Infinite Bandwidth Zero Latency - IBZL2

Project leader(s): Steve Walker
Theme: Technologies for STEM learning
Faculty: STEM
Status: Archived
Dates: April 2011 to February 2012

IBZL is a thought experiment. It starts from the question: what if bandwidth (and latency) in networks like the internet didn't matter any more? What would become possible?

The capacity and speed of the internet and related networks has increased exponentially over the last 20 years but the change has come in steps, steps that have unleashed waves of innovation.

First generation broadband technology gave millions of users an ‘always-on’ connection to the net for the first time. This led to unforeseen, unanticipated and disruptive new applications like Wikipedia and YouTube.

Next generation broadband may similarly trigger a wave of disruptive applications, with the potential for almost unlimited bandwidth and radically reduced latency.

Can we imagine? Can we anticipate the sort of new applications and services that might develop? More importantly, what new technologies will become possible?

The IBZL project has sought to identify new possibilities through positing a world with effectively infinite bandwidth and zero latency. IBZL tries to create the conditions to start that imagining process, and can contribute to thinking about the OU’s own work in such a world.