Thomas G. Robinson Executive Vice President, CBG Communications Inc.

Evidence mounts everyday that we are raising a nation of media-savvy kids. By the time they are in pre-school, they're quite familiar with the operation of a computer, accessing the Internet, and finding their favorite program on the cable service using the handheld remote and various menu functions. What's even more intriguing is that young people are rapidly becoming a nation of interactive, electronic communicators. As soon as they're able to read and write, they're also able to "chat," IM and upload a variety of graphic-intensive information they've created.

What this means for broadband networks in the coming years is that they will need to handle and route an increasing amount of upstream, as well as downstream, communications. This will go well beyond the minimal amount of upstream traffic that's now coming from the community at large toward bandwidths that will approach moderate and high-capacity symmetrical requirements in the future. This greater upload capacity will be needed for a variety of higher bandwidth communications, especially centering on high-resolution, full-motion video.

When you talk to kids, teens and early 20-somethings, it seems apparent that three or four large categories of applications will rise to the top. The first is home-based video origination. There is already a significant trend among some community/public access producers, who currently utilize their own facilities and equipment for producing and post-producing video program content, to desire to use a high-capacity network from their home to upload programming to the Internet and directly to the cable company for distribution over community/public access channels. Home consumer video production technology continues to decrease in price and increase in features, such that now even this type of equipment incorporates many sophisticated features of professional video equipment. This enables the picture quality of today's consumer digital cameras to look strikingly sharp and clear under a variety of lighting and production environment conditions.

Then, coupling these capabilities with the nonlinear post-production tools available to home consumers at a reasonable cost results in a great deal of production capability and post-production effects that create a finished look for home-produced video content that is consistent with some professional offerings.

As such home production efforts continue to evolve and increase in sophistication, creation of content for community channels may be equally split between centralized production centers and home production areas, or may even tilt in favor of "on the spot," remote location production (with home based post-production) at some point in the future. It is anticipated that such capabilities could significantly increase participation in the provision of content for community access, and expand both the amount and diversity of programming available. Additionally, some video may be bound for only a select audience such as those participating in family events, interest groups, neighborhood coalitions, etc. With existing and projected technology, targeted delivery of these communications could occur either instantaneously or through the type of storage and retrieval system provided by video-on-demand.

Interactive television (iTV) is another projected area of growth that can be utilized in the future for communications originating at the home. Whether the ultimate purpose is for entertainment, education or civic involvement, iTV is a platform that would foster expanded, remotely originated video content.

Regarding potential entertainment applications, origination from the home could, for example, enable the combining of game shows with reality television in the future. For instance, contestants or "lifelines" on a show like "Who Wants To Be A Super Millionaire" could actually participate via video directly from their homes.

Concerning education, there are a wide range of applications, including: enabling place-bound students to visually and interactively participate in classroom experiences or programs generated by private and non-profit learning centers. Similarly, other applications include enabling off-site instructors and other community resources to participate and lead learning experiences from remote locations; facilitating visual and highly graphic-intensive networking among student groups or instructor groups, potentially utilizing "live-meeting" type technology and high-speed uplinks to bridge local broadband networks.

Concerning civic involvement, using live meeting-type technology could provide the potential for any resident of any jurisdiction connected to a broadband network to participate in a jurisdiction-wide town meeting, or for that matter, participate on a national or worldwide scale as long as a broadband connection is enabled continuously from origination to termination point.

There is certainly also the ability for increased video origination to enhance and enable new business operations. It can, for instance, be used in the provision of services externally to clients, especially where high-dollar services, such as specific engineering expertise; training in critical but more obscure disciplines; and other services, can be provided in a less time- and expense-intensive manner.

The range of possibilities for widespread remote video origination seems nearly endless, and as actual implementation of some of these possibilities takes hold and begins to grow, it will place significant stress on the need for more and more upstream capacity. The time to prepare for this eventuality is now, because at the pace of change in technology and subscribers' use of such technology, the next big leap after this one is right around the corner.