Broadband Applications and the Digital Home

Citation

Turnbull, J. and Garrett, S. (2003), "Broadband Applications and the Digital Home", info, Vol. 5 No. 4, pp. 45-46. https://doi.org/10.1108/14636690310495256

One of a five‐volume series co‐published between the IEE and British Telecom (BT), this volume reviews the present and likely future of the digital home, based largely on British and European experiences, research, and planning efforts. Both authors have been long‐time BT researchers and developers of new services.

At total of 17 chapters appear in five sections: “delivery to the home” (broadband access technologies, and satellites as a new means of broadband access); “networking the home” (introducing home area networks, broadband in the home, residential gateways, home area network technologies, and standards for broadband customer premises equipment); “living in the home” (domesticating broadband, in other words what really matters to consumers, is the future really “always on”?, people‐centered innovation and strategy, and the roles of digital homes); “applications” (clients and servers, bandwidth‐on‐demand networks, a 3‐D telepresence collaborative working environment, and a virtual studio production chain); and “the future digital home” (the likely progression from the “TalkZone” to populating the digital home, and hype and reality in the future home.

Although its title might suggest otherwise, this is not an engineering book and is readily accessible to a broad readership interested in what is coming over the next decade and more. Of course the current state of the economy generally, and of telecommunications in particular, may well knock many of these “might bes” into the proverbial cocked hat. Stay tuned …