. Anyone with a laptop and wireless
card could use most networks. Standards
groups enhance security; but most users
were unable to put security into place, for
one reason or another. Result: Wireless chaos.
Machines & networks
The general-purpose PC – the 1980s-90s
version –disappeared. While PCs were still
around (for specific uses such as graphics
applications), they mostly became a toy for
computer geeks, who liked to play with
them as a hobby.
Users revolted against standards bodies.
The event stimulating that was the standards
groups creation of 1-terabit Ethernet and the
offer of a new standard for “Category 8”
UTP cabling. Users finally acknowledged
that – unless they, the users, “wised up” –
those who controlled the standards also
would control the markets.
Telephony’s future past
Phone companies offering land lines
continued to lose market share to cell
phones. In hindsight, number portability –
which started slowly when it became
available in 2003 – was identified as a prime
cause.
DSL followed ISDN into telco limbo, as
the regional Bell operating companies
(RBOCs), without that subsidy from land
revenues, can no longer support such
money-losing propositions.
The U.S. Supreme Court banned the
RBOC’s practice of delaying deregulation
by bringing lawsuits against municipalities,
utilities, and anyone else wanting to offer
local phone service or install fiber to the
home.
(Just kidding! It only stopped when they went
bankrupt and could no longer afford the
legal fees.)
Wireless companies developed technology
that allowed carriers to expand services, to
include fast Internet access and video
conferencing – using frequencies released by
the U.S. government and military.
On the other hand, wireless technology
continued to struggle with problems of
security, interference, performance, and
market saturation.
Wireless hot spots disappeared from
hamburger shops, restaurants, coffee shops,
dry cleaning establishments, and the like. It
became obvious they were uneconomic.
Only publicly supported hot-spot locations
(airports and convention centers) continued
in operation, as the technology continued
changing (requiring new investment in
hardware).
Wireless product companies suffered the
same meltdown as optical fiber purveyors
had seen in the early 2000s. The same cause
– VCs over-invested in too many companies
– was involved.
Federal law required cell phones to have
“black-out” chips installed to prevent use
in restaurants, theaters, and wherever local
ordinance or building owners required it.
Consumers and privacy advocates
forced cell phone manufacturers to make it
possible for the user to restrict tracking via
GPS and wiretapping.
Elsewhere in technology…
Consumers revolted against tracking chips
used in products for inventory control as
they realized the privacy issues.
Continuing power blackouts caused havoc,
the severity and area affected varying. The
only thing certain was that grid power was
not reliable.
China took the lead in the 2004-13 period as
the world’s leader in technology manufacturing.
The U.S. and Japan fight in international
courts to retain rights to technologies that
have been stolen.
Surging personal vehicle purchases in China
drastically changed the standard forecasts of
worldwide petroleum reserves. Energy use,
even right now in 2014, is undergoing
major changes. Automobile manufacturers
are driving mass conversions to hybrid and
fuel-cell-powered vehicles much faster than expected…

Controllers in the
cars automatically
slowed them to legal
speed limits.

Technology2014

“Changes in Internet protocols allowed enforcement authorities to trace hackers”…

1. Companies discovered that they had lost
control of technology . . . it was controlling
them, not they it. The complete rethink that
followed changed technology’s use in the
work environment.
2. Computer users revolted against
“bloatware.” They simply quit buying
software that was overloaded with features,
hard to learn, difficult to use, and full of bugs.

3. Corporations quit paying for periodic
upgrades that fixed old bugs but introduced
new ones – and included features that no one
knew how to use (requiring constant
employee retraining).
4. Employee Internet abuse caused many
companies to limit use of the Net to asneeded
business purposes.

5. SPAM killed e-mail, with secure Internet
messaging taking over. By 2004, the bulk of
e-mail was unsolicited advertisements,
leading virtually everyone to acknowledge
the stupidity of it all.
There were societal costs — the Internet
backbone, for one, had to expand to carry all
the SPAM. There were personal and corporate
costs, too – the recipient was paying for
delivery of this unwanted e-mail; companies
were paying employees to spend time and effort
wading through mountains of spam (and
deleting it) before they could answer their legitimate
e-mail.
A simple solution was implemented: As we
know in 2014, each e-mail sent now carries a
charge; sender authentication is required.
What stimulated acceptance of such a
radical solution? Many companies simply
shut down e-mail coming from the outside
world, formally telling employees to use faxes
and phones.
6. Companies had to pay for the removal of
abandoned cables. Landlords started by
requiring tenants to remove cable they had
installed; then electrical and fire inspectors
forced the issue for everyone.
Computer security to 2014
7. In the period 2004-2013, viruses caused
companies to limit PC use for communications
outside the corporate network and to
ban attached files on e-mails. The new
process, still in use today: All attachments
are uploaded to a secure server for scanning,
then downloaded by secure browsers.
8. Trading pirated songs and movies became
another major source of Internet traffic in the
period, ranking just behind SPAM.
Everyone had to pay for the Internet
backbone’s increased capacity… to enable
an illegal activity.
9. Widespread fraud – some of it from
organized crime organizations around the
world – hit online commerce. At one point,
the government stepped in. Beyond mere
regulation, the FBI and Homeland Security
departments set up Task Force bay to deal with scams.

Arear-view mirror

In part one of atwo-part article,  adatacom industry veteran who has worked closely with electricians, contractors, and distributors looks at the disappointing technological developments of the first 14 years of the 21st century. Why did consumers reject tattletale technology in the car of the future?

When asked to contribute a “vision” of the future, I contemplated the startling fact that, as of 2014, I will have been involved in computers and communications technology for more than 50 years. I learned computer programming in 1962 as part of an IBM program to see what happened if they taught high
school students about computers. For me, it stuck. I can brag that I started programming when computers still had tubes and I’ve never stopped being involved with them all these years. Most of the intervening years have been involved with marketing state-of-the-art technology, where I have consistently had to bet on the future. Perhaps that gives me some
background, even wisdom, to draw on when prognosticating about the next 10 years. I like to start with looking at history, as I
agree with George Santayana – it is necessary to understand the past to successfully navigate
the future. Before going forward on technology, then, see the accompanying timeline for technology – focusing on computers andcommunication. A look back at then The 1980s and 1990s were a period of massadoption of technology at the consumer level,
with PCs, fax machines, cell phones, DVDs, MP3 players, and so forth – all becoming popular. Each decade has had its ups and downs. Looking backwards, we all remember the painful bust of the dotcom + telecom + fiber opticbubbles of the 1990s. But how many remember that the very same thing happened to PCs in the 1980s? At one point, there were more than 350 U.S.-based manufacturers of PCs; only two remain in the business. The1980s also saw the demise of the minicomputer companies. Going back to the 1970s – that decade was deadly to mainframe and calculator companies. More recently, a big part of the problem has been the venture capitalists. They always seem to fund 10 times the number of companies any market can support. Personally, I’m becoming cynical about technology. Overinvestment, marketinghype, regulator ignorance, and deplorable software quality are killing it. I think the period to 2014 will be tough for technology, especially those areas we are all involved in most – computing and communications – plus one old technology, electrical power. From here on, let’s “look back” from the vantage-point of 2014 – at what happened in
the decade now just started……………….