Fibre to the Door
There is a discussion on Scoop about what people would do with fibre to the home, sponsored by Vector’s fibre to the door campaign.
For me there are four major things it would allow me to do:
- Video Conferencing. I don’t mean through a webcam on Skype. I mean full steroids video conferencing through my TV set. Just as I have 50 TV channels, I want 50 video conferencing pre-sets. I want it so I can push four buttons and be immediately connected to a five-way video conference. That would allow me to work at home far more, and travel far less.
- Remote File Access. I can access files on a remote server now. For example I used to be able to remote access the National Party HQ server. But it would take me a couple of minutes to connect, and copying or opening files was deadly slow. What I want with fibre to the home is that files on my office server open as quickly as if I was on the office LAN. Potentially I even want all my files stored on the Internet and I can access them from anywhere almost as quickly as if they were on my laptop.
- TV and Movies on demand. With fibre speeds to the home, I want to be able to push a button or two and for (hopefully) $1 or so, a movie will start playing in real time, or maybe the series finale of MASH or the 1963 first episode of Dr Who.
- A LAN in every house. With fibre to the door, the logical thing is to wire up the house. So then one can view your security camera remotely. You can switch on or off the power to any heaters or appliances. You can grab files off your desktop PC while travelling. You can even turn on a light to keep burglars away. Over time, most of your appliances will be IP connected.
So they’re my four things I want to be able to do. I’m sure there are many more.