Exploiting the internet’s potential

The public services for internet teleconferencing lag behind the leading edge. And I’m sure some of the delegates had an even worse time than I did

At the very beginning of March Rockwell Automation in the US hosted a live Webcast to accompany the announcement of its latest Ethernet hardware for the factory floor. For the first time it has 100Mbps technology available at I/O level, with a suite of Allen-Bradley products built to the open Ethernet networking specification in a number of product lines. Sounds interesting.

Industrial Networking and Open Control was invited to participate in the webcast, so I thought I would see how useful this time-saving idea would be. Certainly, exploiting technology like this is a good way to spread knowledge and save time, and in a different life in the past I've used old-fashioned videoconferencing (with studios and heavy duty cameras) to manage projects and save time and money whilst working with the US.

For a webcast you use a combination of audio, chat and a slide presentation to give a technical briefing. A normal browser handles the internet side of things, and a phone call gives you two-way audio. I think this must be fine if you're on a fast Ethernet connection to the internet and a private telephone network - but I viewed the webcast from my office through a dial-up link at the same time as making a very long, long-distance phone call. I couldn't help thinking that there must be a better way. Rockwell Automation is well qualified to talk about the latest developments for the plant floor, but the public services available for this type of event lag way behind the leading edge. And I'm sure some of the delegates had a worse time than I did.

What I really want to see is voice being carried over my internet link as a standard part of such a presentation. This would require much more bandwidth, but then more speed would mean that the slides turned up quickly as well. And to be honest, I don't want to be using a telephone for this type of exercise. I'd prefer to be using a phone enabled headset with a Bluetooth or some infrared connection to physical hardware. Who knows how it's all going to work yet? But one thing's for certain: this type of technology is on the way.

Rockwell's strategic marketing director for its Integrated Control & Information Architecture business Jack De Leon gave us an introduction to Ethernet/IP. He is responsible within Rockwell for business development of Ethernet/IP, ControlNet and DeviceNet networks, so he put today's Ethernet developments in context with these network architectures, and also related them to the other network standards commonly available today.

From a practical standpoint Mark Bauwens, a lead systems engineer at Unilever, gave us the benefit of his experience. Mark manages the links between global, central and plant engineering resources, and recently helped Unilever introduce Ethernet to the plant floor where it is used for some process control and information sharing within the manufacturing environment.

Whilst a global product launch is just one use for internet conferencing of this nature, companies will find it useful for internal meetings and long distance project management. There was good information and for conferencing the internet has great potential. But the first thing I'm going to need is an ASDL link, so I can connect to the electronic world at something like the speed the technology requires. Will I get all the bits in place before the whole thing is superseded by something else?

No, don't answer that.