The Third Killer App For Broadband Internet Access

Over time, I've developed a small ability to predict what's coming... to see a confluence of factors that "ought to" cause a new technology, service, or product to come into being. This foresight is limited to Broadband Wireless Internet Access and closely-related subjects, since that's what I immerse myself in.

So... it's with more than a little satisfaction that I discovered Akimbo, a service/hardware combination that combines video content, transport via TCP/IP, local storage, local hardware, and display on a "conventional" television device. In short, Akimbo is a combination of an IP-based settop box and TiVo-like local storage, with the transport done over any Internet connection in non-realtime. When you're ready to watch some video content, you simply sit down and start playing it off the local hard disk in the unit, on a television device. I stated in a previous issue of FOCUS On Broadband Wireless Internet Access that such a device/service must come into existence; the trends were too strong for it not to come into existence.

This is the third Killer App for Broadband Internet Access; the first is traditional Internet activities - web, email, IM, VPN, etc. and the second is "serious" replacement-for-PSTN VOIP service. It's a major driver for Broadband Wireless Internet Access... because with the above, people will start to care about the quality and use conditions of their Broadband Internet Access service and seek out competitive offerings when the wireline services become too clueless to allow the use of "from-the-ends" innovative services.

Steve Stroh

Copyright (c) 2004 by Steve Stroh. This article originally appeared on Corante / Broadband Wireless Internet Access.