ICT SOLUTIONS & EDUCATION OCTOBER 2016 VOLUME 34, ISSUE 10 FORMERLY Wi-Fi and DAS: Symbiotic Partners ALSO INSIDE ICT Influencers -- Part 3 Level 3 Proactively Embraces Diversity Windstream s Network First Strategy This IS a Test! Feeling a Bit Compressed? www.isemag.com
Part 3 Learn what our Influencers have to say about CAF II, smart machines and the IoT, power, the Millennial workforce, predictions for ICT s future, and posing their own ICT question for us to consider. We asked our forward-thinking professionals to consider these questions, and to answer 3 of them. Read their insights in this last of a 3-part series. CRYSTAL BALL TIME If you had a crystal ball, what would the industry look like 25 years from now? CAF II In Connect America Fund Phase II, the framework favors fiber-only builds. As imagined, there is pushback from wireless and satellite providers. Is wireless and satellite a more cost-effective model than FTTx? Why or why not? What are the most practical and efficient methods to meet the objectives of Connect America Fund Phase II? POWER Talk about the role of power and sustainability in today s ICT landscape compared to how those things will impact the networks of the future. MILLENNIAL WORKFORCE How will stalwart companies evolve in anticipation of and in response to the Millennial workforce and their willingness to move quickly from one job to another? SMART MACHINES AND THE IoT Predictions: By 2018, 20% of all business content will be authored by machines. By 2018, 6 billion connected things will be requesting support. By 2020, autonomous software agents outside of human control will participate in 5% of all economic transactions. By 2018, more than 3 million workers globally will be supervised by a robo boss. The relationships between machines and people are becoming increasingly competitive, as smart machines acquire the capabilities to perform more and more daily activities. Smartness is now everywhere in the work environment, with consequences that are difficult for enterprise decision makers to foresee. (Source: www.gartner.com) Share your thoughts about the above, and what ICT professionals need to do to stay relevant in these robo times of change.
be captured and processed for autonomous decisionmaking by machines that operate on a set of rules or parameters designed to have a positive impact on humans across multiple disciplines. We will be able to work and be entertained in both a virtual and augmented reality. Along the way, our industry will continue to struggle with issues of privacy and the morality of relegating decision-making to machines. I am excited for the next quarter century in the ICT industry as information-processing speeds continue to grow. Mike Grice CTO All Systems Broadband mike.grice@allsystemsbroadband.com www.allsystemsbroadband.com Crystal Ball Time I sure hope that I will be around in 25 years to atone for my predictions! I do believe that our industry has a unique ability to embrace the changes brought about by technical innovation and progress. For example, even as traditional phone lines become things of the past, we have embraced the ability to move larger amounts of data around at faster speeds. Our industry will provide the means to have an artificial neural network (ANN) of interconnected products stemming from the ever-growing Internet of Things (IoT). These nodal points of information will Smart Machines and the IoT Looking at how they have enabled better efficiencies, it becomes clear that staying relevant requires one to embrace the smartness of machines. As ICT professionals we should always strive to improve both ourselves and the work we do. Machine intelligence provides us one of the most impactful ways to improve. In order to adapt, we should not view machines as a competitor but rather as an ally, helping us create more efficient ways to do things. What appears novel today will simply become business as usual in the future. Historically, employers sought justification for having a computer at work. Those same employers today explore how we can be effective at work without a computer. Change should be embraced as the enabler of a more efficient future. What are the challenges with pushing fiber deeper in the network? We have seen that, as fiber moves deeper in the network, many passive management solutions become outdated. Products that served well for a long period of time need to be replaced with new devices designed for the application at hand. The installed cost of these new products has the potential to be lower as unnecessary features are eliminated and quality improves with application-specific designs. Mike Grice is Chief Technical Officer (CTO) at All Systems Broadband (ASB), responsible for setting ASB s technology vision. His organization is responsible for product innovation along with technology and product roadmaps, product management, and business development. Mike has over 28 years of telecommunication experience with an outside plant focus. The first 20 years of experience began at Raychem. Previous roles include product development, product management, and sales. LinkedIn Profile: /michaelgrice 16 ISE: ICT SOLUTIONS & EDUCATION
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