Arnold Kling: "The communication network will have a fiber skeleton and a wireless skin."

In his TechCentralStation piece, "Moore's Bailiff," Arnold Kling passes along Andy Chapman's prediction that Moore's Law and broadband alternatives will trigger the collapse of one or more baby bells/incumbent local exchange carriers withint the next five years. Kling's compelling description of the foreseen communication architecture:

The way I see it, Moore's Law ultimately will favor shared-spectrum wireless as the solution for last mile connectivity. Today, I am typing this out on my porch, using a laptop that connects wirelessly to a router in my basement, which in turn connects to the local phone company by DSL. My prediction is that eventually I will skip the DSL part, and instead my wireless connection will go to a local wireless network of some sort, and then ultimately to a transmitter on the Internet backbone. The communication network will have a fiber skeleton and a wireless skin. Telephone land lines will be superfluous.

"A fiber skeleton and a wireless skin" is an excellent turn of phrase.

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