Why You Should Phone Home

YOU'RE DRIVING TO WORK AND SUDDENly can't remember whether you turned off the oven. Returning home is out of the question because you're halfway to the office and traffic is heavy. What can you do?

Pull out your cellular phone, dial up the Internet, connect to the computerized remote control at your house and ask (by speaking, since you're driving) if the oven is on.

The remote control answers, orally of course, that the oven, as well as the patio lights, are still on. You immediately order them turned off. Problem solved.

A science fiction movie? Not at all, according to Jason Wolf and Natalie Zee, Internet technology specialists and authors of The Last Mile: Broadband and the Next Internet Revolution. The book's value doesn't lie so much in its newsy and trendy qualities but, rather, in its instructive quality: Wolf and Zee explain in comprehensible language the complexities of broadband technology its potential uses and future integration with other technologies, media and appliances. They also investigate how broadband will change our culture, as well as how we work, do business, enjoy our free time and shop. The impact of broadband "will affect how individuals grow up in a community and how they interact with others." say the authors.

The Last Mile underscores the future impact of broadband--its weaknesses and strengths--and explains why businesses that don't step into the digital future through the broadband door will be short-lived. Without overusing technical terminology the authors outline how broadband works and how it could affect industries.

Most importantly, from an entrepreneurial point of view, the book tells how to foresee opportunities in the market that spin off from broadband's evolution.

Of particular interest for executive-level managers is the section dedicated to changes in work life. The authors say a new generation of high-level technical employees who disdain dress codes, and for whom computers are as ordinary as ballpoint pens were for their parents, dominates the corporate world. The trick is to motivate those employees and keep them happy; thanks to constant interaction with the Web, they are keenly aware of career opportunities and the salaries they can demand. In direct and practical language, Wolf and Zee outline a fundamental plan for creating a company team that will be in charge of implementing broadband technology and its commercial strategy.

Despite this book's indisputable educational value, it skirts certain issues. There's no mention, for example, of the social effects of a communications revolution that changes how we send and receive information. Wolf and Zee describe a happy home plugged into the Internet: the father talks to a client on his computer screen--then is interrupted by real-time images of his daughter strolling the streets of Paris; the mother orders groceries through an interface on her "smart" refrigerator; and the son trades images of a basketball game with his friend across the country.

For readers, there's an eerie sense of deja vu. It's as if we've stepped back in time to the idealized United States of the 1950s, a perfectly ordered and prosperous world. But this time, more technology is tossed into the mix. Despite their presumptions of novelty, the authors don't waver from the image of a traditional and conservative social order when they sketch their happy digital portrait. For example, although helped by computerized appliances, the mother still handles the household jobs. What ever happened to women's liberation?

Neither do Wolf and Zee address the digital divide, the breach that separates countries connected to the Web from those that are not. Perhaps what's needed is a more extensive exploration of the social impact of the next Internet revolution.

The Last Mile Jason Wolf and Natalie Zee McGraw-Hill . US$24.95

COPYRIGHT 2000 Freedom Magazines, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2000 Gale Group