'The Grid': hype!

CERN and associated research groups are again overstating the practical results of their infrastructure needs and results of their applied solutions to the point where news organizations are ballyhooing their systems as 'Replacing the Internet'.

In fact the Grid is STILL the Internet as it was originally 'invented' by Al Gore. All the hype is based on the bandwidth employed in linking thousands of large fast computers just the same as the Joint Supercomputer Consortium of the Eighties was to link ten or twenty 'SuperComputers'. And the connecting mechanism is the same: Fiber Optic Transmission.

Here's the rub for 'us'. While the technology of the Grid will continue the quantum leaps in information available to us, and reduce the time to find that information, exponentially, it wont get that info to us any faster.

That depends on 'last mile' facilities. Or, more accurately, 'last several miles'; ie - from the fiber 'backbone' to our houses.

The ISP is charged by the 'carriers' for data transfer capacity from the backbone.
And needs high volume/capacity switching to move the data.
And needs to pay to install the local distribution facilities .. in the CURRENT case, 'Fiber to the User' meaning the user's home.

Until we get fiberoptic 'cables' strung in our towns and cities, all that hype on 'The Grid' means nothing.

Reminds me of the early seventies when comm satellites were in vogue. We were told that terrestrial communications were 'obsolete'; we would all be talking around the world using satellites.

Anyone who watches the global news, especially clips using 'on scene reporting' knows the problem that did away with that concept.

 

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http://quotation-marks.blogspot.com/

 

RE:

heh... 'caught out'!