My late grandfather Hans immigrated to the USA from Sweden at the age of 12. He landed with my great grandparents on the Northside of Chicago.
I remember stories he would tell… specifically today about a telephone. There was but one phone being about 300 yards away from his home at the corner cheese shop. That store owner had an arrangement with his visitors that the phone was free for a 5 minute outgoing call if you were a paying customer, but cost a nickel otherwise.
That man sold a lot of ‘1/8lb Västerbotten Cheese’ packages to my family, as the strange family joke continues today.
Last Mile Explained
In the first half of the 20th century, telephones were controlled by phone companies looking to connect people to people. And getting phone lines to where the people are, was described as the last mile- the last mile of wires, the last mile of telephone polls, and the last mile of in-house phone connections.
The last mile was reaching the people.
On the cusp of the era of the Internet of Things, I realize that in a macro sense, this corner cheese monger situation is repeating. My Grandpa’s not running to the corner in this century to connect to the world – this time instead IoT devices are reaching out to us with their data.
The Internet of Things is not about reaching down to the people, but rather having the machines, devices and gadgets already bursting with data to be connected Up to the people that want it.
In this century, the people are already connected. We’re connected to each other, and have access to countless databases holding countless pieces of information. This era of the Internet of Things is about connecting those things (and their data points) back to the people.
So, we’re reversing the phraseology.
The old Last Mile concept brought on by Bell Telephone was for people, but the First Mile is for IoT.
Hallsten Innovations defines the First Mile of IoT as the creation of devices that deliver the information promised by the Internet of Things up to the Cloud …and then back to the people.
To that we introduce to you our new tagline, sans Västerbotten Cheese.