Am sitting in the audience at Broadband & Beyond 2011, the annual Communications Alliance industry conference. As you can imagine, much of the discussion is centred on the National Broadband Network, and what i can be used for – which is pleasing, as the usage of high-speed broadband networks is a big part of what is covered in my new book, A Faster Future.

The opening keynote was delivered by KPMG partner for the digital economy Malcolm Alder, who spoke about the challenges that will be faced by the retail sector as we move to the NBN. Malcolm covered a huge amount of territory in a short period of time, from healthcare for the elderly to the future of utilities. He also talked about the possibility for service providers to aggregate other services and sell them through their portal. It may be possible that a telco no only sells access, but possibly electricity and healthcare.

Malcolm was followed by Shara Evans, chief executive officer of research firm Market Clarity, who spoke about the current penetration of broadband and gave some predictions on its future take-up. The general theme was that access will continue to faster and cheaper.

Hello everyone. Apologies for the long absence from the blogosphere, but much of the last six months have been taken up in co-writing a new book, A Faster Future, which explores the future evolution of broadband applications and services and the impact they will have on business, society and individuals. The good news is that A Faster Future will be available on February 24, and while much of my work this year will be based around that book and topics related to broadband services, I can also get back to writing more broadly once more. There’s also quite a lot that happened in the last six months that I need to catch up on …. All the best, and welcome back!