Make Room! Make Room! (2 Jun 15 by gins)

A recent Washington Post article entitled 'The amazing, surprising, Africa-driven demographic future of Earth, in 9 charts" (whew!) had me thinking about the implications of some of the conclusions and potential scenarios.  At a high-level, it concludes that the Earth must support over 10B people by the end of the century, of which greater than 4B will be in Africa alone.  7B of the world's population will be in developing or least developed countries, most developed countries with the exception of the United States will age and in fact see a population decline, and we still need to traverse a near-term bubble in the dependency ratio in Africa.  Surprisingly, Nigeria alone will host close to a billion by 2100, with China declining to about 1.2B.  But those 1B in Nigeria will be in a less diverse and environmentally rich space less than 1/10 that of China or just over 2x that of California.  So draw a comparison - imagine 500M people here!  And you think the commute on 85 or the I-10 is bad today.

The above projections in fact match those of another UN study that outlines just how much the world will change of the next decades due to urbanization.

What came to mind were two books that had an impact on me.   The first, Make Room! Make Room!, first published in 1966 and better known by the film adaption, Soylent Green, painted a picture of overcrowded cities and environmental ruin.   Timing - 2022, just 7 years from today.  A more impactful follow-up is The Population Bomb, published 47 years ago, predicting mass starvation and effectively throwing in the towel.   At least it helped catalyze the environmental movement.   Fast forward to Elysium, 2013, painting the same dismal picture but at least providing the 'haves' with a way out.   This is one scenario, probably top-of-mind for most looking from the outside in.

But there is another, and this is where are article left off, if we plan for and innovate to lift these 4B people into the middle class.   It goes without saying that political stability is a must, but there is a bit of a Catch-22 in what comes first - empowerment or stability.   One first step is knowledge, and the combination of cellphone coverage (and data, though not tied to a smartphone) and satellite TV (even if a single downlink is shared by a community)  is a major step.  Broadband is on the horizon, and access to big-data is already making an impact in planning based on the more recent availability of Africa-based fiber landings.

With continual declines in solar panel pricing (figure below), community-driven power becomes viable, a catalyst for lighting (and education), health, clean water, and agriculture.   I believe much of this will be at the grass-roots level, and with some international aid, growing foreign investment (from China, the Middle East, and elsewhere) the total energy mix by 2100 will be very different from what was predicted only a decade ago.   A chart by China Research, below, captures this best.   At the same time, we're in a new age of mechanical innovation focused on power efficiency, low-cost, and low-maintenance.  Basically, any electricity generated, water captured, or crops harvested are utilized that much more efficiently.

So yes, I'm optimistic that the 'African Century' won't only lead to 3B new heads to cover and minds and mouths to feed, but it will also provide us with the means to accomplish this.

The Ties That Bind - Redux (posted by gins, 23 Oct 13)

Last September I wrote about the importance of the Donner Pass in connecting the nation, first as a Native American trail, later the route of the Transcontinental Railroad, followed by the auto, the phone, and finally the Internet.  I've always been fascinated by the role the railroad has played building this nation, and last month I visited the final stop of the Station to Station tour, an art and music train that I equate to a 'Burning Man on Rails.'  The Oakland stop was interesting for a number of reasons, one of which was use of the old 16th Street Station.   Think of the station as node on the Iron Internet.  The decaying neoclassical interior was a great juxtaposition to the modern visuals and vibe, and hopefully, at some point the building will be put to good use. 

But not for transportation, as the platform at the station is a stub, a victim of the Interstate Highway System which bypassed the building less than 100 feet to the north.  Few at the event were probably aware of the role the rail played in the growth of the Bay Area, including the recently celebrated 150th anniversary of what is now known as Caltrain, the first regular passenger service west of the Mississippi.  And it was sad that the actual train had to park a few miles distant at the nearest siding.  

An even more important milestone was celebrated during the same week - the 'first shovel' on the proposed high-speed rail line from San Francisco to Los Angeles.  When complete sometime after 2027, other than the Internet, the line will be the quickest way of enabling face-to-face interaction between the two cities.  Impressive that a century-and-a-half technology can still hold its own against highway and air travel wrt time and efficiency.  For those in Europe, Japan, and more recently China, this comes as no surprise.  But here in America, it is one small step forward.

 

Broadband: Lifeblood, not Luxury (from Extreme Talk, September 26, 2012)

I don’t consider myself a railroad buff, but I still have fascination in watching a train of a hundred double-high Conex containers making its way through the desert, stumbling upon an old switching yard, or following an old mountain grade. Maybe because boxcars, switchyards, and rails remind me of a life-size packet switched network. A few months ago, I was hiking at Donner Pass, near Lake Tahoe in California. For those who only remember the name from the infamous Donner Party, the pass has played a critical role throughout much of California’s history.

Old Lincoln Highway under railroad; US 40 in background

The pass was the only viable way through the Sierra Nevada range for hundreds of miles. First the Indians, and then decades of emigrants heading west braved its slopes and weather. This followed by the Transcontinental Railroad and the old Lincoln Highway. Later still, Federal 40, the Donner Pass Road, was constructed. This road still offers a more peaceful alternative to most people’s experience with the pass today, Interstate 80. Less visible than any of these engineering works are the cable markers scattered up the hillside, the sign of buried copper and fiber.

What the railroad meant to people a century ago, commerce and connectivity, is reflected in the buried fiber of today. And when the railroad, or the interstate highway bypassed a town, commerce dried up and the inhabitants left for greener pastures. Remember Radiator Springs in the Pixar film ‘Cars’? It is still happening. Garden City, a town in Kansas, is in danger of losing their daily passenger service after over a century. Yes, there are economics at play, and yes, there are roads and I’m sure they’ll keep their local McDonald’s, but this story is being played out hundreds of times in hundreds of small towns, not only in the United States but throughout the world.

So how does this relate to buried fiber? Cost-effective, broadband connectivity is no longer a nice-to-have for both competitive and social reasons, it’s a must-have, just like the railroads or highways. Get connected and the community flourishes, often in unexpected ways. Get bypassed and wither up and blow away.

And it is not 300 Kbps either, a speed that some government studies over the last decade attempted to characterize as “broadband”. Just as a locomotive is of little use without tracks, one laptop per child is of little use unless there is bandwidth. Indeed, educators are suggesting that the typical elementary school will require upwards of 1 Gbps to the outside world. At Extreme we’re in the thick of dozens of these deployments, but sadly they end at the school office. To use highway analogy, a six-lane freeway connects the classrooms, but it is a rutted old dirt road that connects the school to the rest of the world.

I applaud the recent Obama administration initiative that takes a new look at solving this disconnect. Although the executive order only established a working group, it tackles the problem not in terms of technology, or what to expect from Comcast or AT&T, but with regard to rights-of-way. Remember – this was the same kickstart the government provided to the railroad companies in the 1800s through land grants, and the government still controls nearly 30% of the land in the United States. A second initiative created U.S. Ignite, which focuses on developing broadband and software-defined networking applications through a public-private partnership.  Today, we announced our membership in U.S. Ignite, and in November we will host a major event in North Carolina that speaks to the impact that these types of initiatives can have on local economies.  Stay tuned! 

At Extreme, our watchword is ‘Software Defines the Network,’ with the first part of our strategy announced over the last few months. Going forward, we expect to be able to play a key role in driving innovation in this space. With a little luck, we might even help pave some of those dirt roads.