About IBZL

The ‘Infinite Bandwidth, Zero Latency’ project is a collaboration between The Open University’s Faculty of Maths, Computing and Technology, Manchester Digital and University Centre Milton Keynes. It has its origins, as do many good ideas, in an argument over a pint; will the creation of ‘superfast’ or ‘next generation’ broadband networks automatically lead people to create interesting new applications (much like always on broadband and ubiquity resulted in applications like facebook.com). Or, does there need to be similar local and national policy support for the development of applications to that provided to building the infrastructure, if we are to avoid a future primarily of a network delivering increasing numbers of high definition, 3D TV channels.

To explore this, we have running run a series of workshops in Manchester and Milton Keynes which use the ‘Imagine’ methodology developed by the OU’s Simon Bell and Stephen Morse (Univ. of Surrey) to encourage participants to explore possible technology futures. People from differing backgrounds are brought together and spend a day developing ideas collaboratively, making extensive use of ‘rich picture’ techniques to generate and begin to refine ideas about technological futures. A more complete account of how we’ve used these methods in this article for the journal Futures.

We are not predicting a future of infinite bandwidth and zero latency; rather we are using this as a way of thinking a world in which network constraints disappear for increasing classes of application. For example, if latency can be reduced to below approximately 30ms it might be possible for musicians to play together remotely as if they were in the same room. Typically, the ideas generated bring together the idea of superfast networks with other near-future technological developments. You can find a more complete account  ourinitial workshops in this IADIS Conference paper.