flash wrote:Spec8472 wrote:Perhaps. But with universal high bandwidth fiber to the home, the uses for removable media will dwindle to edge cases.
The problem, in my opinion, is that widespread and high-bandwidth Internet access is far from a worldwide reality.
Yes, and that's what I said
"Removable media (cd, dvd, bluray, and usb drives) will be gone in 5-10 years where sufficient broadband is available."
I'm well aware that broadband isn't as well developed as we might like, but this is changing.
In places where Governments or Private organisations are going ahead with large scale fibre roll-outs, the speeds are leaping.
For instance, at the moment my home connection is a 100Mbit down, 8Mbit up Cable connection (Optus HFC network).
This is a significant jump from the 8Mbit down, 1Mbit up ADSL connection that my flat mate had on prior to me moving in, and the
When the Australian Federal Government's NBN scheme rolls out, it'll be delivering fibre which in the trial areas today is delivering 100Mbit down, 40Mbit up (depending on the service level you go with) - but is provisioned to be able to switch to 1Gbit down, (and I believe 400Mbit up) - assuming an ISP is willing to offer that. That NBN scheme will cover 98% of the population - the remaining 2% to be delivered a minimum 12Mbit service via Fixed-Wireless (LTE) or Satellite.
At work, we've got some sort of Fibre connection provisioned at, I believe, around 500Mbit symetrical. (Up from 100Mbit symetrical last year).
Already one of the things I've noticed is that rather than having local file servers, people are using cloud based products - even for designers working with large files.
Dropbox and services like that work brilliantly - because there's no need to be on a specific network, it works great from home or work.
Yes, there are edge cases - anyone working with files over about 500MB in size will still deal with those files separately from their normal cloud-synced folders.
I personally sync about 30GB of music between my phone, work laptop, and home laptops using Dropbox.
Almost all of the content I listen to, read, and watch is delivered over the internet - books, "radio" (live, and podcasts), tv, movies.
At least one Australian ISP has a product out that lets me record or watch live Free to Air TV *without needing a TV tuner*.
In addition there's about three or four providers in Australia who provide live subscription TV channels over the Internet.
These last two are designed to work with a 3-6Mbit ADSL connection and deliver DVD quality streams.
It won't be long until we see 1080P high bitrate streams for those whom do have the bandwidth.
In terms of Wireless - our three major Wireless carriers all have 3G HSDPA services delivering 3-14Mbit asymetric (reliably 1-6Mbit), and for the most part provide decent coverage. Some are better than others, because they have different build/sell tactics.
Telstra is rolling out LTE (4G) which is reliably delivering 30Mbit symetrical - and will quickly expand that coverage. Additional spectrum with the switch-off of Analog TV will be freed up and used for LTE too.
To quote William Gibson: "The future is already here — it's just not very evenly distributed."