Ubiquitous Networking: Bridging the Digital Divide

Sayan Chakraborty

First published in 2002:
Surabhi 2002 - Annual publication of the South Bangalore Cultural Association
©2002 South Bangalore Cultural Association with permission

Computers since the 1940s have been primarily used as computation devices more akin to calculators. As time moved on and the cost of microprocessors moved down, computers also increased their roles beyond the walls of the white-suited laboratories. This quiet revolution has spawned the term "ubiquitous computing"- an oft repeated term used to describe the emergence of computing power in all kinds of devices and appliances for the most part transparent to the user.

All this is an old story you may be tempted to say, but look closely as the cost of telecommunication technologies drops the computer takes on a new role of a communication device. Sun Microsystems was one of the first companies to realize this and thus coined the phrase : The Network is the computer. This reflects the shifting in focus from the computing device to the networks which link these devices. The Metcalfes' Law says that the value of a communication network increases exponentially with an arithmetic increase in the number of nodes. Am I talking about the Internet? The answer is well yes and no. The Internet is but the most visible and most talked-about part of a whole gamut of networks we today interact with.

So far the emphasis was on imparting intelligence to dumb devices which has had a minimal impact on people's lives. The real inflexion point will be achieved not by ubiquitous computing but by ubiquitous networking. Ubiquitous networking is the prevalence of a seamless omnipresent network service not just for people but for intelligent devices as well.

To understand the power of networks take a simple example; when the first telephone was rolled out it had no use- after all it had no other telephone to talk to. However, as soon as the second telephone was made it immediately had some value because they could be connected. As more and more telephones were added to the telephone network the value of the individual telephones increased and thus the value of the network increased. This is the gist of the Metcalfe's Law. Substitute the word 'telephone' with any type of network node and you can begin to gauge the potential impact of ubiquitous networking on society.

So how does the Network Age world look like? Some of us will quickly point out that Bluetooth, 802.11, HomeRF, 3G, GPRS, etc all promised ubiquitous networking but none have delivered. In my opinion this networking paradigm has enough space for competing standards and the consumers will automatically migrate towards the relevant standards. What is important to them is that all these have to seamlessly work with each other to derive the benefits. A good example is the universal phone from Thuraya which works as a standard GSM mobile when it is able to connect to a cellular network and switch to a satellite phone mode when it is beyond the range.

Very often people opine that all these are first world technologies which will take ages to make an impact in the lives of the common man in the developing wold, nothing could be further from the truth. Therefore my prime emphasis is to show that these are implementable as long as enough distance is maintained from the technical aspects and more stress is made on practical aspects. With the growth of the information technologies led growth in the services industry we risk dividing the world into information haves and have-nots. Nicholas Negroponte, founder of the MIT Media Labs calls it the digital divide. The only way to combat such a divide is to empower the underprivileged with information. The common refrain is that how can a hungry man think about using information tools for his up-liftment? When all he can think is how to get the next meal. The answer lies in the oft repeated proverb don't give the hungry fish but teach them how to fish. Economic empowerment can result from information empowerment. Just think of the villager who is fleeced by the middle man because he doesn't have information about market prices. Similar other applications would cover agricultural practices, education, e-governance, alternate means of livelihood, etc.

The rapidly decreasing costs of hardware and rationalization in setup & access charges of telecommunications hold the solution to the digital divide problem. The key to rapid application and deployment of any technology is to ensure that it co-exists and compliments older technologies. So whether it is using packet radio for rural internet service or real-time inventory & fleet tracking ubiquitous networking has pride of place in all these applications. The breakthrough may come from effective but forgotten communication technologies like HAM radio or meteor-burst communications. In my opinion a technology is successful only if it improves the living standard of the person n the street.

Political empowerment is passe welcome to the struggle for information empowerment. I would like to end with a challenge; Develop a low-cost, robust, rapidly deployable, easy to use and easy to maintain information infrastructure solution which encompasses hardware, software, networking, content, applications and user-interface. The prize: A smile across a billion faces. Don't you think it is worth it?