By Teresa A. Martin
So, here we are, me and a couple of other CCTC members and we are carpooling our way back from a meeting in Westboro. The morning session has been presentations and discussions around issues and models of broadband access across the Commonwealth. It’s both exciting and heartening that we’re talking about this key infrastructure element on a statewide level.
To me, the new funding of a ‘broadband czar’ role is a great step in agenda setting. No matter what this person ultimately does, at a high level we’re now acknowledging the critical role that data highways play in our economy.
To get to Westboro, we’ve driven on a lot of literal roads – each one part of the highway system that created our 20th century economy. Through these wide board paved ways, we connected the local and the remote economies, we created conduits for commerce, we innovated new kinds of business, and we built a geographically linked world.
As we drove, I couldn’t help put ponder the way that projects like Open Cape and Unwired Village, here in our region, are indeed the 21st century analogy of Rte 6 and Rte 495 and the Mass Pike. These wide broad digital ways connect the local and global economies, create new conduits of commerce, and innovate new business and new ways of doing business. They matter a lot.
Some place around the Mass Pike intersection, in the middle of this train of thought, I suddenly realized I’d not checked email yet that day.
Drats!
I grumbled this sentiment aloud.
“Hey” responded one member of the carpool, who was editing a document on his laptop as we drove. “Let’s try this!”
“This” turned out to be networked connectivity at 60 miles per hour. Honest.
A few mouse clicks later, almost before you could say “ubiquitous broadband access,” I was online.
(Side note to concerned readers who might yelp with concern at this point: the driver of the car did not have a laptop open. Only the two passengers did. The driver dutifully focused on the driving.)
Turns out that my broadband-enabled friend subscribes to the Cingular 3G network service. And has, in his PC, a card with a stubby orange antenna that provides mobile access to a high speed connection pretty much any place there is cell phone service.
That’s pretty cool, but it isn’t particularly novel. Now in its third generation, this category of service has been around since the late 90s and offers – for a price – somewhere between dial up and DSL speed, depending on exactl location.
But where it gets really cool is that we were using this laptop as a bridge to my laptop. With Internet Connection Sharing, a function that’s built standard into Windows, one laptop connected to the ‘net can essentially become a router for other computers.
In another application of 802.11g technology (aka, wifi), he set up a wireless network, gave the network a name, and suddenly I could click into the network an option via Airport, just as I could with any other wireless network. Voila, the ad hoc network!
Want to reach even further? These ad hoc networks have a range of about 1500 feet. Slash.dot wrote about actual cross car networking. I’m not kidding you! It is indeed possible to have connectivity on one laptop, set up an ad hoc network, and surf the web from a laptop computer in another car.
Does this take the concept of a mobile office to a whole new level or what?!?!?
And not only can you access the web and pull down your email and find an answer about the hurricane of 1938 (it was Sept 21 1938) – but you can also access the local network and share files and data.
This was serious giggle fit stuff. Cruising on the highway, on the data highway.
But then we moved into serious work mode, developing some documents we were collaborating on. I grabbed a file off a shared network drive along with some stats on broadband community sites. Sent some email. Edited the document.
As we were crossing the bridge I went to look up something online for the document. Didn’t even give it a second thought – just went and did a search. As I scrolled through the set of search results, I realized that in 40 short miles, I’d gone from amazement that we could do this to expectation that I could. And knew that once again the way we work is changing and that the highways of our world are more important than every before.
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