If you Google the ‘Internet of Cows‘ you will see that not only is it a serious topic, its also one that we in New Zealand should take very seriously. If you want to get all agri-techie follow some of the links to get an idea of what is coming for Daisy and Buttercup.

But since we’re all pretty dependent on white gold for a big chunk of our national well being its worth stopping to think about how Daisy and Buttercup are getting on-line. At the moment most of our IoC consists of an RFID eartag called NAIT, this is a scheme that was introduced a couple of years ago to keep track of our cattle and deer herds from birth to ermmm ‘processing’, it was introduced primarily for biosecurity purposes but it is also the beginning of an on farm digital revolution.

Because every cow now has a unique digital identifier there is now a growing range of tools for the digital farmer, and we’ll see new and unimagined applications emerge in the coming years.

Allied to this is a whole movement called precision agriculture which is enormously exciting for a gadget loving farm boy like me. In fact we even have the NZ Centre for Precision Agriculture at Massey University who are figuring out how to best use these techniques in our rather unique pastoral farming environment.

So my question is this, is the RBI really good enough for the Internet of Cows (& Sheep & Trees & Rivers & Tractors & Pumps….) because very soon all of these things are going to be sensor equipped, location aware, remote controlled data generating devices. Upload speeds from the farm, orchard, vineyard and forestry blocks are going to matter.

We’ve yet to see a true Farm Area Network technology emerge, and I’m not sure any of the farmers I know will pay for lots of little data transmissions over 3&4G networks, they will need serious connections into their farm offices and from there to the cloud where all this data is going to be processed.

My picks are some kind of local super WiFi that the farmers own, then either ‘fribre from the farn’ as Northpower want to deliver or some form of affordable 4G fixed wireless that can give good 100Mb/s grade service. I’m pretty certain that current copper, satellite and wireless services aren’t going to be that useful to Daisy and Buttercup.

The battle for your hands (and wallets) has been heating up in recent days with the latest event being both Telecom and Vodafone making announcements about turning their recent 700Mhz spectrum purchases into the latest front in the opening skirmishes of the 4G wars.

Both developments actually fall into the category of ‘positioning’ Vodafone want to preserve their hard won reputation as the ‘first’ with new services and Telecom (soon to be Spark) careful to add to their ‘best’ position. Its all a little academic as there is still a shortage of 4G devices that can access the full range of 4G frequencies.

Underneath all this something more important is happening and that is the maturing of mobile broadband into a fully capable challenger for the fixed line broadband dollar. 

Beyond a desktop PC, what was the last device you plugged into a wired network cable? I bet it was some form of wireless access point.

WiFi has conquered all our devices, laptops, tablets, phones, printers, TV’s, stereos, security cameras – the list can even stretch to fridges, washing machines and light bulbs. 

Over 20 years ago M.I.T Medialab digital guru Nicholas Negroponte famously postulated what has become know as the ‘Negroponte Switch’ which stated that:

Put simply he suggested that due to accidents of engineering history we had ended with static devices – such as televisions receiving their content via signals travelling over the airways while devices which should have been mobile and personal – such as telephones were receiving their content over static cables. It was his idea that a better use of available communication resource would result if the information (such as phone calls) going through the cables was to go through the air and that going through the air (such as TV programmes) was to be delivered via cables.

And thats pretty much what we’ve been living through, the information part is the likes of YouTube and Netflix and all our wireless devices are the other part. And WiFi and cellular are intimately linked, WiFi is always about half a generation faster in its latest formats but cellular is more ubiquitous but its expensive and we are trained into treating as a scarce resource.

I know that I wait to get back to either the office or my home before I do any heavy lifting such as software updates or watching movies not because 3G or 4G isn’t capable of the download but because of the cost in terms of data usage.

There is now no reason other the cost of mobile data stopping 4G being a faster alternative to todays copper based broadband and it will give the lower end fibre services some serious competition as well.

So what does the 700Mhz 4G war mean for us? several big things, more coverage in more places, potentially including rural NZ (who despite the RBI still desparately want both better broadband and reliable cellular coverage), it will hopefully lead to mobile data plans that are realistically priced and with practical monthly capacity allowances.

As more multi-band 4G devices become available these networks will get put to the test but there is now no doubt that those lucky enough to live in 4G coverage zones are going to be spoiled for choice. Early adopters will see these networks at their uncontended, best but there are many promising techniques which promise to deliver reliable 50mb/s+ performance.

And we’ll see more use of carrier WiFi to help with the heavy lifting and ‘small cells’ will fill in the coverage gaps.

I think this will also define the major use of the UFB,  as being the backhaul that we all build our wireless networks on. Just like todays cellular networks, we all want to be just one wireless hop away from fibre.

This is actually going to take the best part of the next decade to roll out, and it should be finished just in time for the 5G wars – whatever they are going to be.

The turnout and diversity of the attendees shows how important the Internet is to many, many groups.

ubiquity of access will increase to the point where the internet itself becomes invisible, and devices are shrinking to the point they will be indistinguishable from magic.

We need to think of the Internet of People before all the other internets, we’re along way from the old network of networks.

Time is the enemy of quality in many on-line issues.

Data journalism is an interesting idea, but I wonder how many people are good at both words and numbers?

A lot of ideas about the internet in 25 years were actually about fixing the internet of today.

I’ve loved hearing the scifi analogies, there are some more I’d add, especially from Neal Stephenson.

Yesterday at KANZ was very formal and supply side, today Nethui is very demand side, how do we bring them together?

More to follow – over….

Last week the Green Party released its high tech manufacturing policy at the Wellington Maker Space, they got my attention because this is an area close to my heart (both my sons are aspiring ‘Makers’ and the eldest had his 11th birthday party at the Maker Space) and I know they are onto something championing this whole area.

I do wonder how Gareth Hughes is going to align the bio-tech and nano-tech capabilities of this technology with some of his supporters but good on him for getting this into the public debate.

We really are heading into the post-industrial world and the idea of 3D printing can be traced back to a few sources, for me the ultimate 3D printer is the ‘Star Trek’ replicator and the concept of ‘seeds and feeds’ was developed for me in Neal Stephenson awesome book ‘The Diamond Age’.

Industrial CNC technology has been heading in this direction for a while, when we were working on the business case for the ‘NMi – Nelson Marlborough inforegion’ project  (a Broadband Challenge funded extension of Network Tasman’s fibre optic network into Marlborough) I came across Air New Zealand engineering subsidiary Safe Air who wanted fibre at Woodbourne.

The reason they wanted it was because they were FAA certified to make parts for aircraft provided their raw materials were of the required and their machinery was capable of machining the part to the required standard. Fibre to Safe Air would eliminate the need for the CNC files to be shipped on disk. This is a form of 3D printing, what Gareth has picked up is the rapid consumerisation of 3D printing.

The hobbyist is now being spoiled for choice as cheap 3D printers are now heading below $1000, and the results are getting better and better (although for some reason everyone seems to want to print rabbits???), I’ve been looking at this area for about 3 years now and while I can see huge potential, its still a long way from being ready for prime time.

There is a whole 3D eco-system that needs to be assembled and the printers are just one part of it, a far bigger piece of the puzzle is opening up the world of 3D design.

Original creative designs is one thing (Kiwi start-up Ponoko was a pioneer in this space) and represents a huge potential market for talented designers and crafts people. The Green policy recognises the importance of getting 3D design into our schools and there is a great future for talented 3D designers.

I can see the Green appeal in having the world serviced by ‘distributed factories’ (the vision of Ponoko founder Dave ten Have) where transport is reduced to the distance between the consumer and the nearest ‘Fab’ (fabrication point), a lot of packaging waste can be eliminated and consumers will get unheard of options for customisation.

it also marks the return in a very high tech sense of the artisan craftsman, the world will again see beautiful yet functional devices, tools, trinkets and toys.

But like all technologies there is a dark flip side, several in fact, the first is IP theft and counterfeiting – it will be possible to scan a product and recreate a perfect facsimile. Another threat is the use of substandard material and the subsequent risks of failure (thats why the FAA certifies people like Safe Air) and who and what do consumers trust?

Overall I’d have to give the Greens a B+ on this one, we look forward to seeing what other parties are considering in this area.