Future Trends

FUTURE TRENDS

One day in the not-too-distant future, we will be living in an automated world that will make human life simpler. The Next-Generation home will be equipped in such a way that almost anything from lights to appliances will be control by telephone, infrared, voice, and remotely. The Next-Generation home will be wired to handle these simple tasks as well as controlling the thermostat on the heating/air system. Just by picking up a phone, you will be able to turn the exterior and interior lights on and off, operate the motorized blinds, lock and unlock the front door, and open and close the garage door. This is all possible through the emerging technologies in broadband, Wi-Fi, and fiber optics.

According to Dr. John O. Limb, a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar and director of the Broadband Telecommunications Center at Georgia Tech: "Within 10 years, we believe that a majority of homes in the United States ware going to be equipped with broadband communication pipelines connecting to a host of available services." (Goolrick, 2006). Besides broadband, fiber optics is another tangible that will have an impact on the average consumer and their home. New homes are already being wired with directly to optic fibers, which will take data transmission rates from 50 thousand bits per second to hundreds of millions of bits pr second.

With this type of increase in transmission rates, the scope of fiber optics in the home becomes enormous. In the fiber optic home of the future you will have the capability of watching your favorite program from any number of different views. You will be able to play 3D games with your friend on the other side of the world. You could take a cooking class in real time from a teacher in Vienna. A virtual salesman can show you a car and all of its gadgets, answer your questions and even give you a virtual test-drive (Fiber Optics, 2006).

AS we look further into the Next-Generation home we will find a network of appliances that are linked to the Web through various non-traditional devices such as; PDA's, TV's, ovens, and phones. The Next-Generation home receives information continuously and effortlessly which makes it simple to receive updates to an electronic phone book or downloading e-mails from the office to a PDA. With the non-traditional devices linked to the Web, this makes the PC no longer the sole connection point within the network (The Network Home, 2006).

With the Next Generation home, consumers will have the ability to buy services over the Web and not have to worry about the device they use to send and receive information. Teleconferencing and other high-bandwidth applications which are normally used by corporate networks will soon be available to the home market at affordable prices. With the growth of Web commerce in the corporate world, the Next-Generation home will soon be able to handle everything from e-mail to paying bills to refinancing a home mortgage (The Network Home, 2006).

Many questions have been asked and discussed about the Next Generation home and one that all are asking is what will drive the growth of the Next-Generation home? The network that drives the Next-Generation home can be access by any number of devices other than just the PC. Consumers demand reliability and choice, and not