But it would be a grave mistake to cease working on
future developments while waiting for everyone to be
able to share what we have now ...
It hasn't gotten as far as sharing. We don't even have the "old" stuff in
place and running, and already people want to replace it.
You know, I'd much rather have greatly improved cellular-telephone voice
quality than a tiny screen on a tiny phone for Internet services that I'll
never use. I'd like to see the older technologies actually implemented and
working smoothly before they are thrown away in favor of ever newer
technologies.
Right now I have a DSL line that is _supposed_ to allow 1000 kbps on the
downlink. However, since nobody bothers to update the infrastructure behind
it, sometimes I get more like 32 kbps on the line. And now people are
talking about wireless connections. Well, I'd rather keep my DSL and see it
actually run at its rated speed than adopt yet another jury-rigged lab
experiment that will be declared obsolete before it even works correctly.
Some of us have work to do, and we don't have the luxury or desire to just
sit around trying to imagine "what next?"
... and that's not looking form the perspective of those
who already have and don't want to be held back.
I want what I've already been promised before they get what they are still
dreaming about.
This doesn't mean that we should stop assisting the
rest of the world ...
Why the rest of the world? Look in your own backyard. How many people do
you know with even a broadband connection? For an accurate assessment, stop
people on the street and ask them if they have broadband Internet access,
and see what numbers you come up with.
... but neither should be be slowing down on advances
just because some don't yet have what we currently use -
if we're good enough, they may never need to.
If we don't stop dreaming and start actually implementing, they'll never
have anything at all.