So where do we begin?

These are very interesting times to be an ISP. Advances in technology continue to provide new and improved ways to deliver Internet connectivity to businesses and individuals. Copper (dial-up, cable, DSL, T1s), fiber, wireless (pre-WiMAX, WiMAX, WiFi), BPL (broadband over power lines), satellite, cellular (GPRS, EV-DO, HSDPA) are all doing their bit to make this an 'Any Time, Any Place, Any Device' world, where ubiquitous connectivity gives everyone the power to create, collaborate, distribute and deliver ever-increasing amounts of digital content.

Okay, before we get too excited, let's remember that there still is a 'digital divide' in this country, with many businesses and individuals still not having access to broadband services. Currently, the US is 25th in Broadband Penetration worldwide, and continues to slide down the league table.

At this point, I do have to reveal my hand, and admit to being somewhat biased about certain of those technologies (there is a good reason that we're not called NextPhase Dial-up) . Actually, our company's official position is that we're technology-agnostic, and as of today, we currently include dial-up, ISDN, DSL, T1s, Fiber, pre-WiMAX and WiFi offerings in our portfolio. We believe that connectivity is not a 'one size fits all' issue, and that all of the technologies have their relative strengths and weaknesses. Where we do believe that wireless technologies have an edge, is keeping up with the explosive growth in demand for 'Any Time, Any Place, Any Device' connectivity and consumption.

Whether at work, at play or at home, we increasingly find ourselves in an 'always on' world, where traditional lines are blurred. Early adopters are 'kicking the tires' on multiple ways to have digital movies delivered straight to their TVs (e.g. Apple TV, Amazon's Unbox, NetFlix's new digital streming service, etc.), notebook sales have overtaken desktop sales, and they're all equipped with WiFi chipsets (within a couple of years, it will be WiMAX chipsets), we're carrying around smart phones that come with 'all you can eat' wireless data plans.

While much of the country does have robust telecommunications infrastructure, we still believe that the explosive growth is going to highlight bottlenecks in delivery (imagine everyone choosing to download different HD movies at the same time - think what that will do to your average cable download speed). Where we see wireless playing a major role is two-fold; the wireless 'last mile' and as a 'bypass' technology. Wireless can be deployed quickly and very cost-effectively (it has an 8X advantage over copper and fiber, as trenching cable is both slow and expensive).

Okay, so why are we creating yet another blog to talk about these things? Well, for one, I believe that things are moving so fast, that everyone is suffering from 'information overload' and 'analysis paralysis'. Because we are technology-agnostic and always look for the optimum solution which often is a hybrid of multiple technologies, we believe that we're in an ideal position to help filter out 'noise', and really put what matters into perspective.

So, I hope you're going to come back regularly to hear what we've got to say, or better yet, sign up for our RSS feed. If you do have any questions, or want our opinions on specific areas, please leave comments or drop me an email (rford@npwireless.com), and we'll do our best to answer them.