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The Last Mile: Broadband and the Next Internet Revolution

The Last Mile:  Broadband and the Next Internet Revolution

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Authors: Jason Wolf, Natalie Zee
Publisher: Mcgraw-Hill
Category: Book

List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $1.68
You Save: $23.27 (93%)



New (8) Used (25) Collectible (2) from $0.01

Avg. Customer Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars 22 reviews
Sales Rank: 1889080

Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1st
Pages: 200
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.3 x 1

ISBN: 0071363491
Dewey Decimal Number: 384
EAN: 9780071363495
ASIN: 0071363491

Publication Date: July 28, 2000
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available

Editorial Reviews:

Book Description
"The word is broadband and companies hope the sky is the limit."The New York Times, March 23, 1999 How big is broadband? Its implementation will affect all 201 million current Internet users. The Last Mile provides the business community with the first look at this next Internet revolution. Discussing the business impact, strengths, and weaknesses of broadband in non-technical terms, managers and executives will learn how to become major players in the new digital future. From definition to implementation, The Last Mile clearly shows readers how broadband can impact their businesses for success. Here, professionals will learn: how this latest Internet buzzword actually works; the technology behind broadband; how it is likely to affect various other industries; its overall limitations and how to deal with them; and how to identify new opportunities in the market due to the evolution of broadband.

Download Description
'How big is broadband? Its implementation will affect all 201 million current Internet users. The Last Mile provides the business community with the first look at this next Internet revolution. Discussing the business impact, strengths, and weaknesses of broadband in non-technical terms, managers and executives will learn how to become major players in the new digital future. From definition to implementation, The Last Mile clearly shows readers how broadband can impact their businesses for success. Here, professionals will learn: how this latest Internet buzzword actually works; the technology behind broadband; how it is likely to affect various other industries; its overall limitations and how to deal with them; and how to identify new opportunities in the market due to the evolution of broadband.


Customer Reviews:   Read 17 more reviews...

4 out of 5 stars A Good Read!   July 8, 2002
Five years from now, your refrigerator should be talking to you. Your television set won't just offer you the usual slew of cable channels, but thousands of streaming Internet channels that will fill every conceivable market niche, need or want. Transmission paths will include DSL modems, cable modems, possible fiber optic links to the home and even transmission through power lines. Executives should start thinking now about how broadband will change the way their businesses work, the authors explain. So, if you're trying to figure out how your business can benefit from the inevitable expansion of fat pipes, we from getAbstract recommend this book to you. Read it quickly, before the fridge asks for something to drink.


1 out of 5 stars Can you believe it?   April 10, 2001
 5 out of 6 found this review helpful

Can you believe that the publisher expects us to pay the same price for an electronic version of the book that we can only read on one computer as for the hard back version that we can read, pass along to friends, and then donate to a library? This is absurd, and the only possible response is for readers to boycott this title and McGraw-Hill Publishing, the publisher, until it dawns on the publisher that economies should be passed on to the readers, just as economies were passed along when paperback books were introduced. Doing so is just good business since lower prices will spark a lagging publishing industry and electronic publishing will allow publishers to see their back list with virtually zero marginal cost. Wake up and smell the coffee.


2 out of 5 stars Not what I expected   February 18, 2001
 4 out of 5 found this review helpful

I was really disappointed by this book. It did a poor job of going into detail (I wasn't looking for too much detail) of broadband technologies in use today. It also barely even touched wireless broaband to the home or to enterprises. Furthermore, the information was dated even though the hardcopy version I bought had a copyright date of 2001. Clearly, the book must've been written in late 1999 or early 2000. In this rapidly changing industry, that's too long ago. I also have to agree with another reader that I can't tell who this book was intended for? What was the target audience?


1 out of 5 stars How many times can you state the obvious?   January 6, 2001
 7 out of 8 found this review helpful

What did this book tell me:

1. The internet is popular

2. People accessing web pages sometimes have to wait for files to download

3. Technology will improve things

4. Technology might even continue to advance in the future

Thanks for sharing. This book is like a person who talks a great deal but never actually says anything original or useful.


1 out of 5 stars I want my money back   November 2, 2000
 9 out of 10 found this review helpful

The Last Mile was written by two former Shockwave employees, now with March First's interactive division. Let me start by stating that I consider March First one of the few interactive agencies that truly "get it." However, after reading The Last Mile, its obvious that someone at March First should start reviewing books before they go to press with their name attached. For starters, the writing in this book is extremely poor. For example, this excerpt regarding the complications involved with DSL installations; "The next day a real service guy showed up, wearing an open shirt with the gold chains and a serious leather tool belt that the customer said looked like the one he had bought because he just loved his job so much (huh?). The customer thought to himself "this is the man." He looked as if he was ready to start a fight with anyone that talked bad about DSL. This guy came in like Mr. Spock in the original Star Trek movie and rewired the warp drive engine. He rewired the setup and told the customer that he was ready to make the jump to light speed." The passage rambles on (including run on sentences, and grammatical errors) and concludes with; "He thought of some technical reason as to why this might be normal and forgot about it, until he asked his wife if she ever tried using both her DSL and Powerbook modem. "Yup, all the time," she said. For the love of God, he thought"

PLEASE - who is the target audience of this book? CEO's interested in understanding broadband capabilities and positioning their business for the broadband revolution don't want to read writing in the style of "Spot goes to the Park".

The Last Mile also (conveniently) features a case study on Shockwave.com - although I find the site entertaining, how this fits into helping CEOs to understand business applications based on broadband is beyond me. (It's also nice to see that the book gets kudos from the creative officer of Shockwave.com)

The book continuously repeats itself (obviously written by two different writers with no editor) and jumps around; confusing the reader as to what is the message of each chapter.

The Last Mile is mainly geared towards justifying the need for interactive designers (coincidentally the writers' are interactive designers) and using interactive elements such as video and flash animation because the bandwidth will be available.

When developing strategies around positioning businesses online, interactive elements should be only used if they make sense to the target audience and are necessary to help solve business problems; not simply because the technology is available. This is never mentioned in the book.

I was extremely disappointed with the unprofessional approach taken in writing (and editing) this book. The Last Mile book was painful to get through. I hope someone at March First is reading this. I want my money back.

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