IPrivacy

We're quickly coming to the stillpoint of the privacy hurricane. The "eye" of a perfect storm in IP services.

The stage is set, somewhat by the Bush/FISA/NSA fracas in which the president of the last superpower is claiming that domestic wiretapping in the name of fighting terrorism is legal, to the best of his (staff's) knowledge. Add to the infusion, the demand by the Justice Department of Google records so they can demonstrate that children aren't being adequately protected from Internet porn.Then, to complete the trifecta, we have the FCC's final rule on CALEA (Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act) which mandates a "back door" built into Internet communications hardware so that law enforcement can get access to VOIP calls.

That's being challenged by civil liberties groups and Democrat Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, who was the chief sponsor of the CALEA legislation. Perhaps the senator is thinking, good law, bad application.

Clearly privacy is under attack by a number of governmental institutions.

The defense is, of course, powerful encryption, about which we've posted here previously.

In recent talks with Phil Zimmermann indicate that the Z-Phone, which would provide VOIP calls with the same powerful encryption he brought to PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) is still a product in search of funding. Maybe with growing awareness of the intrusion an increasing Americans (and others) are likely to face, Mr. Zimmermann's idea will find broader acceptance.

Congress to review Telco Act

Ted's previously posted about the Ed Whitacre comments. Today the Washington Post has a tasty little piece on how Big Telcos are going to take back the Net, and goes into some interesting detail on what it will mean for everything from VoIP to what search engines would perform best.

Now it seems Congress is preparing to take up the matter in coming months.

What's interesting is how much pull a traditional, monied, connected deep-pocketed industry can exert over wave upon unceasing wave of upstarts deploying disruptive technologies.

And gives the lie to what it means to be truly "disruptive."

Four WiMAX Vendors Certified

Four companies have earned WiMAX Forum certification. They are Aperto Networks, Redline Communications, SEQUANS Communications and Wavesat.

Cetecom Spain, the WiMAX Forum's certification laboratory, has 26 additional reservations from manufacturers for testing slots for both subscriber and base station equipment certification. Those 26 have not yet achieved certification.

Google Big Enough for Fights?

Today we learn of two fights that Google has decided to engage in -- one is with the incumbent telcos that have been threatening to levy fees on Internet service providers (story here). The other is with the Federal government over its fishing expedition to gain data to support their legal contention that an anti-pornography law struck down by the courts should be reinstated (Seattle PI has the story). Both are significant fights and a reasonable question should be raised about Google's ability to succeed in battling these entrenched interests. It was just the other day, after all, that Microsoft was the biggest entity that Google was fighting. Now they want to take on the telecommunications monopolies and the US Government as well? Not that I object! In my opinion, these are the right fights and Google is on the right side of them... All the same, I hope the ACLU and EFF and others step in quickly as we shouldn't be dependent on Google alone to uphold democracy, privacy, and capitalism in our society.

Blame Canada?

It's pretty clear by now that there's a fight going on in the VoIP playing field.
On one side, you've got the big US telcos, the rapidly consolidating spawn of Ma Bell. On the other, you've got, of all companies, Big Blue and Cisco.
Here's the point. RBOCs desperately want to cling to their existing infrastructures, their existing business models, and the idea that if you use the wire, you pay a toll.
IBM and Cisco, on the other hand, want to sell equipment, software and services. They don't care about the pipe, tolls, or anything else. They are not the RBOCs friends.
Now, this bit from Canada, where Bell Canada, independent from the RBOCs since 1956, is acting as a VoIP evangelist.
Bell Canada recently landed a deal with one of its existing customers, the Royal Bank of Canada, under which it will convert 8,400 of the bank's phone lines to VoIP lines. The story, according to the Globe and Mail is that the RBC, like other businesses are swapping out to IP because of cost savings and new applications offered by this brave new world. Bully for them. The important point here is that Bell Canada is behaving sensibly, rather than out of arrogance or a sense of entitlement.
They see the new technology and the benefits it provides, they aren't operating from some walled-city mentality, and they would prefer to embrace the future, rather than fight it tooth and nail.
That's a significantly different tack than what we typically see in the states, and it's rather refreshing.
Here's a big telco saying, okay, we see the benefit to our customers, and rather than combat what's coming, we embrace it, and while we're at it, we'll make a profit.
Seems the Baby Bells could take a cue, and perhaps a clue, from their cousin to the north

Cambodia Wimax

Generally I ignore the press releases in my email, but this one got my attention -- Cambodia Data Communication Selects SOMA Networks to Provide First Nationwide Broadband Wireless Initiative. Here is the release online (courtesy of TMCNet)http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2006/jan/1280183.htm

PR Person also sent this note, (which I find to be the kind of useful thought provoking note that separates a good PR person from a poor one...):

Conventional wisdom says that China and India will lead the charge in
bridging the global digital divide. But savvy governments and carriers in
smaller countries aren't waiting for China and India to lead the way. />
While China moves slowly, smaller, more nimble countries like Malaysia,
Vietnam and the Cayman Islands are leading the way in deploying wireless
broadband services. Today, Cambodia joins the roster of surprising
leadership with the announcement that Cambodia Data Communication Company
will provide Cambodia's first nationwide broadband wireless infrastructure.
CDC will use technology from SOMA Networks, a rising San Francisco broadband
wireless provider.

The significance of this announcement extends beyond Cambodia itself and
raises broader global questions, including:

- How will vendors evolve to meet the rapidly changing rules of global
communications?

- What is the significance of Cambodia not waiting for China and India to
take the technology lead, as once thought they would?

- What is the overall impact of wireless broadband connectivity on the
emerging global economy?

Good questions. Maybe I'll even follow up and talk to a SOMA executive...

Jeff Pulver, the WSJ, and the Future of the Internet

Back in October of last year, at the WiMAX forum, I first started hearing about what network providers were thinking of doing with IMS - IP Multimedia Subsystem. Following the conference I sat down and wrote my monthly "Ringing Off" VoIP Magazine Column which appears in the current issue. Entitled "Paranoid About IMS?" I question the real intentions of the companies seeking to install IMS on their networks -- do they truly intend to improve the quality of our network? Or is this a brutal land grab by monopolies who think they can get away with exercising their control over the network as a competitive weapon against independent companies that seek to offer alternatives to those monopoly's own products...

I am certainly glad to see this debate heating up all over -- from the Wall Street Journal to those of us in the blogosphere that follow such issues. Jeff Pulver has an excellent post on his reaction to the recent Wall Street Journal article on this topic. It is worth reading his entire piece which begins:

On Friday the Wall Street Journal ran one of those front page “call to action” stories, "Phone Companies Set Off A Battle Over Internet Fees" that should make us all sit up, pay attention, and worry about the future of the Internet as we know it. Only a week into the New Year and already my predictions #3 and #10 (considering the emerging war between Internet Access Providers and Internet Application Providers) for 2006 seem already to be coming true.

The Jeff Pulver Blog: My reaction to WSJ's "Phone Companies Set Off A Battle Over Internet Fees"

A number of comments in response to Jeff are from "network engineers" who are pointing out the reasonable and obvious consideration that in some cases network demand will outrun the capacity that has been deployed in a given circumstance.
 
Leaving aside the general observation that the monopoly infrastructure providers upon which we rely need to take increasing demand into account when they design these networks, it is a reasonable point to make that certain kinds of traffic are more important - I think even Jeff would agree that he is wrong on this point.

Communications should have priority over file transfers. Synchronous communications (VoIP, video, gaming) should have priority over asynchronous communications (email, IM...) this is logical based on how we use these technologies.  If my file takes a little longer to download because I am chatting with my Aunt on the phone, I'd certainly rather have that outcome than have my conversation disrupted.

But what the phone companies are talking about is NOT logical routing of categories of packets (which, by the way, should be under user control).  They are talking about discriminating against particular vendors of packets in favor of other vendors of the same packets.  Thus, if Vonage agreed to pay SBC's surcharge, my Vonage VoIP phone would work well but my Packet8 phone (a non-protection racket paying provider) might not work very well.

This is not about good network design.  I wish it were.