by Steve Meloan
(Page 2)
by Steve Meloan
(Page 2)
The next logical step in the medium's evolution is, of course, sex. It's been a driving force within any new communications technology - from the printing press, to the telephone, to the movies, to the VCR - and already exists in various forms within the current world of the Internet. But until now, we've been limited to text, static images, or brief moving snippets of porn. CU-SeeMe takes it to a whole other level. It gives new meaning to the term "phone sex," which has yet to actually occur on CU-SeeMe, but everyone agrees that it soon will. More than a handful of cyber-sex entrepreneurs stand poised to offer their wares.
The demand is definitely there. Cu-SeeMe postings already occur on a regular basis in the various sex related newsgroups of the Internet. This grass-roots movement ranges from those in search of simple voyeurism, to cyber-swinging couples seeking to "connect" with their computers in a whole new way.
But a major stumbling block in the current technology, regardless of the application, is that of "bandwidth." CU-SeeMe requires at least a 14.4 baud data rate, preferably 28.8 - or higher. A 14.4 modem will allow you to receive video, but the audio portion is effectively lost at such speeds, a victim of simple data overload. In actuality, the relatively low bandwidth inherent with any traditional dial-up phone line makes it difficult to transmit the audio and video signals simultaneously.
The current technology is essentially forcing a massive quantity of data (digital sound and video) through conduits which were originally designed to carry the relatively minuscule traffic of Internet text. It's like trying to attach a garden hose to a fire hydrant. As a result, the jerky, several-frames-per-second level of black and white video is all that can currently be accommodated. The sound, depending upon the overall traffic load within the Internet at any given moment, frequently breaks up into guttural phonemes. More ominously, if world-wide usage increases as predicted, a sufficient number of CU-SeeMe users jointly transmitting at any given time could literally bring the entire Internet to its electronic knees.
Though numbers-of-users statistics are currently unknown, Michael Sattler, a San Francisco computer consultant and recognized authority on CU-SeeMe, reports a "hit rate" of up to 100,000 per day on his World Wide Web information site for the facility. As for the bandwidth issue, Sattler dismisses this as "just another engineering problem," and one which is already well on the way to being resolved. "As a result of ISDN [Integrated Services Digital Networks] lines," he explains, "the phone companies can now provide data rates of at least twice that currently possible over standard modem lines." These high speed lines can already be had in most areas for as little as thirty dollars a month, and even faster data rates are now on their way to the consumer marketplace.
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