Comminfotainment?
I was reading the New York Times online and I came across an article called "The Future of Telecommunications May Be 'Comminfotainment.'" In it, Victoria Shannon summarizes her interview with Alcatel- Lucent's Chief Technology Officer, Olivier Baujard. Baujard believes that as early as 5 years from now, the telcos and mobile operators will be no more. In their places will be broadband providers offering channels of communication that will provide customers with voice, data, and video.
Already we are seeing the shift to service bundles as the cable companies and telcos expand their markets and compete directly with one another. Baujard envisions a future where customers can decide how they want their bandwidth to be used and what type of traffic gets a higher priority. While faster downloads will continue to be important, the increase in file sharing and online communities that allow members to upload their own creative content will begin to influence the available rate of upstream throughput.
With the migration to "comminfotainment" comes a need for changes in policy as well as the need to adapt to economical changes. Baujard points out that distributors and retailers will not be as important to the equation when data and video can be sent directly to the home over broadband. Talk about information renaissance, this will be an interesting transformation, indeed.
For the original article, visit http://www.nytimes.com/iht/2006/12/21/technology/IHT-21ptend21.html?ref=technology