Next Gen Communications

Let's get back to business.

2008-04-16T17:58:00.001-05:00

After roughly a year and a half break I believe the time has come to take up the keyboard again.

After too long a pause, we're back!

2008-04-14T18:46:00.002-05:00

For a multitude of reasons that I won't bother to bore you with, there has been a gap in this blog.
I am happy to report that we will now resume where we left off with all of the irreverence you've come to expect.

The Muni Network Administrator's Paradox.

2006-11-25T10:18:00.001-05:00

We have all heard that every journey begins with a single step but in the search to define what are the “best practices” in the Municipal Broadband Network industry the universal answer is, “We don't know”.

The fact is there are no citywide network models that have been functioning for any long period of time that we could look to as examples of how other networks should be built and managed. We do know of many cities that are struggling to figure out how to construct a business model that will work in a sustainable manner over the long term, how to design such a project to take advantage of the this field's ever-evolving technology and how this type of infrastructure can best benefit all of the different segments of their population.

As a real world example, I would like to introduce you to Adam Heller, the IT director for Bridgeport, CT as he attempts to gather as much information as he can over a three day period during the recent Muni Wireless event in Minneapolis. In this case, I am acting as a careful observer of this process with additional commentary provided by several of the knowledgeable people Adam met and interacted with at the show.

From Adam's perspective, Bridgeport is in need of an overall WAN upgrade. Bridgeport's connectivity between its various municipal facilities is substandard and as more enterprise applications are being implemented the WAN is not able to maintain consistent quality or throughput. As a result, Adam has begun to document what the city's current infrastructure consists of and what alternatives exist to alleviate the extreme difficulties of accessing network resources.

In order to define this process Adam inventoried his current application environment paying particular attention as to how to go about upgrading them and inevitably, had to consider what impact future growth was going to have on the picture. In doing so, he framed the situation using the following questions:

What will be our future needs?

What applications are not currently being used that will be after an upgrade?

Are Public Safety needs being met?

Are we going to choose to add voice to this upgraded environment?

What is the city environment like? Is there a "public need" to be able to access municipal resources?

After careful examination of these questions Adam came to the conclusion that a network consisting of a solely wired solution is not a viable option. As the city develops with more construction occurring within the city, public safety communications is also becoming an issue. For some specific examples, traffic congestion is increasing as seen at most stop lights and access to parking is becoming increasingly difficult. Another area that needs to be improved is the need to streamline the building inspections and the building permit process so as to make the entire process more efficient. Additionally, there is also the very real need for mobile access to the Internet for the business community as well as providing for the communities at the lowest end of the economic scale, many of which do not have access to the Internet at all. This is all part of the myriad of issues that arise when we look closely at the future needs of our city's network that as of today cannot meet our present requirements.

The question now becomes, if the city has the need for all of these extra resources, what technologies are available to meet these demands? This is what brings Adam to the MuniWireless event allowing him the opportunity to research the municipal wireless industry. Being in the unique position of planning an overall infrastructure upgrade, Adam felt that now is the time to explore what a municipal wireless network is and how it could be designed so as to incorporate an eventual deployment into Bridgeport's plans, as well as avoid potential pitfalls as the city moves forward.

The first task is to define what a municipal wireless network is - specifically to their city. Is it the "wave of the future" or is it going to be yet another maintenance nightmare? What is the purpose of deployment? Is it going to serve the needs of the community as a whole? If not, what segments of the population will it serve? If so, what priorities will Adam have to set on deployment? Does Bridgeport go with an exclusively wireless network or do we go with a hybrid wireless/wired combination? What security issues will we face and are we opening ourselves up to a host of issues in that respect?

After deliberating all of these issues Adam has defined his concept for Bridgeport's Municipal Wireless Network as follows:

A municipally owned and operated network that will provide access to municipal resources as well as providing Internet access to the community including those that may not currently have access. In addition, this network will provide for new services to enhance public safety and enhance the experience of everyone living or working in our city while encouraging community and economic development.

With that being said, how would one accomplish this task? The first thing to do is to find out what other communities are following this same route. The second thing to do is find a way to speak to industry experts to see how they define the criteria which should provide an explanation as to what they have experienced. As opportunity does seem to favor the prepared, it was at this time when Adam discovered that there is a conference designed to provide him with an opportunity to discuss municipal wireless with his peers, as well as to discuss these issues with people in the industry.

Adam's first session was hosted by Dewayne Hendricks (Dandin Group) and focused on bandwidth. One of the fundamental decisions that needs to be addressed in any municipal deployment is how much throughout will the network deliver to the user. This is one of the more hotly debated questions and the fact is there really is no one right answer. This is a specification that each city must make a determination based on what they believe is right for their situation.

Dewayne Hendricks believes that “Life Begins at 100Mbps” and is now in the process of deploying just such a network in Sandoval County, New Mexico to demonstrate that concept. For Dewayne, the very idea that the United States is near the bottom of the world's industrialized nations as far as broadband speeds is abhorrent – especially since the issue isn't a technological limitation but instead caused by a combination of failed policy and an artificial scarcity of bandwidth created by the incumbents.

While showing that the technology exists and more importantly, at an acceptable price, Dewayne is also working towards lowering the wholesale cost of bandwidth. If we look at the cost of bandwidth in San Francisco versus the cost for the same amount of bandwidth in just about every small town or city in the US, it is easy to see why high speed broadband service has such a wide disparity from location to location. If you want to carry that comparison further one only need look to Asia where wholesale broadband costs significantly less making exceptionally high speed broadband service substantially less expensive to the end user. For a specific example, in Tokyo the cost of a 100Mbps connection is on par with a 3Mbps DSL connection in New York City and one can easily understand how this disparity will have a detrimental effect on any business that is broadband based or heavily depends on connectivity.

Attending the same session but taking a somewhat different view is Damien Fox (Wireless Nomad) who became interested in broadband deployment as a way of equalizing opportunity among his neighbors. As someone who never thought he would be interested in broadband technologies Damien was attracted to this industry when he realized that the digital divide had a very real effect on a person's ability to get ahead.

As an example, let's look at two children, perhaps classmates at the same school, who are given a history assignment on D-Day. The child on the dialup connection would be relegated to waiting for his computer to connect, then wait for a search engine page to load (taking the better part of a minute) clicking on a link (again, taking another minute for that page to load) and if we assume that this page has the necessary information the child was looking for this child's entire educational experience would be reading a page of text with a grainy picture or two to illustrate the subject.

Conversely, the child on broadband would immediately see the search engine page load, would be able to quickly browse through several different sites and then could participate in a rich multimedia experience which might include actual footage taken at the battle or audio recordings of interviews from veterans who participated in this event.

The stark reality is that one child is going to have far better educational opportunities than the other with the tragedy being that the real cost to provide this resource to both children is negligible - but only if we chose to do so.

One point Damien did emphasize in the follow up conversation was that there's no such thing as a free network and one should not underestimate the cost of providing real access to information resources rather than just total up the cost of a monthly DSL line and an obsolete computer. It is important to keep in mind that despite all the costs of bridging the digital divide, the cost of not doing so is far greater, in the long term and the bottom line is that to a child that has a dialup connection (or no connection at all) even a 1Mbps broadband connection is a godsend.

As you can see, for Adam, this is exactly the conversation he was hoping to become part of when he decided to book this trip.

In a subsequent conversation that took place later that evening, the subject of what should be the minimum connection throughput a municipal network should provide again was again brought up. Jay Barnell (Barnell Technology Services) submitted this observation for consideration, “What we really need to continually do is hold ourselves up to the international community for comparison as opposed to each community looking at the neighboring city up the interstate to gage of how we are all doing.” This reinforces the point that Dewayne is making that we need to be setting our goals high enough to make sure we are relevant as we move forward, even though there is no arguing that if the financial resources are the overall constraint, providing something is always better than nothing.

As the discussion continued the next day, an informal, ad hoc group formed to address some of the other questions that make up the foundation of a Municipal project were also tackled. Drew Lentz (Meshtek) hammered the point home that the three most important things to remember was “Design, design, design.” Over the years Drew has repeatedly run across instances of network deployments where the builder pushed the equipment's specifications beyond where it should be realistically expected to go. As one would expect, this inevitably leads to a network that cannot live up to its expectations.

The other side of this issue is where the network's specifications were not clearly spelled out or explained properly, creating the same scenario of failure where the network does not live up to the buyer's (or the end user's) expectations. One such issue is any type of promise which tries to specify what percentage of end users will be able to connect without the need of additional equipment. (CPE) In dense residential areas where buildings made of wood, brick, stone as well as stucco the individual user experience will vary in ways that is impossible to predict with any accuracy. Unless the entire user base is provided with a well organized educational campaign there will surely be some people who will feel slighted as they will need to spend a significant amount of money to get connected where their neighbor will not.

To complicate matters further, there may also be an eventual failure that may not manifest itself immediately as there will always be a considerable lag from the network launch and the time when the critical mass of users become part of the network. Couple that with the knowledge that the services end users are now demanding will require more bandwidth, as in the case of YouTube, and you have a disaster just waiting to happen.

Perhaps the most insidious subject to come up in the conversation was that of dealing with network security. Ash Dyer, a recent graduate of MIT and now part of the Cambridge Public Internet project, brought up several very important points that many Municipal Network managers might not even be aware of. While many of the security issues wireless networks face are also problems on wired networks, they are exacerbated by the omnidirectional nature of wireless. Incredibly, something as simple as a rogue access point added to the network without proper protection could potentially compromise thousands of people's data. Drew Lentz added that off-the-shelf programs widely available as a free download (Ethereal as an example) could allow anyone to intercept anything from regular user account
information (including passwords) to credit card numbers and banking information. Ash responded that when the potential for compromising sensitive municipal data is also likely in these cases a well-publicized security breach on one of these networks could have serious ramifications across the entire industry.

For someone like Adam, this is the stuff that nightmares are made of. However, if we accept that knowledge is the best prevention in staving off these types of failures, Adam will tell you that the best three days he could have spent learning what he needed to know was at the MuniWireless event and I don't think it would be presumptuous to expect we will be seeing him at the Dallas show in March.

The Muni Network Administrator's Paradox.

2006-11-25T10:18:00.000-05:00

What will be our future needs?

What applications are not currently being used that will be after an upgrade?

Are Public Safety needs being met?

Are we going to choose to add voice to this upgraded environment?

What is the city environment like? Is there a "public need" to be able to access municipal resources?

A municipally owned and operated network that will provide access to municipal resources as well as providing Internet access to the community including those that may not currently have access. In addition, this network will provide for new services to enhance public safety and enhance the experience of everyone living or working in our city while encouraging community and economic development.

The race begins for the real assets in this industry.

2006-09-21T05:16:00.000-05:00

Without going into specifics, a number of interesting discussions have crossed my desk in the last few weeks which have forced me to look a little deeper into what is going on in this industry.

Let's look back for a minute and check out one of the parallels that we can point to for a glimpse of what is really going on here.

Back in the early 1980s, IBM introduced their Personal Computer and within a matter of months the industry grew to a point where the was a severe shortage of technicians to build, install and service these computers. This was a problem for several years moving forward as more of these systems sold and the ability to train people could not keep pace. Were there problems because of this? Absolutely! In one case a furniture retailer went out of business (and we all know that never happens!) and when the autopsy was complete it turned out that their accounting system had a "bug" that mistakenly showed more money in the bank than was actually there. One can see where that might become a problem very quickly. Had there been one sharp network engineer in the company, he might have caught the glitch and saved the company.

You know, for want of a nail...

What has happened in our industry now seems to be taking a parallel course as we now have municipalities and extremely large deployments planned yet the people who should be employed to design and build these networks are not participating in this work. In the last three months I have listened to some pretty serious examples of what would be considered malpractice if it was a medical case as the details of failed deployments are relayed to me, usually asking if I can fix them – as though a wave of a magic wand could fix designs that should have been questioned before a decision to purchase the equipment was made, let alone the full deployment built out.

Where this gets to be interesting is that this shows a complete failure of the entire process, from design through final approval. Of course, one would have to ask what good the review board is if they have little to no functional experience in this field - heck, many of these people have never even heard the term WISP before. I can't tell you have many times I have run into committees made up of a few ex-telecom employees (downsized out of a job) complimented by the office computer expert with some "networking" expert (I haven't quite figured out what the qualifications for that position are yet) thrown in to round out the experience. As best I can figure they probably should have invited a protologist to completely round out their combined skill sets.

Whether we are talking about “designers” that believed one could engineer a network where over a dozen 400Kbps video streams could reliably be pushed down a 5.5Mbps WiFi connection or multipath would somehow not be a factor in their deployments many of the mistakes being made are the same mistakes that some of the early WISPs learned the hard way. I was one of those people having made nearly all of the mistakes one could make – or so I would like to think. Yet, this process repeats itself and in this iteration we see the fingers being pointed in every direction except where they should be right back at the designers.

The reality is that designing a wireless infrastructure isn't as easy as deploying radios every X feet and then turning them on. Incredibly, this is the mindset of some of these “project engineers” who have extensive experience in setting up Linksys boxes in their homes to share an Internet connection with two notebooks or so one might think. Where some of these bigger metropolitan networks ever thought they were going to be rolling out adequate bandwidth based on a 512Kbps connection to even a 1Mbps connection to the end user shows a level of comprehension as to how the Internet actually works on par with Senator Stevens [R-Clogged Tubes]

We all know there is a widening gap in broadband happening in the industrialized world as many countries have outstripped the US in connecting their communities and I have heard all the excuses. If we dismiss all the excuses as nothing more than, well, excuses the bottom line is that we are not providing adequate connectivity for our businesses and individuals to effectively compete with the rest of the world – even though we are well ahead of many developing countries. GO TEAM!

Well, where is the real problem? That answer is actually easier to come by than we might want to believe. It is time for the people who made this industry to step forward and be employed in this endeavor. As I look back over the better part of the last decade I have seen many people struggle to learn how the pieces of this all fit together. Many dove in as complete novices, built networks while teaching themselves everything from RF theory through marketing and business management. There were some spectacular failures as we all know that one person companies are not going to be successful at being all things to all people. But that doesn't mean the lessons learned by many of these people aren't valuable – actually to anyone trying to build one of these networks out it should be invaluable.

Instead, I see large companies investing in people that have zero knowledge aside from what they read in an owners manual or what a manufacturer taught them in a two day class – with results that equal the effort and investment made.

If you really want to know where the value is in this industry, it is the people, many of them the original WISPs or more likely hobbyists who first started experimenting with this technology that is where everyone should be looking – not at the rocket surgeons that claim they have a clue. The funny thing is that there really aren't a large number of these people and out of that number many of them never actually “got it” in any kind of real way. This is where the near future is going to get very interesting – if you consider massive failures with blame being pointed at the technology or anything else that can be found to complete the CYA mandate as being interesting.

So, where are the assets in this industry?

The people.

Until then I will keep answering the phone and answering the same questions. Whether it is the large corporations or the municipal network people I keep hearing the same things asked of me and to be honest with you, if you have to ask where the ignition key goes you probably shouldn't be driving a car.

Validation?

2006-07-01T06:34:00.000-05:00

For the last three years I have sat in this chair, read voraciously and tried to predict what the near term future of this convoluted industry might look like two or three years out. Having no fear of publicly making an idiot out of myself, I have published these projections here and elsewhere for all to read knowing full well that if I am wrong, I will hear about it – and I have been wrong more than once.

That's why when I read something that seems to corroborate what I believe from a credible source I tend to react with a small bit of pride along with a healthy dose of trepidation knowing that whatever source I have found could also be just as wrong as I have been at times.

Perhaps this is nothing more than the old adage that misery loves company...

Yesterday was a red letter day for me in this regard as two different credible sources seem to have backed up what I have been saying for quite some time now! If we were to take either of these reports separately they would show some pretty interesting trends which might indicate some serious changes are coming down the pike but when read together the real impact of what this wireless revolution is about to wreak on our society.

As you've heard me say before, VoWiFi is going to cause the Cell Providers some discomfort. This article from Cellular News paints a mixed picture as it discusses how the cell phone industry might be able to leverage the License Exempt wireless infrastructure.

"This trend is likely to occur globally as operators seek to increase roaming usage as a boost to declining voice revenues. Visiongain believes that price reductions by operators will succeed in driving usage, allowing operators to tap into the 95% of subscribers who currently do not use roaming services whilst abroad.

VoIP through Wi-Fi will become an increasingly attractive alternative to mobile voice calls whilst roaming due to the disparity in price. Visiongain found that a typical voice call whilst roaming over Wi-Fi costs $0.02 per minute, compared with a typical cost of $1.25 per minute through mobile.

The increase in Wi-Fi hotspots world-wide is creating more opportunity for travelers to utilize VoIP services, therefore threatening mobile roaming revenues. In addition, visiongain believes that Nokia's entry into the Wi-Fi market with its converged GSM / Wi-Fi handset, the 6136, is significant because it legitimizes the technology's entry into the mobile handset market."

Now, you do need to understand that this article is written with a European perspective in mind so there is certainly a differential in pricing to be taken into consideration. However, the message is the same, cell phone providers are going to have to modify their pricing structure and this is being driven by the UMA (unlicensed mobile access) end of the industry.

I also found this short article that provides a little more information about the Nokia 6136 courtesy of Engadget.

While we are looking at the pioneers taking their first steps into this new field, the ramifications of what this will do to an industry that cannot withstand an onslaught like this, financially speaking, is going to be pretty interesting to watch unfold.

Well, where might this push the cell phone industry to pick up new revenue? There is the move to deliver “LiveTV” to mobile users as I wrote about here. But there is also the newest wrinkle being used in Japan dubbed the “Mobile Wallet” which may also help the cell phone providers – if they don't get beaten out by the WiFi industry first.

Okay, one down and one more very powerful one to go.

Next week, there is going to be a study released by Broadband Advisory Services (Pike and Ficher) that states, “City-run broadband networks could eventually cut into commercial service provider revenues by as much as 48%” which no matter how you look at it is going to change the landscape dramatically."

This report can be purchased here.

The question remains, what happens when large corporations that do not have 33% profit margins see a significant decrease in their revenues? Even more to the point, what happens when the cash cow (as defined by the densely populated areas of our country) migrate away from their very expensive services due to the introduction of less expensive equivalent services? At what point does their business model suffer? More importantly, at what point does their business model cease to be able to sustain itself?

I guess well find out.

Hang in there, the opportunities are coming at us faster than we can recognize and react to them.

MuniWireless-Silicon Valley – It just keeps getting better.

2006-06-29T06:27:00.000-05:00

For three days last week (June 19th through the 21st) the MuniWireless organization held their show in Santa Clara California. Attendance was (once again) up from their previous show in Atlanta and there is a reason for that – a well produced show, excellent topics and a list of great speakers that I was proud to be a part of.

By focusing in on the specific niche that this show targets it is possible to entice an interesting mix of attendees that span the spectrum from free community wireless groups, non-profit organizations trying to better the world like Green-WiFi and to some of the largest corporations in the world, like IBM, Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics as well as representative of some of the larger cities that are considering building municipal networks.

It is exactly this mix of people that makes for the kind of cross-educational exchange that many of us find so valuable. While the sessions covered a wide range of interesting topics most of my time was spent networking with people outside of the sessions. It is really difficult to fully take in any exceptionally well put together show so we are all forced to make decisions as to what we will participate in and what we will have for forgo in order to get what we believe will deliver the best experience for us on an individual basis. In this particular case, I made the decision to not attend many excellent sessions that I am sure I would have learned an incredible amount in so I could interact with people, quite literally, from all over the world. In all honesty, if the show had been scheduled for an entire week I am not sure I would have had enough time to take in everything that was offered.

This show also had a larger selection of vendors than the previous show. While many of the names that were there are well known to us all, there were a few interesting additions that I had not seen before. I am hoping to do a dedicated piece on a few of these manufacturers like Netistix and Wavion in the near future as both of these companies offer products that are outside of the norm.

There is a deeper issue that I would like to bring up, one that should be discussed more often but is often overlooked when we discuss an event like MuniWireless, one that has a benefit that I am not sure many people in attendance understand is what kind of alliances are formed, what kind of ideas are spawned and can we really even begin to understand what dramatic effects a gathering of minds like this show creates has on the longer term benefit to society. In different discussions that I was part of I heard plans to help connect people in India, plans to integrate automobiles into the communications platforms as well as serious concepts at fixing communications after disasters. The diverse brain power coupled with an incredible energy that resonated at this show was unmistakable. One very important point was made clear, individuals, businesses both small as well as huge, organizations and governments are looking at problems – real problems – and doing something about them.

If we amplify this thought, we see that no longer is profit solely the motivator in this case, many of the people there were representing non-profit organizations. What we are seeing is a melding of business and private groups coming together to address problems so as to provide solutions that the majority can accept. We see the Electronic Frontier Foundation discussing privacy issues with Google in an attempt to find a way that both sides can live with. We get introduced to organizations such as Wireless Harlem presenting their vision along with groups like Seakay working to find the right mix of partnership to make their corner of the world a better place. Perhaps, most of all, in the center of this all, is one woman, Esme Vos whose vision, energy and determination has driven this once unheard of slice of the wireless industry straight into the public spotlight and we can now all clearly see what she has know for quite some time now, that this is only a start.

The best is yet to come.

The hidden impact of ubiquitous video distribution.

2006-06-24T08:40:00.000-05:00

Over the last week a couple of news articles caught my eye with respect to the distribution of video across the Internet. In the past few articles I have written I have primarily focused on the aspect of what the network operators might be looking at as a real impact due to video becoming a dominant use of the connectivity infrastructure.

Take, for a specific example, the cell phone providers as they struggle to build out/upgrade the necessary infrastructure so they can supply LiveTV to their users as just one way we can see the push to accommodate user demand for this application.

The same holds true for cable or DSL as we move towards an all HDTV video standard and the user does not want to wait for ...Buffering...Buffering...Buffering...Buffering... content to be viewable or have their viewing experience interrupted as they are just starting to enjoy themselves – not that it has ever happened to me or anything.

While all of that is certainly true and important to our discussions there is a slightly deeper impact that seems to be crawling out into the light, one that is going to profoundly impact the way our society moves forward, one that will change the way we learn and communicate. There is a time in the not too distant future where we will no longer have to settle for average.

What do I specifically mean when I say that we will no longer have to settle for average?

If we were to look at any given profession we would find that the overwhelming majority of time we are dealing with the average performance – as they say DUH, that is the definition of average. However, what happens when we have a communications based society where only the very best see the mass distribution of their work. I am not talking about the very best in the sense of people, even thought that will undoubtedly have an impact but rather only the cream of the crop ever making the mainstream distribution channels. What happens to this society when only the most inspired lectures be granted the right to be distributed across the Internet? Even more important, how do we define the best? Will there be a user feedback section where if 99% of the viewers leave excellent ratings will the next group of people only view that one particular video out of all the choices?

If we were to use the example of an on-line class on any given subject we could envision a scenario where many professors would record their course and release it for viewing. I would suggest that as time progresses the students that watched the course would then rate the content for ease of understanding, charisma and organization among other criteria. Even though we would have several excellent people all trying to present this course material the one or perhaps two that were most effective (as rated by the students) would eventually become the “standard” until someone else managed to produce a “better” video assuming they could overcome the momentum built up from several thousands positive feedback ratings on the standard.

The implication is that professionally produced content with an eye toward capturing the audience's attention and conveying the message will at some point displace the rest of the people in the field that are involved in providing the same subject material. At that point there will be only one option left for the content providers that are deemed less than the best of category and that would be for them to release their material into the public domain. This also creates an interesting problem because if there is a parity in the quality of the material the viewing audience will almost always gravitate toward the free content (or advertising supported content, as long as it doesn't degrade from the viewing experience) leaving less of a paying audience for the previous provider.

What does this say if we apply this scenario to the education industry? Are we moving towards a society that doesn't need hundreds of thousands of educators? Will we at some point reach a time where only a few very professional content producers will manufacturer every lecture we will need to see to continually keep up with our education? Will we reach a point where teachers will be reduced to content writers and the face on the screen will only read the content possibly without even fully comprehending what is being said?

Even more important, what will be the overall effect on a society that only sees one perspective or one presentation of any given subject? Could this happen in such a technological future as we might possibly foresee or will this very mechanism allow for the rapid distribution of content and since we now have an almost instantaneous communications infrastructure to get the message across we will now have the ability to comment and produce even better content to displace the previous content?

To be honest with you, I don't know. At the same time I do see a time in the not too distant future where the mechanism of how we learn (or exchange our information, news and entertainment) will morph into a very different stream. As TV shows like The Daily Show start to displace the Evening News one has to wonder if education, entertainment and news will all become one as we move forward.

I do know that no longer will we have to settle for an average day by the average speaker as being acceptable and I, for one, welcome that change.

Handwriting on the wall...

2006-06-16T13:43:00.000-05:00

Some interesting opinions and information delivered to me courtesy of the Internet has driven me to take a stab at where we might be headed and what impact we may see in the coming years.

First off, Cringley released an interesting perspective that discusses where TV (if you can even call it that) might be headed. Whether you think these opinions are off base or right on the money probably depends on your perspective. At the same time, it is pretty evident to everyone (with the possible exception of the Incumbents) that video entertainment has evolved past the channel/time selection process.

One thing I can say for sure is the list of video on demand sites has grown substantially over the last year or two. Heck, even the definition of video on demand has changed. There was a time when VoD was defined as being able to choose whatever TV show or movie you wanted to view being able to be delivered to you on your schedule - not necessarily when the television station, movie theater or distributor said you could watch it.

Whether we look at sites like YouTube, Google Video, IFilm, Sputnik7 or many of the sites that cover that other kind of video that we won't mention, video is now becoming one of the main forms of entertainment Internet surfers are going after.

But that is only looking at the content download side of the equation, where does this content come from? Strangely, from the general public - and this trend is about to really take off as the combination of inexpensive digital video cameras combines with video editing software to allow anyone with the time, money and desire to produce video content.

I see this trend as putting a stake right through the heart of the traditional distribution avenues. Let's face it, Napster forever changed the way music is not only distributed but allowed to find its way into the mainstream. It is now possible for bands that have never been signed to have listeners all over the globe without ever once seeing the inside of a Music Industry controlled studio. And now the same is about to happen to the TV and movie industry.

This also has ramifications all the way down the line. It isn't just the television and movie studios that will see serious changes, it is the video rental stores, music stores as well as cable and satellite TV distribution networks. The same holds true for radio stations as well as local TV stations - except for this last group who will now see new opportunities open up for them based solely on talent and content.

Instead of some plastic Barbie doll talking head being the star of the hour, now we actually might seen people from God knows where being piped into our homes across IPTV or Internet radio stations that we choose based solely on content and talent. Imagine, I can now get rid of the bimbo and have someone with brains and a sense of humor deliver me my news! There is also the very real chance (as Cringley mentioned) that this could be the rebirth of local content. You might recall that I wrote about a gentleman I met from Montreal who was using off-the-shelf SANS storage boxes in conjunction with hot spot locations to distribute local content very inexpensively. It is this kind of innovation that will create the necessary capsizing of these entrenched industries and allow for the innovation we really need to see to happen.

Where the handwriting seems to be pointing is somewhere deliberate - somewhere we cannot undo or shy away from, a place where the status quo will not remain but instead evolve into something unrecognizable.

It will also be a very different world, one very foreign to people who aren't keeping track of the changes.

On a somewhat related note, let's take a look at this study about teenagers and their Net usage patterns.

If what is being documented in this study is correct, our kids (early adopters of technology that they are) will have several streams of media coming at them concurrently and "ubertask" until the break of dawn.

There's a fourteen year old that lives in this house, one that I get to watch. At any given moment he has a half dozen chat windows open, a forum where he is casually posting to, a voxel editor open designing bits and pieces for game modding as well as watching a video at different times. When he gets bored of that he'll open up a game and attach to a server where he will play with other people from all over the world while chatting with them at the same time.

One the other hand, I have finally learned that doing two things at the same time for me is the definition of half-assed.

But I watch very well, I learn and I try to bring you all here what I pick up.

Good luck keeping up with it all, forewarned is prepared only if you take notice and do something about it.

The complete loss of control.

2006-05-08T06:24:00.000-05:00

For those of you who read these writings regularly, understanding the running theme that sovereign nations' physical borders are very quickly becoming meaningless is a regular subject here. Whether we choose to understand that the Internet is changing our lives in ways we really can't begin to fathom or acknowledge that almost everything we do in our lives is being influenced by this new communications platform makes little difference, the “net effect” is there nonetheless.

If you need a few concrete examples, some of the laws proposed by well-intentioned but clueless members of the United States Congress with respect to copyrighted materials or even pornography would be a good place to start. But other, less publicized stories are probably showing the impact of technology, oftentimes done by only a few people in a dark basement are making major changes in the way this infrastructure will influence the future.

Take these three gentlemen, the creators of Psiphon, which is a incredibly disruptive technology designed to skirt censorship in countries like China, Iran and Saudi Arabia among others. This latest version of the pick that opens the newest lock is another push in the direction of loss of control by a sovereign nation as to what is acceptable use for their citizens to use the Internet.

If we look to the examples I used earlier that the US Congress is trying to enact, we can see a corollary between the US government's enforcement of morality and the Chinese government's enforcement of “acceptable information” and how neither country is really fully capable of any kind of real control.

In the case of the United States, we have the somewhat difficult regulation which allows the local community to set their own standards as to what is considered to be obscene. The “I know it when I see it.” law (clearly detailed here) is now becoming almost unintelligible as the entire world becomes our local community.

When the US Congress wanted to make hosting pornography more difficult, the “Adult Entertainment industry” simply moved their hosting business offshore to countries that have no such regulations. The net effect to the subscribers of this service? In all reality, none.

What is happening here is a migration from what control a government actually has over their citizens. While there is certainly the implied understanding that is someone is caught violating local law they can and probably will be dealt with the other side of the discussion must include how much longer it will be possible for local governments to even be able to monitor their citizens or control their activity.

The ramifications of this is nothing short of staggering.

What happens when a government loses control over many of the aspects they used to believe they had the right to control? Do they mandate that we will have to comply? And if they do and too many people refuse to listen? Would this lead to a situation like what happened with Prohibition where prosecutors were unable to get convictions and the law was overturned? How about the “war on drugs” and how successfully that is being waged? We have the highest percentage of population of any industrialized country in the world incarcerated in “for profit” prisons and drug use still hasn't declined in any real measurable way.

Are we looking at a fundamental breakdown in how our system works? If more and more laws are passed to prevent the free exchange of material (yes, even objectionable materials) how long before we reach a state where very few people are actually complying with these laws? How long before we come to the conclusion that government is no longer serving the majority of the people? But most importantly, at what point does the local government secede control to the greater world since it can no longer filter what can and cannot be exchanged?

It appears that the next revolution will be carried live on the Internet. The strange thing is that I don't think a fair number of people understand that it is happening right now, as you read this and it is gaining momentum very, very quickly.

We all know change is coming. If history has taught us anything (and that is still up for debate) change has been one constant and no matter how much we try to fight it change will continue to happen. The real question that needs to be addressed is can we shape this change or should we learn to graciously accept it?

My concerns are that we will refuse to acknowledge it and fight harder against it. Where the real problem comes in is the rate change is occurring. Technology has passed the point of innovation happening at breakneck speed and has now become so pervasive that it has reached the point of overwhelming for the majority of us.

And that is where the real contention lies.
We will learn to adapt or cease to be relevant.
Thankfully, there are some truths that never change.

The Community-Centric Network.

2006-04-29T06:57:00.000-05:00

Okay, I get it!

I admit, I completely missed the point and I missed it for years but I do get it now.

What am I talking about?

The mindset in which a communications infrastructure needs to be planned around. For the longest time I focused in on the "business model" (something we all know is critical in sustainability) as well as the diversity of services that can/should be carried on the network. I have had incredible arguments with people over what a realistic ROI should look like and why grant money (read my tax dollars) being used against local businesses (like my business) was a self-defeating concept. At the same time I saw the total benefit of these networks as being centered on Broadband as well as providing different services all the while totally missing the point - all of it, every bit of it, is meaningless unless the community - every last member of the community - is getting benefit from the deployment.

What does this mean? I mean what does this really mean?

The fallacy is that a communications platform should be a business first is wrong - very wrong. A communications network is a benefit to the community, one that when properly implemented serves the community but does so in a way unlike other utilities. This may be the very first instance where we will see a real dramatic drop in real costs to any given area while increasing a myriad of services - but only if the design, build and most importantly the implementation is executed right from the conception to the actual launch with the community foremost in the designer's mind.

Why is this different?

Let's look at how the typical sales cycle would work in a fictitious network sale.

The salesperson contacts "Mr. Interested Party" and starts to explain all of the benefits of their product and what it will mean to "Mr. Interested Party's" captive audience. As with every good salesperson, only the features will be touted leaving any unpleasant details out of the conversation because, after all, who likes to bring up unpleasantries?

Remember, "Mr. Interested Party" isn't usually a highly trained technical guy, he is the man given the questionable task of gathering all the details, learning as he goes, and trying to make sense of it all in a three page report to "The Governing Body" who will eventually be charged with making a decision. Occasionally, "The Governing Body" will appoint "A Committee" which is another group of well intentioned people who have the function of interfacing with "Mr. Interested Party" and trying to learn as they go but really the only function "A Committee" serves is to help spread the blame around in case everything goes badly.

What needs to be kept in mind is that "Mr. Interested Party" is depending on salespeople to provide him with everything he needs to know so he can then regurgitate all of these facts back to "A Committee" allowing them to make an educated choice. And, as we all know (including "Mr. Interested Party") salespeople are always a reliable source of unbiased information.

Eventually, this entire process comes to an end and a vote is taken allowing one or another salesperson to get a huge commission. Where the story goes from there is really up in the air. Based on my experience there is never a time when everyone (I mean like every single one of the people being governed by "The Governing Body") is satisfied but that is human nature and we probably shouldn't take that too seriously.

But this is how it works, what should we be doing differently?

Stated in its most basic form, we should be working from the bottom up, not the salesperson down.

What? What the heck does that mean?

This is a very simple process, one that takes the entire community's perspective into account and aims to make sure that as big a percentage as possible not only takes part in the process but sets the boundaries for the process.

I see this process as taking on another tact when the decision comes to attack this problem. First, there needs to be a survey as to what the community needs. This survey should be centered on several things including first and foremost how this network will save the community money - real money. Once that issue has been addressed we then need to ask the community what services the community feels is important to them. Broadband might be one service but what about things like access to government services or reducing the time it takes to get answers out of their government? Will this network allow for interaction between more people and their government? If so, how?

Next up, but every bit as important, how will this network benefit ME? Seriously, we live in a society that is only really concerned about "ME" so let's look at how this infrastructure will make MY life better - and I don't mean indirectly. If I have an accident will this network improve the response time from the police department, fire department and the ambulance squad if I need one? Will I be getting better treatment while I am being transported to the hospital because of the network? Will traffic be routed around the accident scene and will the tow truck be dispatched any faster so that my neighbors will not be stuck in line (ah, never mind, that's not really important to me - forget them, I might have been hurt and after all, who is important to ME?)

How about senior citizens, how will this improve their quality of life? Will they be able to live in their homes longer while having a safer life? Will the kids in our community also be benefited directly because of this network? Will a gaming server be set up so they can utilize this type of entertainment? Will there be a chat board set up, hopefully one with enough foresight to be multi-generational - not that adults or senior citizens don't already have enough interaction with our kids, right?

How about education? No, not that education, I mean real, quality continuing education. We all know the Internet has become the largest inactive library on the planet allowing anyone to learn just about anything they might want. Will this new infrastructure allow for local information to be stored there for retrieval? Will WWII veterans be able to share their history with many of the kids who have an interest in that black and white war? How about the retelling of what it was like to live through the Depression? These stories could be gathered locally and be made available for posterity - because if there is anything we can all agree on, posterity needs this.

Education? EDUCATION? Forget that, I want entertainment. Let's face it, we could all have the Smithsonian in our backyards and a sizable portion of the residents wouldn't even walk out back to see what it was. So, in addressing these people (hey, they're part of the community too!) we need to explain how this network will benefit them also.

But probably the single most important question out there is how will this network help me financially? Will it allow me to make more money by working less hours? Certainly, there are a ton of nice people in Nigeria that want to reach out and touch someone but what about all those foreign lotteries I keep hearing about? Hey, I hear there's online gambling that will certainly help me pay my bills - as long as you own that online casino.

Seriously, how does this network help me in my career? Can I now get a job that allows me to work from the comfort of my home? Will this network allow me to telecommute, not only saving me time and money but allowing me a choice - a real choice - on where I choose to live? Will video conferencing be a reality as well as real LAN connections to the corporate office from my home so I can get my work done? Will this help lower my company's total cost of operation so I will get a pay raise based on there being more money in the company's bank? (Okay, I admit, that's not going to happen.)

How does this process happen?

The answer is amazingly simple, change the current perception of how we think the process should be handled.

No kidding. Sometimes the most complex situations have the simplest answers.

Get ready, you're about to be screwed – again.

2006-04-28T06:56:00.000-05:00

It has been a busy week in Washington, one with a lot of ramifications. I especially enjoy the slight of hand tricks that we are sometimes treated to when we are told watch what's in my right hand as the left hand holds the key.

What was this week's distraction? Net Neutrality!

But wait, you say, Net Neutrality is important and you would be right – except that while you were watching the right hand the left hand was really setting you up for the fall. I suppose some accolades are in order for the people (and I use that term with all the artistic license I can muster) who “engineered” this bill, they managed a coup that will cost this country in immeasurable ways for decades to come.

What we have been handed is not only a loss on Net Neutrality but also one on “anti-redlining” something that if you live in an underserved or unserved area, you have just been condemned to a second class citizenhood for the foreseeable future.

As quoted from this article,

“An anti-redlining amendment offered by Baldwin, D-Wis., lost 20-28 and was one of several such efforts to fail.

The committee did approve an amendment offered by chairman Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, that set it up so that refusal to serve homes based on income could cost a phone company up to $50,000 per day in fines until a remedy had been enacted.

However, Orton said that amendment names the Federal Communications Commission as the governing authority, rather than the local franchising body.”

What does this mean? Well, if the larger broadband providers do not feel your neighborhood will generate enough profit to justify a buildout of next generation services (read fiber) you are simply screwed. While it would still be illegal for these providers to refuse service to homes based on income there is nothing that says they would have to provide service in these neighborhoods.

To put that in perspective, if your community does not justify a multimillion dollar FTTH deployment you can quite literally expect to see economic development as well as any kind of next generation services (HDTV over fiber, Telecommuting, etc) to just not be available to you or anyone else in your community. I would think it wouldn't take a lot of brains to understand that you and your community will not be competitive with other communities if you cannot utilize the inexpensive services (relatively speaking) they have at their disposal. In other words, this might be a good time for you to consider getting into the plywood business, it will only be a matter of time before your town is the 21rst century equivalent of a gold mining town when the gold ran out.

From my viewpoint, we could compare this to the US having allowed telephone and electricity to only be deployed in those wealthy neighborhoods on this country. How wealthy a nation would we be now had we made those choices back then? What if we had decided to only pave roads in those same neighborhoods or connected interstate highways from wealthy area to wealthy area?

Naturally, we wouldn't have done that. If we had there would have been no way for food and other agricultural goods as well as the manufactured products to be transported inexpensively to the wealthy. And we all know the wealthy do not what slaughterhouses and manufacturing plants in close proximity to their homes.

Funny, the same thing holds true today but instead of agricultural goods as well as manufactured items we will now see a large portion of our “intellectual capacity” being left without the necessary virtual transportation infrastructure to bring their products/services to market.

If there is one thing I believe we can learn from history, it is the total population of our country that adds to the greater good – not just the wealthy. As we move forward into this new millennium, one where we are really not sure what the currency of the day will be, we need to understand that should we choose to leave a significant portion of our population out of the greater economy we also leave what might be some of our next generation's economic powerhouses out of the loop.

The ironic thing is that these corporations need to have an aggregate population that will provide all of the incredible diversity and richness the web has become for without it there really isn't anything to do on the web, now is there? Remember, it was the idea of an Ebay, started quietly out of the public view as well as multitudes of other incredible ideas that has made the net what it is today. Take away the ability for these ideas to hatch out of whatever off the beaten path they come from and we all lose.

But don't worry, everything is fine, there aren't any problems we should be concerned about and American Idol will be on in a few minutes.

High Definition Web - the oncoming onslaught.

2006-04-23T10:56:00.000-05:00

It is no secret that surfing the net has taken on a very different dimension since the early days when many of us started. There was a time when dialup over a 2400 baud modem was “adequate” and one could view just about anything they wanted if they had a modicum of patience. The compromise was a very stark web where color was used but graphics were kept to an absolute minimum. According to this site web pages have become static in size at somewhere around 60K being the optimal size. I found several other sites that also provided pretty much the same measurement but I need you to understand all of these sites were dated and used a 20 second benchmark time for load over a 56K dialup connection. Google has an amazing total size of 12K which is why many people use it as their homepage.

It's no secret that a written message (email, forum posting, etc) does not carry the same weight in understanding of nuance as someone actually speaking “face to face” with you. This is a well known problem that has lead to the use of those annoying emoticons we see all over the place. As we all also know the inclusion of a picture (or pictures) will assist in getting the message accurately across but even though engineers have understood this process for centuries we still have a fair amount of miscommunication. With the decrease in time communication now takes (realistically approaching instantaneous) coupled with knowing that the wrongly interpreted message has at one time or another caused a war to break out, it doesn't take a genius to realize we need to improve communications in every way we can.

Where are we headed?

Well, courtesy of Slashdot, I was directed to this article that talks about where web pages are more than likely headed. Let's face it, broadband has redefined what we can do with the web and as we cross the point where the majority of users here in the US now have broadband this limit that has been imposed by dialup is now going to be abandoned.

Enter a new medium rich with high definition graphics as well as multimedia applications. We will see the texture of the web change dramatically, one where dialup will now be relegated to the dust bin of technical museums much like the trusty 300 baud modems of yesteryear.

How soon will this happen?

I am not sure anyone can correctly address the date when the entire web will be converted to high definition browsing but I can say that once it gets started history has shown that a better quality application (music, television, whatever) usually becomes adopted very quickly once the price point drops to where it is easily affordable. If we apply this supposition to the adoption by audiophiles to the best quality audio equipment available or the rapid adoption of High Definition TV we can rapidly see that once someone has been exposed to or acquired a taste for excellent quality audio/video experiences they will rarely opt to return to “AM radio” quality. I wonder if the adoption of “Cell Phone Quality” voice communications will one day be replaced with full fidelity voice communications. I know that we are willing to accept the miserable quality of cell phone conversations in order to have the capability to receive calls just about everywhere but I am sure nobody is overly pleased with it. I believe the same holds true with WebCams. We will tolerate 3-5 frames per second at a very low resolution but this would easily be replaced if 30 FPS at high definition levels were to become available.

So, what does this mean?

We will now start to see web locations that will be able to take advantage of the maximum definition of this latest generation of monitors. Imagine how beautiful an 8 Megapixel background image on a web site would look. At the same time there are applications for this technology in many developing nations where the illiteracy rates are through the roof. Conversely, the problem we all can see coming is that these nations are the last to be able to afford this technology even though I see them as possibly being the ones that will change that.

As we all know the scale of economics is the underlying basis for the cost of most equipment. If GigE radios were produced at a rate of 10 million per month the cost per unit would probably fall into the range of WiFi. If this technology were to be specifically designed for the outdoor deployment of communications and the necessary bandwidth were to be allocated this transformation could easily happen in the next decade. The benefit to all would be staggering.

This also supports the IPTV model as well as many other platforms that we can see coming but we are not quite sure how we will deliver them. Add to that the unknown business model that makes this service a reality and there is a lot of work to be done before we will see anything like a worldwide adoption of this communications platform. At some point, we will see radio, television, voice, data, video conferencing as well as just about everything else that can be converted to a digital bitstream be carried over this new infrastructure. At the same time this will free up wide swaths of spectrum from the cell phone providers, the licensed microwave users, radio, television and a myriad of other spectrum users that will now be able to share this common pipe we are discussing.

What will be the driving force behind this transformation?

My guess is desperation, desperation by a country that has little or no choice in the matter. As a matter of fact I could see this as also being instituted in a disaster zone like what was created in the wake of the tsunami or after Katrina. In both cases the length of time and overall expense necessary to put everything back to where it was cannot and should not be justified. This is a “greenfield” opportunity to strive for something better, experiment with new ways of doing things and move forward. Of course, we all know that instituting a change like this on a massive scale is going to cause some consternation among those who stand to lose – especially if they stand to lose big. If we look at which companies are in a position to lose their control over their markets we find a uniform pattern that closely matches up with the same group that are already losing control of their markets. IP Radio is huge and it is just getting started. IPTV, the promise is there however the infrastructure isn't ready for it quite yet. Telecommunication and advanced data services? Please, they should shut off the lights and just go home.

This isn't about disruptive technologies any more, it is now an all out open warfare based on the best business model. The day of tying stuff to petrified sticks stuck in the ground is now rapidly coming to a close. This is closely followed by the 1930s mentality that each operator needs to have their own slice of spectrum to provide its service even if this means that huge areas have zero utilization of this band.

There was a time when the WISP field seemed like David and Goliath. Those days have ended and a new era has begun. This is the time when the horseless carriage will have to do what it can to prevent the automobile from dominating the field. There are case studies where one industry has overcome another, street cars were almost completely replaced in California at one point but eventually even that tactic dies off. California is now rebuilding the mass transit system to alleviate the congestion on their roads as well as providing choice for their residents. Ironically, even as this progression continues the communications industry is now working to reduce the need for transportation as we usher in a time of telecommuting.

Look out, this is going to come in fast. As usual, the aware among us will get it and the rest will be taken by surprise. It will be those who adapt that will prosper and the rest will curse their luck.

Remember, luck is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration. I would like to add that (channeling Yogi Berra) the other half is researching understanding good, solid information.

It's the public's perceived value that justifies the network.

2006-04-06T08:13:00.000-05:00

Every once in a while even an “expert” like myself has one of those humbling experiences that drives home the point that I really don't know anything at all. While I welcome those instances, as they usually are times when I learn a lot, I will also willingly admit that these occurrences tend to be more than a little unnerving to someone who has always believed that I knew everything there was to know.

As they say, pride goeth before a fall...

I had the pleasure of attending the Wireless Summit in St. Charles, MO last week/weekend. While I would be the first to tell you that one never knows what any trade show, conference or event will turn out like, this one was very different from what I was expecting.

The Pre-Conference show on Friday featured many of the speakers that I had seen at the MuniWireless show in Atlanta a few weeks back so there was a repetition of information in many ways for me – even though it was all excellent information. Among others, Jonathan Baltuch of MRI and Jeff King of Northrop Grumman presented pretty much the same information they did in Atlanta – but sometimes the second time I hear something different points resonate with me. In this case Jonathan really hit home and I believe it was the fact that much of what he said became intertwined with other messages during this weekend.

Let me also take a moment to mention that Sascha Meinrath managed to bring together a very wide range of people with very varied backgrounds to come together and exchange differing viewpoints – something which is not only difficult to do but also to orchestrate. Let me clearly state that it is people of vision that can understand the value of events like this and Sascha definitely meets that criteria.

Okay, on to the meat (or soy, for those of you who would prefer) of the matter...

This industry is evolving (DUH) and as soon as there appears one model that “revolutionizes” the way we look at these networks someone else comes along and adds to that model. For whatever reason, I try to keep track of these changes, document this evolution (perhaps punctuated equilibrium might be a more apt term) and package it for everyone to follow along with. I suggested the term “punctuated equilibrium“ as opposed to “evolution” because I see it as a better fit. We don't slowly evolve in a steady process but rather make leaps forward. As a specific example the term Municipal Wireless became part of our vocabulary as few years back and now that term (or the shortened MuniWireless) is used by everything from city officials to the main stream media. So too is the term Community Wireless even though it is not as popular – yet.

What I find amazing is the fact we are seeing a fragmentation happening in this field and an artificial fragmentation at that. Is there really a need for the term Community Wireless or have Municipalities now stopped being communities? Where this distinction was made last weekend seemed to be in the ownership of the network, did the Municipality (meaning the government) own this infrastructure or should the Community own the actual network? Can we trust the local government to own and operate this infrastructure or must control be maintained by the entire community (or as many people who wish to assume responsibility for this communications platform) be given the responsibility to run it. I would suggest that there is no one absolute solution which should work in every case and the flexibility to create whatever the community itself wants needs to be allowed for the maximum amount of freedom to be encouraged.

I would submit that each model has its advantages and corresponding flaws. While the Municipality has more resources and the ability to leverage these resources in significantly more ways they also tend to move very slowly and in a field that changes by the minute this could be a serious drawback. There is always the concern about free speech and censorship – something that each ownership scenario has to deal with. Regardless of whether the network is owned by the Municipality or the residents can lead to local control and perhaps the outright banning of content that the powers that be find offensive. For a clear definition of what I mean, think of a town that decides that only “approved content” will be allowed on “their” network. As an aside, I have seen ISPs make the statement that they do not want “obscene content” traveling over “their” networks which kind of defeats the entire concept of a “free” Internet. Ah well, I'll leave that discussion for another day.

This does bring up the point that what are these networks real purpose in our society? To my way of thinking, the answer to that question would be, to bring the greatest good to the most people – as they themselves define what is good for themself. This is the key to this discussion and something that needs to be explored further.

What started off as being a discussion directly concerning the Internet really needs to be reshaped into an entirely different discussion.

How so? I'm glad I asked.

One of my recent disagreements with many in this community has been to try to educate people that a WiFi cloud over a community should only be a small part of the entire package – a very small part. If we look at what the CONXX (yes, the company I work for) has managed to supply in the way of useful services to a community we find a multitude of very valuable services being employed on a 24 hour a day basis with zero WiFi involved – even though we are now looking at adding WiFi into the mix.

What we need to be looking at here is the need for the full range of services that can and must be part of just about any Municipal Network as well as included in any Community Network. Jeff King gave his presentation about how much money AMR (Automatic Meter Reading) saves the City of Corpus Christi, TX. This is a real application that utilizes the wireless cloud in a way that provides not only measurable saving to the community but also removes a very real risk to the city workers that used to perform that job. The same holds true with Public Safety utilizing the network or the very real saving that can be realized for government in the form of cost avoidance through utilizing the services a high quality wireless infrastructure can provide as opposed to paying the traditional telecommunications industry for voice and advanced data services. This isn't small amounts of money we are talking about here, it can be quite substantial and that translates into very real savings directly to the taxpayer. This is an indirect value these networks bring to an area and there are quite literally hundreds more.

Even better, what I learned this weekend is that there are innovations that when allowed to flourish will bring even greater value to any given network. I met an very interesting gentleman from Montreal (I am sorry, I didn't catch his name) who is rolling out a pretty spectacular multimedia platform and an inexpensive one at that. What he is doing is using SAN boxes like this one to roll out a “local content” service in his city.

How this concept works is very simple, he takes one of these boxes, fills it up with all kinds of local content from the area's best bands, independent film makers, amateur news reporters as well as photographs from local photographers and deploys these boxes in the city's various hot spots. This allows the people of Montreal to go to their favorite coffee shop, grab an espresso, open up their laptop computers and browse through a half a gig's worth of constantly changing content. The content is rotated during non-business hours over the establishment's Internet connection and is ready for the next day's audience.

The artists that contribute content get exposure to the public as well as being able to include advertising for their schedule and the same holds true for the artists in any digital medium carried on these boxes. This is a win/win/win for the establishment that hosts the boxes as it provides an incentive for customers to stop in at their place, helps the local artists get exposure as well as the establishments that are also featuring the artists – and all for a few hundred dollars of hardware as well as some dedicated effort.

This was only one of the many excellent ideas that were presented at the Wireless Summit. While I like to think I stay on top of things it is nice to sometimes get that reality check and be taken down a peg.

Where this all ties back into the network is the most important point - It is the cumulation of all of these services that brings about the real and total value of these networks. It is not just about WiFi access to the Internet, it is about everything we do to leverage the use of this platform that justifies the expenditure. To say it another way, it is not all the "gee whiz" technology we employ, it is the enhancement to daily life where the real effect is made.

No one is arguing that these networks are not expensive – when they are built correctly they are very expensive. What we are saying is that based on the measurable improvements in the quality of life we are now documenting the investment (regardless of how hefty it may be perceived to be) provides a very solid return to a wider segment of the population than perhaps a skateboard park or a basketball court would. While I have nothing against either basketball courts or skateboard parks in a world with finite resources we need to make sure the majority of resources provide the best value to the majority of people.

Forget Disruptive Technology - How about Disruptive Regulation?

2006-03-22T08:06:00.000-05:00

In the last few days we have been treated to exactly how powerful a change in the regulations that govern the telecommunications industry can be.

Take, for example, the new dynamic that faces any of the ILECs legitimate competitors if they depend on the "ILEC's network" to deliver services. As of yesterday, Verizon has been granted Forbearance, a term that basically means that Verizon now has almost complete control over "their" network and can make it difficult for anyone to either buy transport on their network (should they choose to do so) and now the big prize is whether they even have to provide service to any competitor.

This morning I read that AT&T is filing "Me Too" paperwork to ensure they now have the same basic rights as their competition in this respect.

Check out this quote from this article,

One analyst said that AT&T and other incumbent telephone carriers could be at a disadvantage when competing against Verizon for business customers if the FCC delayed acting on requests for similar regulatory relief.

"It's certainly possible they will gain similar deregulation, at least eventually; but if there is a delay, Verizon could gain a temporary regulatory advantage, which could be particularly important in the traditional enterprise competition between AT&T and Verizon in the latter's region," said Blair Levin, an analyst with Stifel, Nicolaus & Co.

It goes without saying that we can't have one side of Ma Bell having an advantage over the other side - even if that advantage is okay over the rest of their competition.

There is also the ongoing debate as to whether or not any of the ILECs need to ensure QoS of anyone's traffic when it crosses their network (Net Neutrality) which translates into the stark reality that should this be allowed any competitor's traffic might be slowed down to the point of unusable all the while providing the larger carriers the ability to charge a "tariff" to carry traffic from high demand sites (like Google) even if these sites already pay to connect to the net.

So, here's an interesting question...

Why aren't we (we, as in municipalities) looking at using legislation to level the playing field? One piece of legislation that comes to mind is the relatively recent ruling by the Supreme Court clarifying the use of Eminent Domain.

The following quotes as confirmed in the article (linked above) presents both sides of the issue.

"Promoting economic development is a traditional and long-accepted function of government," - Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the majority

"The court today significantly expands the meaning of public use," O'Connor wrote. "It holds that the sovereign may take private property currently put to ordinary private use, and give it over for new, ordinary private use." - Justice Sandra Day O'Connor

I guess the question is, can we consider a strand of fiber to be property and if so, can it be "taken" under Eminent Domain for use by either a municipality or a private party as long as it can be shown that the overall benefit is for the common good? I would further argue that Economic Development has long been considered "common good" and that there is adequate proof that affordable broadband does stimulate Economic Development.

It seems to me the next step would be for us to set in motion the mechanism to "take" the necessary fiber strands that would allow broadband to be brought into many of the unserved or underserved areas and begining deploying broadband for the public good.

Without question, it can be shown that waiting for the big companies to deliver ubiquitous and inexpensive broadband has been nothing but an exercise in frustration and has cost many communities a lot of public good.

Have at it.

The Digital Divide is dead! - Long live the Digital Divide!

2006-03-21T07:51:00.000-05:00

I ran across this organization yesterday who published this report warning pfd file which states that,

"This evidence is encouraging, since it demonstrates that the benefits of these new services are not leaving behind most large segments of the population. To the extent that historical reports have identified a digital divide, this study provides evidence that that much of the divide has narrowed in most cases to statistical insignificance.

Well, I for one am glad that problem was taken care of.

I did find this quote (taken from the same report) that has me wondering.

The exception, however, is that rural consumers appear to use more dial-up services and less broadband services, either because reasonably priced broadband services are still not available in some rural communities, or that rural consumers have less demand for broadband services.

If "rural consumers appear to use more dial-up services and less broadband services" how can we say that rural consumers have overcome the "Digital Divide" unless what we are looking at here is an issue with semantics. Maybe, I need to understand that the term "Digital Divide" was originally coined to differentiate between those who had Internet access and those who didn't. Naturally, dialup is still Internet access - even if it is next to unusable in today's world. In the past I have used the term "Digital Divide 2.0" to describe this new phenomenon and I think that term is apt.

For example...

In this article we can see that CBS made the decision to broadcast the NCAA March Madness college basketball tournament over the Internet free of charge, something that everyone who has dialup didn't have any chance of taking advantage of. In striving to break the irony meter, Verizon just announced they had signed a deal with CBS to carry CBS's content over their Fios service.

We also learn from this study that VoIP is catching on - with a higher percentage of low income households adopting the technology.

VoIP use is growing, and has been used in over 10% of households. VoIP services are more apt to be used in low-income households (22% of households earning less than $25,000), non-Caucasian and non-African American households (18% of Hispanic, Asian and other races), and younger households (18% aged 29 or under)

But, in rural areas with their higher percentage of dialup users, this technology is not available to them. (DUH) I am sure that a case can be made that many rural areas confidentially have a high level of lower income residents, which would lead me to suspect that the adoption rate for VoIP would be hinger in these areas - if broadband were available at a reasonable price.

Here's the problem as I see it. Maybe the Digital Divide has been taken care of but the Communication Infrastructure Divide is alive and thriving. What I don't understand is why this is the case. Didn't both presidential candidates promise we would all have broadband coverage by the end of 2007? What is happening to the billions of dollars in USF funds that we all pay into every year? Why is Verizon rolling out Fios in the neighborhoods that can afford to make them a profit while ignoring these rural areas? Even more to the point, if the ILECs don't want to service these areas, why are they putting up such a fight to prevent these communities from establishing their own broadband networks?

What I don't have is a real answer for any of these problems. I don't believe there is any one answer. I do believe there are any number of things we are doing that is hurting the deployment of broadband into many areas.

Let's look at two.

We have the PA-183 law (commonly known as the Verizon law)

In another well written article by Muni Wireless we can see how feverishly Verizon is working to make the deployment of broadband easier in Pennsylvania.

To bring things into perspective, this article was linked to and I thought I would share the following snippet from it.

As for other towns, they will have to first get the local phone company to sign off before they can offer the same service to their residents.

For now, Verizon is leaving open the question of whether it will say yes to such requests. The company is already offering broadband Internet service over its FiOS-brand high-speed fiber optic network in many areas and is busy expanding the network.

The law — Act 183 — requires phone companies to offer broadband throughout the state by 2015. But it also requires municipalities that want to offer broadband Internet service to first ask their local telephone company if that company plans to offer broadband in the area.

The phone company has 40 days to answer yes, in which case it then has 12 months to start offering broadband. If the answer is no, the municipality is free to start offering its own service.

For its part, Verizon declined to give municipalities a blanket green light to offer wireless Internet service.

“Any proposals Verizon would receive from a municipality would be reviewed on a case-by-case basis in accordance with Act 183,” said Verizon Pennsylvania spokeswoman Sharon Shaffer.

Verizon is widely seen as the driving force behind Act 183, which in earlier forms prohibited local governments from offering any form of telecommunications service.

“It was clearly an anti-municipality statute,” Upper Dublin's Leonard said.

But Verizon vehemently denies that. The company's official line is that Act 183 was a law requiring it to roll broadband service out faster, rather than a ban on municipal or “community” networks.

Okay, it is nice to see Verizon did give something back in their promise to provide broadband to the entire state of Pennsylvania by 2015! Considering the misunderstanding that Pennsylvania had with Bell Atlantic (Verizon - before they were Verizon) I would feel comfortable entering into another agreement with them.

And here is the decision many of us knew was coming on the subject of forbearance that Verizon petitioned the FCC for.

As quoted from the article,

"The No. 2 U.S. telecommunications carrier petitioned the FCC seeking relief from requirements that included making connections to competing networks and negotiating just and reasonable terms for its services."

I mean, after all, why would anyone want to have laws that had such Draconian language as to mandate, "negotiating just and reasonable terms for its services." That's just simply unfair.