BusinessWeek (Nov 22, 04) has a story on how US power companies are exploring broadband over powerline (BPL).

The principle behind BPL is simple: Because electricity courses over just the low-frequency portions of power lines, there's room for data to stream over higher frequencies. For years, utilities have sent basic network-maintenance data across their lines at relatively low data rates. Now, by installing more sophisticated computer chips into the network, they can send and receive fast data streams for more high-bandwidth applications, such as real-time, always-on meter reading. (Say good-bye to the friendly meter reader.) And for the first time they can offer new customer services, such as voice-over-Internet or even video on demand.

That, however, will require significant upgrades of utility substations and power lines. And nobody knows exactly how big an investment will be necessary. First, power companies have to mount boxes on certain utility poles to deliver data signals. Early estimates of installation costs range from $50 to $150 per home passed, plus $30 to $200 more for modems in each home.

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You have to see it to believe it. At IIT KGP - my alma-matter - there is an illumination contest every year on Diwali. Each hostel puts up huge bamboo grids with tens of thousands of earthern lamps - with different themes of course. Significant labor, time and money are put in to illuminate the hostel for a few minutes. These moments make old times worth remembering.

An account by one of my wing-mates.

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Thats how BusinessWeek (Nov 8, 04) classifies the recent US economic recovery because nothing has stuck to it long enough to do any permanent damage.

This economic recovery just can't seem to catch a break. It has been hit by one shock after another: the terrorist attacks in 2001, the corporate scandals in 2002, and war in Iraq in 2003. Now, it's the 2004 oil shock. Somewhat amazingly, the economy has managed to grow 3.5% annually since the recession ended in late-2001, and 4% during the past year. Clearly, that performance is a testament to the economy's resilience, especially since job growth has lagged so far behind the typical recovery experience.

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BusinessWeek (Nov 8, 04) has an interview with Harvard president Larry Summers. He comments on outsourcing:

[On "How serious a problem is outsourcing to India and China"] It's sort of like asking how serious a problem is the winter in New York. We can't place a variety of restrictions on where businesses choose to produce and not do enormous damage to the efficiency and effectiveness of our economy.

In a progressive economy, technology can do things people used to do, and people are going to lose jobs. That's a larger phenomenon and a larger issue than what happens with outsourcing. We have to think about the needs of those people. We can provide income support and a systematic way to retrain. I'm all for a dynamic global economy, but at the same time we have to look out for people here.

If you try to block progress and try to restrict the ability of businesses to locate where they want to, or try to restrict the flow of imports, you will make the vast majority of people poorer. I prefer recognizing that the rise of India and China is much like the rise of new technologies -- new productive opportunities for the U.S. economy. You have to work with those new opportunities and make sure people aren't left behind.

I live in Boston and New England. Boston is one of the most prosperous areas of the country, supported by institutions like mine at Harvard, by vibrant financial services. It has a terrific biotech and health-care industry and some other technology. Thirty years ago, New England was dependent on shoes and textiles, and those jobs moved away. Some thought the right strategy was to try to stop those jobs moving away. I have no doubt that people in New England today have better job opportunities because we allowed for changes in the economy.

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Economist quotes Sun's Chief Technologist Greg Papadopoulos:

Most people shouldn't build their own aeroplanes, they shouldn't even own them; in fact, they shouldn't even rent them; what they should do is rent a seat on one.

Another analogy: People do not put safes into their basements but open bank accounts.

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From Economist's tech survey (Oct 30, 04):

[T]echnology has historically advanced in waves of disruption. The original Bell (the ancestor of modern giants such as AT&T, SBC, Verizon and Lucent) began in the late 19th century as a disrupter to Western Union. At the time telephone signals could travel for only three miles, whereas Western Union's telegraphs could communicate over long distances. Bell started by targeting the local market, but eventually improved its technology and entered the long-distance market, rendering telegraphs obsolete.

Sony became famous as a serial disrupter, starting in the 1950s, when its transistor radios skewered the radio standard of the day, vacuum tubes, and that technology's incumbent, RCA. In the 1970s and 1980s, Xerox was the incumbent in photocopiers, rebuffing “sustaining” challenges by IBM and Kodak to make better copiers for the top end of the market, before succumbing to the disruption from simple and cheap table-top copiers from Canon. IBM in turn was the incumbent in mainframes and parried “sustaining” attacks from General Electric, RCA and AT&T, until mainframes were disrupted by PCs and firms such as Microsoft, Intel and Dell. And so on.

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