Proposal Overview:
Currently there is a debate between cable and telephone networking
possibilities. It always comes down to bandwidth. The more bandwidth the better. The problem is there is an upper limit to the amount of information our systems can handle at any given moment. Similar to how we have to widen our highways every ten years, costing us more than laying a larger highway in the first place, we find ourselves having to relay cable or telephone networks to increase their capabilities.
It is wasteful to discard one system over the other in an attempt to
simplify our lives. I suggest we complicate things. Since audio signals can be compressed so much more with time division multiplexing over frequency division multiplexing, only the phone lines should be dedicated to sending audio information. Video can be compressed to 1.5 Mbps and sent over coax. There will also need to be a scheme to syncronize the two at the receiving end. By reducing the amount of audio traffic over frequency division modulating lines, more room is left for video. This would also resolve the audio quality issues, when using CUSeeMe. Computers and phones could be integrated so that audio lines connect directly to the household computer and output through the speakers.
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