Campus Technologies Inc Announces Availability of its White Paper on "Student Housing Technology: Predictions Versus Reality"
Predicting anything in the technology sector is a risky business. Predicting anything five or even 10 years ahead is extraordinarily risky. Nonetheless, in December 2007, Campus Technologies Inc (CTI) wrote the first of a series of white papers on future bandwidth requirements and the operation of student housing networks. This was revised every couple of years, and in October 2012, Broadband Communities published an overview of the July 2012 edition of that white paper. Seven years on, how did CTI do?
PHILADELPHIA, May 9, 2019 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- For a while now Campus Technologies In (CTI) was a thought leader in anticipating, designing, and deploying the very best technology facilities that today's student residents demand. So, naturally, the Company tried to predict the future of that sector in order to provide its partners with the technology trends of tomorrow's today. CTI has published many white papers on future bandwidth requirements and the operation of student housing networks. Those were revised every couple of years, and in October 2012, Broadband Communities magazine published an overview of the July 2012 edition of the white paper on student housing technology of the future.
Last month CTI approached that 2012 review with some trepidation, but in reality, they did pretty well, given the subject matter and the number of years out we were looking. Inevitably, they fell short in a couple of areas.
The original review discussed the following subjects:
- Per-User Bandwidth Requirements
In the 2012 paper, CTI used Nielsen's law (bandwidth available to a high-end user will increase by 50 percent a year) to extrapolate high-end and average U.S. user bandwidth.
At the five-year mark, in 2017, they estimated 1,748 Mbps for a high-end user and 336 Mbps for an average user. By 2019, those numbers were estimated to be 3,933 Mbps and 756 Mbps. The real results (especially for average users) were significantly lower for three main reasons. Those reason are discussed in depth in the Campus Technologies Inc Announces Availability of its White Paper on "Student Housing Technology: Predictions Versus Reality"
- Edge Bandwidth for Student Housing
In 2012, CTI predicted that, by 2017, a 200-bed community would be connected with a pipe at least 880 Mbps and a 500-bed community with a pipe at least 3,303 Mbps. They was very close with this prediction. Campus Technologies now routinely provisions 5 or 10 Gbps circuits for student housing communities.
- Interface Cards in Computers
In 2012, the Company said, "The majority of network-connected devices will likely be gigabit-capable within two years." That was correct.
- Carrier (Cellular) Wireless
CTI predicted that "Carrier wireless (3G or 4G) is unlikely to have a significant impact on bandwidth requirements at student housing properties." That was correct.
- Ethernet Switches
In 2012, CTI said, "All new access layer switches deployed today, whether as upgrades or for new construction, should provide 1 Gbps access layer ports to connect to individual users and should provide either a 10 Gbps uplink or the ability to field upgrade to a 10 Gbps uplink." That was also correct, and it still holds true today.
- Contracts
In 2012, the Company cautioned that "All owners and operators must carefully examine the contract position of their assets with regard to internet provisioning and maintain a high level of flexibility in future years." Correct. This has become the standard operating procedure for most large student housing operators, who now exercise tighter contract control, limit contract terms to three years and take other steps to ensure that they can meet resident needs.
- Bandwidth Conservation
In 2012, I said, "The growing trend of using the public internet to stream multimedia will give rise to new bandwidth-conservation technologies." They were mainly wrong with this one.
Although there are tantalizing glimpses of technologies that could become high-bandwidth-consuming applications in the future, few would have the ability to utilize them, and this may hamper adoption. In student housing, there is an inexorable move toward reducing or eliminating traditional cable and video amenities. This will have an effect on bandwidth required at the edge in student housing properties, but it will be incremental and not radical. To learn in depth about those and other predictions and explanations of each, follow the link to Campus Technologies Inc white papers section on their website.
https://www.campustechnologies.com/whitepapers
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Campus Technologies is a national vertically integrated managed network service provider designing, building and operating highly effective wired and wireless networks exclusively in student housing. See more at http://www.campustechnologies.com
PDF file of this white paper is available at https://www.campustechnologies.com/single-post/2019/05/06/Student-Housing-Technology-Predictions-Versus-Reality
SOURCE Campus Technologies Inc
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