The personal revelation from writing this issue of the Viodi View is what a blessing it has been to spend my entire career in telecommunications. The employers have come and gone (virtually all of them gone), but the relationships remain. Last week’s SCTE’s TechExpo was a good reminder of how relationships are the true wealth of work as it reconnected me with friends old and new from multiple eras. It’s impossible to describe the warm feeling that brings.
Thanks to the Broadband Forum, my employer, for supporting this newsletter. The content, views, and opinions expressed herein are not those of the Broadband Forum.
TechExpo Home Coming
SCTE’s TechExpo may be the only thread that links the grand conferences of the past, such as the National and Western Cable shows, with the present and future. The excitement and buzz of the show floor had the feel of those conferences from the days of yore. As much as a show like TechExpo is about new technologies, the ultimate value is the human connections it enables.
Interoperability, innovation and open collaboration among the key themes at Network X 2024
Last week began for yours truly at the lovely campus of the University of New Hampshire. The resulting video from that visit provides a glimpse of the network innovations that will be demonstrated at Network X on October 8-10. Next stop, Paris!
Service Differentiation and App Provider Relationships vBASe Webinar
It was an honor to moderate this Broadband Forum webinar, which explored advancements in QoE, slicing, and service differentiation. This webinar looked at the necessary platforms and standards that enable the service provider to provide a localized and optimized customer experience that complements dynamic third-party services.
Some Chirps and Short Thoughts:
- Google’s NotebookLLM – First impressions; scary and humbling. It is better, faster, and more engaging than this human.
- The state of Oklahoma’s plan to rule roads (e.g. automated logistics) and skies (e.g. electric aviation) via autonomous mobility is here and looks like an informative read (PDF).
- Former Florida State Senator Jeff Brandes’ idea for building emergency operations centers at county airports is more relevant than ever and could fit well with an electric aviation future.
Using Broadband & Distributed Computing to Turn Wasted Energy into Virtual Gold
Given that, on average, 64% of energy is wasted (rejected energy) on its path from generator to consumer, using the energy locally (e.g. co-located data centers with small-scale power) has got to be more efficient than building transmission lines.
Small-scale power sources are mostly in rural locations. Examples of small-scale, off-grid power sources include solar, wind, methane-flaring, and hydropower. Small-scale hydropower alone is the equivalent power of 38+ Hoover dams.
The long distances make it impossible to justify the construction of capital-intensive, high-maintenance, and, potentially, hazardous, high-voltage power lines to these remote locations. The key is fiber connectivity combined with right-size data centers to capture energy that would otherwise go unused.
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