It may be that there is a way to solve many problems in one fell swoop - FTTH, prime agricultural land becoming scarce, lack of green spaces in cities, the energy crisis, urban and rural regeneration, job creation, and no doubt more problems will come to light as we discuss this potential solution.
We all know that Korea, Hong Kong, etc have all, apparently, been able to solve universal FTTH purely because of multiple dwelling units. (We also all know that this is not **strictly** true!!) However, in Britain, we have a huge variety of problems, all of which universal FTTH could solve if we just got on with it.
What we need to do is not build high-speed railways (£14BN starting in 2017 vs FTTH £14BN finished in 2017) but build new farms in both towns and the countryside. Vertical farms. These could then help to re-populate the countryside, create thousands of new jobs, generate electricity, plus demand connectivity for telemetry - has that grass half way up got enough water? Also, this would keep DEFRA busy inspecting the number of tyres holding down the silage sheet on level 42 and whether the tags on every sheep and cow's ears on levels 18-30 are legible.
Especially for @cyberdoyle, here is a potential solution to the Final Third problem. Obviously, some thought is required to go into exactly which level her cows go on, and sheep, pigs, goats etc, but it seems that the current thought leader in all this, mainly because they have JFDI (or part of it), is right here in the UK, in Devon at Paignton Zoo
By creating multi-dwelling units in the towns and cities of UK, we could overcome the UK telcos' fears and give them MDUs to connect. Cows obviously need fibre in their daily diet (see photo) and Fibre To The Byre should help justify investment. Also, it would be simple to put 3G, LTE, wimax antennas on the structures, thereby building a wireless cloud over the surrounding area at the same time, and increasing the sadly minimal mobile coverage in rural areas.
There are several added bonuses to the technology neutral approach in that a byproduct of livestock farming, and one of the top causes of global warming/climate change, is of course methane, for which cows are regularly blamed. By a lucky coincidence, it would seem that methane is converted to hydrogen, acetylene and ethylene when subjected to continuous microwave radiation. This could then be stored and used to power the new hydrogen cell cars which we will need once the oil runs out. In addition, every farmer always needs to weld something so the acetylene should come in handy. There is also an increasing global demand for ethylene, so this should create a whole new industry sector within the UK.
This solution really could solve so many problems, surely?!
1 comment:
haha, thanks for that, but I think I will stick to my horizontal farm for now, too old to go high rise. I just want optic fibre, for everyone. I was only thinking last night, what is the point in getting it just for me if the rest of the country is still on copper? It won't be any good until everyone gets it, just like the phone wasn't any fun until all your family/friends/work contacts had one too.
Going back to the idea of the vertical farm, I think we have already done that with the big city blocks, but instead of farming animals we farm people. In order for them to be productive they need a fibre diet too. More moral fibre, and some optic. If they don't have the connectivity then the digital revolution won't happen in this country. Korea et al will rule the world, and poor old slowlane copper digitalbritain will be the poor relation. How can we innovate and grow if we don't have the tools? Yes it would be nice to go from north to south in an hour instead of three, but so much better not to have to travel at all and do it virtually, with no carbon footprint, no stress, minimal costs... That's the way to do it.
Fibre to the homes, businesses, schools and government. Whether vertical or horizontal. JFDI.
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