Om Malik wrote some editorial a few days ago about the recent announcement by ECI Telecom.

Mostly though, he does a profile of Professor John Cioffi. And although his track record is impressive, the world has not suddenly been delivered a magic bullet for hyperspeed broadband access.

ECI noted that:

DSM [Dynamic Spectrum Management] is a promising technology expected to provide reliable, fiber-optic-like rates over the existing copper infrastructure. DSM is expected to have a significant impact on the market, as the DSL industry is looking for solutions beyond VDSL2 to increase subscriber broadband rates.

The establishment of this multi-disciplinary consortium, funded for three years, and effectively underwritten by the Israeli Government stands the commercial development of the technologies in very good stead; rather than remaining “slideware”, a commitment has been made to push for new FTTC-based last mile platforms and in a very public way. ECI presented a discussion on DSM and the partnership at Broadband World Forum in Paris, the proceedings of which I have not yet seen released.

Integrating three tertiary institutions into a commercial consortium will be no mean feat. Many a telco research initiative in this country between universities and businesses has hit structural roadblocks, and technologies commercialised out of university research make a big bang at press release time, but fade into unrecognisable-by-the-public consolidation. In 2000, I watched as Radiata took USD$295m from Cisco and have been waiting ever since to see the “leading semiconductor technology” reappear proudly as Powered By Radiata (TM).

So why do we often latch onto The Next Great Thing and the Way Of The Future technology or innovation? I believe it’s human nature to engage with the fruits of clever endeavour, but it could be a result of a disbelief in scientific principles. That is, if we have a problem today, never fear: the solution is “Coming Soon!”; physics can be beaten into submission by new technologies via science.

I hear very similar comments The Next Greatest Thing made by broadband and telco companies in Australia, but they are usually referring to one or more of:

• New vendor product release that bests the industry leader by “blah” percent
• ADSL 2, 2+, VDSL2, or acronym-next access technology
• Proprietary, patent-pending, announced today solution to worldwide problem

Yes, the emerging and developing technologies of “soon” can help new business become viable: but shouldn’t genuinely-sturdy propositions for customers be able to be deployed on “Network Any”?