It was during an impromptu assignment back in India few years ago that I first found this problem. I could shoot a video while covering an event, but sending it down to my editor using mobile data connection proved tough. My chance of being a pioneer in my bureau and earning some ‘brownie’ points with my editor were soundly dashed. To cover-up my frustration, I blamed poor data connectivity and was under the impression that it was a problem we face only in India. I was proved wrong when I came to the US in 2014. Anyone with a T-Mobile connection in Medford Campus of Tufts University would attest to the fact that ‘no signal’ is not a beast that troubles souls selectively.

Pun apart, my understanding about the limitation that I was facing in uploading videos through data connectivity of a mobile was again challenged when I took a video of my three-minute pitch and tried to upload the file on to my Box Folder, I could not send a 100 MB file through my mail. This time I was on Harvard Wi-Fi and viola, my mobile crashed again and again. I was forced to concede defeat and transfer the files onto my computer and well, rest is ‘going to be’ history.

These experiences taught me something interesting, for a person to shoot a video and upload it onto a website without using any of the apps being provided by the likes of YouTube or Facebook, could face a serious problem as both the strength of data connectivity and the ability of a handset to handle large file transfers can decide whether a data transfer can be made successfully in the first place.

With the definition of journalism changing fast and live streaming and quick video uploads becoming a norm in journalism, the ability of a journalist to not just shoot a video but also to upload it becomes a key prerequisite in their trade. But this ability can be severely compromised if he or she is working in a place with spotty data or Wi-Fi connectivity.

Is there a possible answer?

One of the issue we face in huge file transfers is that in the event of a disruption, the entire transfer fails. I think this could be addressed with the possibility of breaking down the file into manageable packets and transferring it them in sequence, my like peer-to-peer torrent transfer.

Peer-to-peer transfer technologies are also coming of age. For example Terranet is testing its Mesh technology to connect mobile devices without the necessity of having a data connection. If these incredible peer-to-peer transfer technologies are harnessed, I feel that we can create a process that can be used by journalists in creating and distributing multimedia files even from the remote places. While I could not find a product that does this function yet, I guess we can explore the possibilities of tackling this issue this semester.