IP Inferno

The Game is Fixed

2007-10-02T05:33:00.000-07:00

If AT&T was a blackjack dealer, it would deal two cards to each player and then turn the rest of the cards over and select the best remaining cards for itself. This is more or less how it works right now for alternative network access vendors like Covad. There is the occasional "blackjack!" for Covad when working to install a bonded T1 or other wired Internet connection for its customers. But as often as not AT&T is one step ahead -- in my case for example, there was "insufficient equipment" available to provide a bonded T1 (I was participating in a blogger evaluation program run by Comunicano for Covad).

The United States now lags the rest of the developed world in access speeds for Internet connectivity. Instead of spurring competition, the Bush administration has overseen a re-assembly of the AT&T monopoly ("hey, didn't we already destroy the deathstar? Do we have to do it again?"). And to make matters worse, now just by complaining about AT&T, they can terminate my service.

Anytime a company starts operating like a power-drunk sovereign, its a good sign that competitive balances are out of whack. I for one am hoping that Covad can build up their fixed wireless network as an alternative to the copper wire monopoly our government has granted to AT&T. Not that this will help me, my house is in a canyon without a line-of-sight to Covad's POP in Oakland.

I guess I better fall on my knees now and ask forgiveness of AT&T -- please, please don't cut me off!

Broadband Data Improvement (S.1492)

2007-05-31T12:00:00.000-07:00

Ah, the boring but important department. What is your government doing for you? Passing pork barrel funding for rural telcos and failing to demand better data connectivity from the protected telecom monopolies that they have created... What, you ask, is this 1984?

Back to the future! The breakup of Ma-bell has all but been reversed. We now have two telephone companies in this country - Verizon and AT&T. And since they operate in non-overlapping markets, the effect is that consumers of telecommunications services are forced to deal with a monopoly.

Which is partly why "broadband" continues to be defined as 200K by the FCC. The best interests of the telecom operators are served by making as much money as possible from the existing physical plan investments before upgrading.

Sadly, this is not being challenged by the US Senate in their so-called "Broadband Data Improvement Act" (S.1492). Our old favorite Dan Inouye (D-HI) who has done such a great job of bringing millions of Federal dollars to his state to improve data connectivity for a handful of houses is behind this new bill.

But what will be done to create incentives for the monopolists to have our country remain competitive with the rest of the world in broadband connectivity? Apparently very little (if anything). Here is what S.1492 promises:

Direct the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to reevaluate its current 200 kilobit broadband standard. It also would require the FCC to create a new metric known as "second generation broadband" to be used to reflect network connections capable of reliably transmitting high-definition video content.

Direct broadband providers to report broadband availability and second generation broadband connections within 9-digit zip code areas.

Direct the FCC to conduct inquiries into the deployment of advanced telecommunications services on an annual, rather than periodic, basis.

Direct the Census Bureau to include a question in its American Community Survey that assesses levels of residential computer use and dial-up versus broadband Internet subscribership.

Direct the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to develop broadband metrics that may be used to provide consumers with broadband connection cost and capability information and improve the process of comparing the deployment and penetration of broadband in the United States with other countries.

Direct the Small Business Administration's Office of Advocacy to conduct a study evaluating the impact of broadband speed and price on small businesses.

Authorize a 5-year, $40 million per year program that would provide matching grants to State non-profit, public-private partnerships in support of efforts to more accurately identify barriers to broadband adoption throughout the State.

In other words, the bill would direct the FCC to study the question of what it means for us to remain competitive with the rest of the world while throwing a little money ($40 million) to states to give money to... who? Private companies that are "identifying barriers to broadband adoption?" If it squeals like a pig, it is probably pork.

FCC and Inter-Carrier Compensation

2007-03-06T10:13:00.000-08:00

In my mailbox this morning, some interesting thoughts on recent FCC rulings from the good folks at Womble Carlyle Sandridge and Rice...

Here is a direct copy paste from their email:

1. Asymmetrical Intercarrier Compensation. Wholesale carriers (and not their customers) are obligated to pay intercarrier compensation to incumbent LECs. The FCC makes no mention of any incumbent LEC obligation to compensate wholesale carriers for traffic termination. The FCC expressly punted on addressing intercarrier compensation for VoIP traffic under
section 251(b)(5).

2. Limited Interconnection Rights. Although the order establishes an interconnection requirement under section 251(a), no interconnection finding is made under section 251(c). Under 251(c), competitors are entitled to interconnection: (i) at any technically feasible point; (ii) on terms and conditions that are just, reasonable and nondiscriminatory; and (iii) at cost-based rates. 251(a) interconnection – provided for in the order – contains none of these safeguards. Expect special access pricing and terms.

3. Broad Definition of Wholesale. The FCC clarified that the statutory classification of a wholesaler’s customer – as either an “information service” or “telecommunication service” – is irrelevant to a wholesaler’s ability to interconnect with a LEC under sections 251(a) and (b).

4. Action on Delegated Authority. Because the Bureau acted on delegated authority, parties may not appeal any aspect of the order directly to circuit court. Rather, parties must file either (but not both) an “application for review” or a “petition for reconsideration.” An application for review would put matters before the full Commission. A petition for reconsideration would go to the Bureau, which may refer such a petition to the full Commission.

eTel Blogger Dinner

2007-03-01T11:49:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Andy Abramson for a fun time last night at Roti Indian Bistro. 30 something bloggers, media folks, and a few company execs showed up to enjoy good conversation and good food.

Redknee public on AIM

2007-02-23T12:33:00.000-08:00

Redknee has NO offices in the United States. Really. Look here at their info page. And now they have chosen to go public on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) of the London Stock Exchange.

While liquidity is not as good on the AIM as on NASDAQ, it is easy to understand why Redknee (AIM : RKN) would make this decision in just two words -- Sarbannes Oxley. As ThinkBlog points out:

SOX compliance can easily cost $2 million for a small, emerging growth company.

I think that number is on the low side. When I was an executive officer at Borland we estimated that Sarbannes Oxley was costing us $1 million per quarter when you took into account lost time from employees and executives due to compliance issues.

ThinkBlog explains a few more of the benefits:

Besides escaping SOX and other choking US regulations, AIM gives listing companies other benefits as well. In general, it takes 12-16 weeks to get listed on AIM as opposed to the typical 4-6 months in the US. Listing fees are 1/3 or less of what they are on the NYSE or NASDAQ.

Reporting requirements are 2x a year as opposed to 4x, and shareholders aren't required to approve most actions.

I suspect we will be seeing a lot more companies choosing AIM over NASDAQ... and maybe avoiding a US office altogether. At least until we can recover from the abuses of the few and reinstate rational business practices here in the Stats.

Twitter: Why you should care

2007-02-22T13:08:00.000-08:00

I have been playing with a new service from the folks who created Blogger. There new company is called Obvious, I guess because from where they sit, the idea behind twitter is obvious...

And what is that idea? That people would love to blather all day long about what they are up to and that other people (presumably their friends) would like to read this blather... So you can post to your twitter page from IM, SMS, or from a web page (there are also some interesting native apps like twitterific) and your running stream of consciousness comes out on your page (or rss etc):

http://www.twitter.com/tshelton

Then, your friends (or stalkers) can subscribe to your stream and get ongoing updates in their IM or SMS or web page on what you are up to... You can even "nudge" someone who hasn't posted in awhile to find out what he/she is up to...

Why should you care? Pay attention you old farts! This is where the youth are spending their time. This is the next evolutionary step beyond IM. Our children will live in a world in which the barriers of time and space have been demolished by technology. Our children and their friends will have a constant ongoing connection with their friends whether they are in the same room together or on different continents. Text is the first way that it will be done, though services like radar hope to make it about photos and videos as well. The future of ubiquitous IP connectivity is applications like twitter that just let us be digitally touching each other all of the time...

Making Voice Mails Public

2007-02-21T12:05:00.000-08:00

The crazies over at GotVoice are about to piss off a whole bunch of people by providing an intriguing new service that will let you take a voice mail you have received through their system and make it public... for anyone to hear! From their PR spam:

VoiceMagnet will allow consumers to post nasty, mean, crazy, or just downright weird voicemails to a central place online for all the world to hear! This could make voicemail the newest “smoking gun”.

I hope they have figured out the revenue model on this one -- get a cut of the legal fees as stupid people leaving wicked messages decide to use the US legal system to get the messages removed from the Internet (and punish the posters...)

GrandCentral and Gizmo Project

2007-02-20T16:43:00.000-08:00

I generally do not blog the random press releases hurled my way, but as I genuinely love Gizmo Project, I am dutifully reporting that GrandCentral and Gizmo Project are announcing a deal tomorrow morning... from the PR folks:

Tomorrow morning, GrandCentral Communications, Inc. will announce its service is now interoperable with Gizmo Project, SipPhone’s popular Voice over IP (VoIP) service that allows users to make and receive free phone calls worldwide over the Internet on personal computers as well as select Nokia mobile phones and Internet Tablets.

What does that mean for the average Gizmo Project user? Access to the cool "next-generation" features of GrandCentral - "One number, for life." GrandCentral basically call redirects based on your preferences - with some nifty features like caller specific greetings.

The future is WiFi

2007-02-12T15:36:00.000-08:00

3GSM time of year, and a worthwhile time to reflect on the future of wireless communications. I have written before about AWN - anarchic wireless networks. It is interesting to reflect once again about the advantages of WiFi vs. commercial 3G networks as the champagne flows in Barcelona.

Presuming coordinated access that rivals 3G networks for ease of access (via FON or something similar) why would a consumer ever wish to utilize a high fee commercial wireless network? Today there is really only one reason, and even it points out an opportunity for technology to improve as opposed to a fundamental flaw in WiFi.

There are two core use cases for mobile IP connectivity -- stationary and in-motion. For stationary mobile users (let's say you have stopped at your local coffee shop), WiFi is as good if not better than other wireless technologies. Only when you are in motion does the superior connection handling technology of a 3G network offer an advantage over simple WiFi connectivity.

Sure, you could argue that 3G does a better job than WiFi when handling high demand situations or you could argue that 3G will always be more ubiquitous than WiFi. But the cost advantage of a free wireless network would far outweigh these marginal inconveniences.

Blogger will run CES

2007-01-06T16:11:00.000-08:00

So says Andy Abramson in a thoughtful post today. He writes in part:

...the usually dismissive approach many old school PR people have taken of bloggers and online journalists will have to change. Heck it better.

Should be an exciting show. I know I'll be paying a heck of a lot more attention to what my favorite bloggers are saying than anything in the media.

Comments now moderated

2006-11-21T09:26:00.000-08:00

Thanks to alert readers Zack and Luca I have turned on comment moderation. To be honest, I didn't know blogger had implemented comment moderation! Where have I been? I still think that we should be working to get ICANN and registrars to have policies against spammers... I am not giving up, merely making a tactical retreat into comment moderation.

Blogiast - Join with me to stop Irritating Spammer

2006-11-21T05:46:00.000-08:00

If you write about VoIP you probably get spam comments to your blog, as I do. Lately I have been receiving a torrent of them from a user named "Blogiast" -- flogging a useless website. Rather than just keep deleting his posts, I decided to track him down. After not receiving any response to email sent to the email address of the domain owner in question, I decided to contact the registrar of the domain and complain about the behavior of its owner. This message actually received a reply. Here it is:

Dear Mr. Shelton,

thank you for the information.
Unfortunately the domain owner does not use our servers, therefore we cannot
see where the spam is coming from.
We cannot help you in this matter, if the domain owner is spamming your blog
please contact him directly.

There is no legal possibility to switch his domain of because of some entries
in a bog (sic), sorry.

If you have evidence that the address provided in our whois is not correct
please inform me and we will contact our customer in order to get actual data.

Best regards,

Marius Wunner

- - - - -

PSI-USA, Inc.
ICANN Accredited Registrar
Marius Wunner
Maximilianstr. 6
93047 Regensburg
Germany

Tel. +49 941 595 590
Fax. +49 941 595 79050
E-mail: contact@psi-usa.info

I urge all of you to do as I have and contact PSI-USA, Inc. to express your concern about blog comment spam. Registrars should have policies which allow them to shut off services to bad net citizens. Here is what I wrote to him:

Marius:

Thank you for your email. I have, of course, attempted to contact the registrant directly. The spam comments have continued.

I am certain that you are as worried as I am about the degradation of the Internet by spammers. If our email boxes and blog comments fill with useless spam we will be forced to abandon emailing and blogging. While no one individual or company can solve this problem, we can all make a difference by standing up to the problem -- I urge you to have a company policy which clearly communicates to your customers that misuse of this kind will result in a forfeiture of services.

Ted Shelton

If we all just sit here and spend our time deleting spam, it will continue. But we are a community and we can band together to track down and stop anti-social behavior. The first step in this thousand mile journey is to contact Marius, the company he works for, and ICANN. Let's do it!

Hypothesis: Cellular Companies Buy WiFi Licenses to Squash WiFi

2006-11-01T12:26:00.000-08:00

No direct evidence to support this hypothesis -- but why is Sprint's WiFi service at the Oakland Airport (a) so bad and (b) so expensive? Is it because they would rather have me using their cellular data services? So did they purchase the exclusive license to WiFi at Oakland's Airport in order to screw it up? Anyone know?

Senator Feinstein on the Specter NSA Bill

2006-09-27T14:26:00.000-07:00

September 27, 2006

Mr. Edward Shelton

Dear Mr. Shelton:

Thank you for writing to me about Senator
Specter's proposed changes to the proposed National
Security Surveillance Act of 2006. I welcome the
opportunity to respond.

As a member of both the Senate Intelligence and
Judiciary Committees, I have been briefed on the
operational details of the electronic surveillance program.
It is my belief that the program could and should be
conducted in accordance with the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act (FISA).

I do not support Senator Specter's legislation in its
current form.

Senator Specter's proposal would eliminate the
current individual warrant approach that has been used
by the FISA court for electronic surveillance for more
than 25 years, and replace it with a "program" warrant
approach that has never been tried. His bill also removes
the current exclusivity of FISA, in effect endorsing the
President's decision to gather intelligence outside of the
laws we have enacted. Finally, Senator Specter's
legislation makes many far-reaching changes to the
existing FISA statute in ways that have not been
adequately examined.

I have worked with Senator Specter separately to
introduce different legislation so that all content
collection of electronic surveillance for foreign
intelligence purposes is conducted within the existing
FISA framework. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Improvement and Enhancement Act of 2006, S. 3001,
has been endorsed by the American Bar Association. My
bill would restate that FISA is the exclusive authority for
content collection, mandate that no federal funds be spent
on such activities that do not comply with FISA, and
eliminate administrative roadblocks that the Attorney
General says hinder his ability to bring cases directly to
the FISA court. I believe this option is substantially
more desirable than the bill drafted by Senator Specter in
coordination with the Administration.

Again, thank you for writing. I hope that you will
continue to write to me on issues of importance to you.
Best regards.

Sincerely yours,

Dianne Feinstein
United States Senator

http://feinstein.senate.gov

Further information about my position on issues of concern to California and the Nation are available at my website
http://feinstein.senate.gov. You can also receive electronic e-mail updates by subscribing to my e-mail list at
http://feinstein.senate.gov/issue.html.

Senator Boxer on The Specter NSA Bill

2006-09-26T09:21:00.000-07:00

From: senator@boxer.senate.gov
Date: September 26, 2006 8:20:34 AM PDT
To:
Subject: Responding to your message

Dear Mr. Shelton:

Thank you for contacting me regarding ongoing reports of domestic spying. I appreciate the opportunity to review your comments on this important issue, and I share your concerns.

As you know, President Bush has repeatedly authorized the National Security Agency (NSA) to eavesdrop on American citizens and others without the necessary approvals from Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Courts. I am appalled that President Bush went outside the law and subverted the system of checks and balances that is so vital to our democracy.

That is why I am pleased to report that on August 17, 2006,U.S. District Court Judge Anna Diggs Taylor ruled that the Administration's NSA eavesdropping program is unconstitutional and should cease immediately.

However, pending the Administration's appeal of this ruling, I remain concerned about the recent deal between Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) and the White House. The Bush Administration has agreed to submit the NSA spying program for limited judicial review only if Congress passes Senator Specter's new "compromise" bill, S.2453, without amendments.

This "compromise" bill, which is currently being considered by the Senate Judiciary Committee, appears to do nothing to curb the Bush Administration's use of warrantless wiretapping. It would also limit Congressional and judicial oversight of the warrantless wiretapping program.

Please be assured that I will keep monitoring this situation closely and do all I can to make sure that the American people do not have to choose between their security and their liberty.

Again, thank you for writing to me. Please do not hesitate to contact me about this or any other issue of concern to you.

Barbara Boxer
United States Senator

Please visit my website at http://boxer.senate.gov

Stop White House/Specter Surveillance Bill

2006-09-25T11:17:00.000-07:00

From eff.org:

EFF's lawsuit against AT&T aims to expose and stop its collaboration with the NSA's massive spying program. But the White House and Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) have reportedly come to a sham compromise that would sweep this illegal activity and any further government surveillance under the rug, shuffling legal challenges out of the traditional court system and into the shadowy FISA courts.

Specter's draft bill would stack the deck against anyone suing to stop illegal surveillance, including the wholesale violation of the Fourth Amendment alleged in EFF's case. The FISA courts' secret proceedings -- where only the government gets to present arguments -- violate our nation's tradition of openness and transparency in the court system. Burying legal challenges in these secret courts will cut off meaningful judicial review.

Worse still, the bill tries to make an end-run around the Fourth Amendment by creating a secret, Congressionally-sanctioned approval process for future dragnet spying programs. Without the public ever knowing, the Attorney General would be able to covertly obtain general warrants that let the government spy on everyone.

URGENT: Tell your congressperson to vote against this bill!

US Falling Behind in Broadband

2006-09-13T12:22:00.000-07:00

Say what you want about whether we are better off with monopolies or competition in the broadband market, but the reality is that the US is falling further and further behind the rest of the world in this critical technology area. Muniwireless writes about a new report out from Free Press, the Consuemr Federation of America and Consumer's Union.

The new report tells us what we already know as consumers:

"Broadband Reality Check II exposes the truth behind America’s digital decline: A failed broadband policy that has left Americans with higher prices, slower speeds and no meaningful competition for high-speed Internet service."

Among the key findings:

The US is 16th overall in broadband penetration

U.S. consumers pay nearly twice as much as the Japanese for connections that are 20 times as slow

To read the executive summary of Broadband Reality Check II, go to http://www.freepress.net/docs/bbrc2-execsum.pdf

To read the full report, go to http://www.freepress.net/docs/bbrc2-final.pdf

Got Voice?

2006-08-23T21:19:00.000-07:00

For the past few weeks I have been testing a new service, GotVoice, from a company based in Kirkland Washington with an interesting idea -- how can you profit from the stupidity of the phone company? Now perhaps that isn't the way that company executives in Kirkland would describe their strategic plan, but its hard not to look at them and think, "this is yet more evidence of how stupid US telecommunications companies are."

The idea is simple (too simple, you'd think). How can I have access to my home and cell voice mail from the web and through email? If we had telephone companies that knew how to build services that customers wanted, this wouldn't even be a question. But there is NO innovation going on at the phone company (fill in your favorite one, or AT&T if you are reading this after they have bought everyone else). Thus companies like GotVoice can come along and fill in the niche.

Here's how it works -- You sign up for an account with GotVoice (basic service is free, but added features are available at $4.95 and $9.95 a month) and give them your phone company, phone number, and voicemail "PIN" -- they will then place a call on a regular basis to your voice mail box, record your messages, and send you an email letting you know you have a message (or email you the message as an MP3 with a premium plan).

But this is absurd! Why can't the phone company simply email me the message? Why do I need a third party to glue voice mail and email together? Perhaps someone in the finance department of AT&T found a study conducted in the early 1990s which said that none of their customers wanted voice mails in their email... or maybe they have a trial of voicemail to email right now but they are only rolling it out in 3 small test markets over the next two years... or maybe they don't actually care at all about their customers and never think about introducing new products that we actually want!

In the meantime, Got Voice?

Intellectual Property and Pricing

2006-08-11T11:44:00.000-07:00

Today a different kind of IP here on IP Inferno, although I believe that the issues confronting our creative industries are parallel and related to those that confront the technology industry. There is an ongoing debate amongst a set of thinkers on the relationship of PRICE to COST, in particular as applied to products that are largely (or entirely) made up of this flimsy stuff we call intellectual property. When your product is bits and not atoms, should costs of manufacturing and distribution have anything to do with price?

Solveig Singleton addresses this issue in a recent blog post on IP central entitled "The Marginal Cost Fallacy, Again" in which she argues that the idea that marginal cost would have anything to do with pricing is an academic notion, not intended to have any application in the real world. This is in response to an interview with Defective By Design, an anti-DRM activist organization. In the interview, the ant-DRM advocates ask:

When we live in a age where all digital works of art and all human knowledge can be transferred at (next to) zero cost, and where the cost of making one more copy is zero. Is it right to be building digital fences and digital handcuffs around this art and knowledge?

Solveig sees in this an argument that prices for IP should relate to costs and points out that this connection is not a necessary connection.

But the component of the equation which appears to be lacking in Solveig's observations is the willingness of a consumer to pay a given price. The market's willingness to pay IS a critical component and marginal costs finds its way back into the (real world) calculation via this component.

Lets do some context setting -- cassette tapes provided consumers with a vehicle for duplicating recordings 30 years ago and yet they had a nominal impact on pricing for record albums. Why? Consumers still had to purchase cassettes AND invest their own time and energy into duplication. When a consumer evaluated the cost (in real dollars and time) of duplicating an album, consumers whose time was worth something would opt to buy the album. Consumers whose time was not worth anything likely had little disposable income anyway, and thus wouldn't have bought the album.

But with marginal cost approaching zero for electronic duplication - both in real dollars and tims - the consumer's calculation is quite different. Now it really doesn't make economic sense to purchase the album. Thus you are left with the flimsy bulwark of legal protection for IP to entice a consumer to pay for the album.

When economic incentives are out-of-whack with business practices, does it make sense to do as the RIAA has done and enforce those business practices through legal efforts? Or does it make sense to change those business practices?

15 Years Ago - Net Neutrality Debate 1.0

2006-08-09T11:12:00.000-07:00

Denise Caruso over at the Public Knowledge blog writes about the first round of Net Neutrality debates, 15 years ago:

...here’s a slightly shortened version of the May 19, 1991, “Inside Technology” column I wrote for San Francisco Examiner — yes, that’s 15 YEARS ago. I like to think of it as the proto-Net Neutrality problem statement...

She goes on to include an article about how well the "modified final judgement" was working to make sure that we had a competitive telecommunications marketplace here in the US. It includes this great quote from past-FCC commissioner Nicholas Johnson, commenting on why the telcos should not be allowed to sell information services:

“They already suck money out of both ends of the straw,” he said. ”They charge us for getting information out of the system and they charge the supplier for putting it in. They can get rich beyond their wildest dreams of avarice by concentrating on what it is they do best [i.e., renting the conduit] — the mere fact that doing so also happens to serve the public interest should not deter them.”

Denise also asks, "So: how can we kick this debate out of Wonkville and into the Zeitgeist?"

VONOSPHERE

2006-08-03T15:45:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to Paul Kapustka and Jeff Pulver on the launch of Vonosphere - an information rich site tracking VoIP and Video-on-net news and breaking some news of its own. I expect we'll see more of Paul now that he has his own TV show... err, Internet show. Doesn't quite replace Amanda Congdon for me but, I like it better than that Joanne Congdon (I mean Colan) show... Anyone other than me think she is trying a little too hard to look like Amanda? Anyway, back to Paul and Vonoshphere. Congratulations! And check out his video on Ed Whitacre. Man, that guy just doesn't come across as trustworthy. I wonder what it is about him?

Senator Feinstein on Network Neutrality

2006-08-02T09:18:00.000-07:00

From: senator@feinstein.senate.gov
Subject: U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein responding to your message
Date: August 2, 2006 8:15:54 AM PDT
To: tshelton@ipinferno.com

August 2, 2006

Mr. Edward Shelton
xxxx Ave
xxx, California

Dear Mr. Shelton:

Thank you for writing to me about open access to the
Internet and network neutrality. I appreciate hearing from you.

I agree with the general principles of network neutrality
that owners of the networks that provide access to the Internet
should not control how consumers lawfully use that network and
should not be able to discriminate against content provider access
to that network.

As Congress debates changes to our telecommunications
laws this year, many different proposals have been offered
regarding network neutrality. The question arises whether or not
action is needed to ensure unfettered access to the Internet. I
believe any workable solution must balance the needs of the
network, service and information providers. Please know that
when legislation regarding network neutrality comes before the
Senate I will be sure to keep your specific views in mind.

Again, thank you for writing. If you should have any
comments or questions, I hope you will feel free to contact my
Washington, DC staff at (202) 224-3841.

Sincerely yours,

Dianne Feinstein
United States Senator

http://feinstein.senate.gov

Further information about my position on issues of concern to California and the Nation are available at my website
http://feinstein.senate.gov. You can also receive electronic e-mail updates by subscribing to my e-mail list at
http://feinstein.senate.gov/issue.html.

USF - Pork Barrel for Politicians (END USF NOW!)

2006-07-29T08:36:00.000-07:00

When I recently wrote about how the telecoms are using USF as a political tool to gain advantage over VoIP providers, I failed to explore how it is used by the politicians themselves. In Gordon Cook's excellent blog Cook's Collaborative Edge, he points to an article by Andrew Walden in the Hawaii Reporter with an example of our elected officials stealing our money to help their constituents. How about $500 Million for a new fiber optic communcations network which serves only 5,400 homes?:

In a little-noticed May 16 2005 ruling, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has granted a waiver necessary to allow Sandwich Isles Communications to complete construction of its $500 million project to link 69 Hawaiian Homelands properties with a fiber optic communications network.

Walden points out that these 5,400 homes already have land lines from Verizon and that satellite based high speed Internet access would cost just $600 or less per home (as opposed to the $93,000 per home hand out from USF). Walden continues in his article, "Unsurprisingly, Sandwich Isles is led by many politically connected directors and corporate officers." According to the article, this was one of the last acts of the FCC under then-chairman Michael Powell, who the article claims was a Naval Academy classmate of Al Hee, president of the company receiving the $500 million. Much more detail and accusations available in this web posting - Vultures of Sandwich Isles.

Cook also points to a terrific study by Thomas Hazlett at George Mason University entitled UNIVERSAL SERVICE FUND SUBSIDIES: WHAT DOES $7 BILLION BUY?

Note to Meg Whitman: Open up Skype!

2006-07-27T11:18:00.000-07:00

I am going to be more diligent about promptly posting links to my VoIP magazine columns, starting today. So here is the latest - my open letter to eBay's Meg Whitman urging her to open up the Skype protocol. Meg -- it's going to happen anyway, so why not drive the process and benefit from it? And, as I point out in the column, this could be one of the best ways to fight monopoly telecom, as opposed to sending emails to eBay's users...

Read the full article at VoIP Magazine.

Universal Service or Carrier Bankroll?

2006-07-26T12:47:00.000-07:00

My latest opinion piece is up on the VoIP Magazine website. Well, its been up for a week or so, but hey - it's summertime and I've been busy. You probably have been too, so you haven't had a chance to read the latest issue of the magazine (oh yeah, and its only online now). But you should get over there and read my suggestion for solving the latest brouhaha entangling the FCC with their owner/operator telecom companies. My solution to the conflict over the "universal service fund?" End the program. Think I'm crazy? From the article:

Frankly, the goal of universal service has not been achieved over the past 20 years, even after spending $50 Billion dollars. Over the life of the fund this spending resulted in the addition of one phone line for every $16,000 spent. And there are still 5 million households in the US currently without telephone service.

Read the rest at VoIP Magazine

Must Read: John Battelle interviews Vint Cerf on Net Neutrality

2006-07-15T08:52:00.000-07:00

Just one of the gems in this must read interview of Google's Vint Cerf by John Battelle -- Vint Cerf paraphrasing AT&T CEO Ed Whitacre:

Here's what (folks like Whitacre) are saying: “Well, we built this network and we can do anything we want with it. And by the way, the FCC has now essentially released us of any common carrier obligations we ever had, thank you very much, and so we can do whatever we want to and why don’t you just buzz off.”

Title: Cerf, Part 1: Excuse me, but we don’t get a free ride at all

Summary: Fortune recently ran an interview with Google's Vint Cerf (I think it's in the current issue, it's not up on the site yet). That was unfortunate for Business 2.0, the magazine where I do interviews, b...

Death and Taxes

2006-07-03T09:54:00.000-07:00

If you ever needed proof that the Telecom industry is using their considerable power and wealth to make the people's government into a tool for executing their own anti-competitive strategies, look no further than the recent ruling on USF (Universal Service Fund). If the telecom industry gets its way, we'll have a whole new saying about death and taxes -- the only thing sure about government control by monopolist telecoms is death by taxes.

Not such a bad idea in 1934 when the government determined that a need existed to provide every person (no matter how remote) in our great country with access to the phone system and that many such rural areas could not be profitably served. Since AT&T was a monopoly telecom provider, the government used a tax on AT&T to nudge them to do what was right for the country's citizens - provide universal access to the telephone system, regardless of how unprofitable a given rural phone line might have been to set up and operate.

Fast forward 72 years -- what is USF today? A tool for the monopolies to use to crush competitors - first cable companies and now VoIP. Jeff Pulver has a very good analysis on his blog in which he summarizes in part:

• Is not limited to calls that touch the PSTN – includes IP to IP calls (pg 20)
• circumvents the Vonage decision to allow state regulation of VoIP, if you report actual revenues (pg 29)
• requires pre-approval of traffic studies – but not for wireless providers because pre-approval would be disruptive to wireless, but not VoIP (pg 30)
• requires double payments of USF fees for 2 quarters – waiving the “carrier’s carrier” rule so that wholesale providers also have to pay USF for the same service (pg 30)
• Includes new VoIP registration requirement with the FCC
• does not include a transition period
• indicates a desire to expand the definition of Interconnected VoIP in the future (pg 20)
• includes international traffic
• ignores Small Business Administration arguments (pg 121)
• Does not discuss this decision’s impact on VoIP providers, but finds it will have minimal impact on LECs (pg 13)
• requires VoIP providers to pay into USF at the highest rate of any service
• buried deep in footnote 209, relieves DSL of USF obligations

The good news is that VoIP can route around this damage - first, disconnect from the telcos. They don't want our business. Fine. Let's all move more quickly to IP -> IP connectivity for our calls. Second, to the extent that you have to make a call into a Telco, connect via another country. Canada is 5 cents a minute to the US. France has extra bandwidth into the US available for pennies per minute in bulk. Or there is another option. Like Ebay's Skype, give away the minutes for free (and I guess, make your money somewhere else). The government can only tax you if you are making money...

Meanwhile, let's remind congress and the FCC that the SERVE THE PEOPLE, not telecommunications companies.

Happy 4th of July.

The End of AT&T - FON and the rise of Citizen Networks

2006-06-30T09:27:00.000-07:00

This week's column for VoIP Magazine is on "Anarchic Wireless Networks" -- a term I was introduced to while working with Nokia back at the beginning of the millennium. At the time folks in Nokia's strategy group expressed the belief that AWN was the biggest threat to operator hegemony -- offering citizen driven wireless networks as an alternative to corporate controlled and government regulated cellular networks. Now along comes FON, $5 routers, and backing from Google and EBay. The end of AT&T? Not today or even tomorrow. But it may finally be a vector for competition with what is otherwise beginning to look like a very cozy relationship between mega-corporations and government aimed at completely controlling our access to information and communications.

Of course, as I point out in my opinion piece, the existing broadband providers will fight FON (and other AWN offerings) to protect their monopoly franchises. Don't be surprised if they even do this in the name of "national security" since, of course, if it is being driven from the bottom up it must be dangerous. Let's all start calling this technology "CITIZEN NETWORKS" so that when AT&T lobbies to have these networks shut down, it is clear that they are trying to take away our FREEDOM.

Here is an excerpt from my VoIP Magazine article:

Way back in the year 2000, big telecommunications companies like Nokia were talking about wireless broadband as an alternative to telecommunications companies. The Nokia RoofTop Router Management System was the beginning of a strange new networking animal that the company privately called "anarchic wireless networks" -- subscriber-driven networks that would grow organically and provide consumers with "…a high speed, always-on Internet connection." But the "anarchic wireless network" -- let's call it AWN -- group at Nokia hasn't been heard from in awhile, perhaps in part because these kinds of networks provide stiff competition for the kind of customers that provide the bulk of Nokia's revenue -- traditional large telecommunications carriers.

In the meantime a spunky Spanish startup has independently developed a technology and business model that brings the idea of AWN into consumer's hands, at a fraction of the price thought possible just 5 years ago. And with a $21.7 million venture round closed this past February (which includes Google and EBay), FON has the resources and corporate backing to bring this idea to market in the developed world.

Read the rest on the VoIP Magazine website --> "Anarchic Wireless Networks, The Future of Telco Competition?"

AT&T-Bellsouth behemoth may harm WiMAX market

2006-06-26T11:27:00.000-07:00

Before Behzad Nadji resigned as the CTO of AT&T Labs, he was a vocal proponent of WiMAX, insisting that AT&T had "billions of reasons" to get WiMAX up and running between its central offices and customer premises... he was referring to the billions of dollars that AT&T spent every year on last mile access over monopoly telcos wires. AT&T's investment in WiMAX might have created a real alternative to the Bell operating companies...

But with SBC's acquisition of AT&T and the pending acquisition of BellSouth, strategists at the new Ma Bell reasonably have concluded that there is no reason for them to create competition to their own infrastructure. The Wireless Report's Brian White writes today that

With the AT&T-Bellsouth merger close looming ever-so-closely on the horizon, members of the U.S. Senate are a little perturbed that this merger, when complete, will possibly dampen development of newer broadband technologies like WiMAX, which is considered to be the potential third broadband pipe coming to a PC near you soon -- DSL and cable need competition anyway.

White points out that Sprint Nextel owns licenses to the 2.5GHz range where WiMAX is likely to be deployed in the US, but the fact remains that the old AT&T, with its vast business customer base and wide variety of central office locations to mount WiMAX gear was in the best position to offer a real alternative to the Bells.

When there is real competition, markets work. When there isn't... well I think we can all see what happens.

ACTION ALERT: Broadcast Flag Hidden in Telecom Bill | Public Knowledge

2006-06-21T15:06:00.000-07:00

The "Public Knowledge" website reports that Senator Stevens is trying to sneak broadcast flags into the new telecom bill -- in this article they write...

If you’re saying, “Broadcast Flag? I thought we defeated that?” You’re right! But we’ll have to do it again. But we’ll have to do it now, as the bill is being marked up THIS THURSDAY…

Amidst all the Net Neutrality hubbub you might have missed the return of the Broadcast Flag, this time tucked into Senator Stevens’ 151 page telecommunications bill, S.2686. What’s an onerous copy protection scheme doing in the middle of a telecommunications bill? If you’re confused, you should be, it’s a tactic designed to sneak in a regulation that’s been repeatedly rejected by both Congress and the courts.

The most recent version is worse than any before, without any real exceptions for fair use. Even worse, this time it’s paired with an Audio Broadcast Flag that will cover digital and satellite radio too. Government technology mandates all around!

Contacting your Senators is vital to defeat the Broadcast Flag—again.

Spread the word, read the talking points here, contact your Senator.

Did The Telcos Break The Law In Getting Merger Approvals?

2006-06-21T10:24:00.000-07:00

When Gary Reback filed harrassing lawsuits against tech companies, I had a tendency to think that he was a burden on legitimate business activities, leaching off of the system... But now I have been challenged to reassess my view of him now that, as TechDirt reports, he is suing telecom monopolies for having broken the law to get their mergers approved by the government. TechDirt writes:

In case you didn't already have enough information on how the telcos have lied and cheated their way to power, taking public funds and assets, and breaking the promises made to get that loot, here's another one for you. Larry Lessig points out that Gary Reback (the famed lawyer who spent a good part of the 1990s trying to get Microsoft taken down for antitrust violations) is focusing on a new case: showing how the telcos and the government broke the law in approving some of the recent big telco mergers (the same mergers that helped those telcos get rid of competition, now allowing them to do things like get rid of network neutrality).

TechDirt offers some additional details on the case over on their post (read up on the Tunney act) but now the big question for me to ponder is, now do I have to like Reback?

In Case You Weren't Clear On How The Telcos Screwed Everyone

2006-06-20T08:00:00.000-07:00

TechDirt provides a link to Bruce Kushnick's book, "$200 Billion Broadband Scandal" pointing out that you can download it for free this week. TechDirt writes about the book that it lays "..out all the details for how the telcos were granted all sorts of subsidies and benefits in exchange for promising to delivering high speed fiber to our homes -- something they've still never done. Kushnick has been talking about this travesty of a situation for many years, and the book lays it all out in tremendous detail."

Book download link -- here

TechDirt's article -- here

Security and Complacency

2006-06-19T08:42:00.000-07:00

Nobody likes to talk about a security breach. At some level its just embarrassing. At another level it feels like you are saying to your partners, customers, readers - hey we are sloppy, we live in a pigpen, we don't take care of ourselves... But if no one talks about the security breaches that they suffer from, then the next person down the line won't learn from the mistakes and improve their own procedures... and then they will have to learn the hard way.

On Wednesday of last week we were attacked by a criminal gang that seeks to use legitimate websites as proxy servers for "phishing." In this case it was a PayPal phishing site that we were encumbered with. I came away from this experience with two lessons about how complacent we have become about security -- the big "we" meaning all of us...

THIS EXPLOIT WAS OUR FAULT
First of all, the exploit was our own fault. We were having an HTML problem that we couldn't solve ourselves. We have been using an outside design firm. That firm uses overseas talent. We provided a username and password to our server to that outside design firm and then they, in turn, sent it to the offshore developer. Within an hour of providing that legitimate login to our server, we had been attacked.

A number of mistakes were made here.

First of all, we should never have provided a logon to our own server. We could have set up some separate sandbox that would have provided a demonstration of our problem. But we were lazy. Don't be lazy.

Secondly, our outside design firm sent the username and password IN THE CLEAR. The Internet is a dangerous place. Don't EVER send usernames and passwords in the clear.

Thirdly, we don't know this third party offshore developer, so we don't know whether that individual has a motivation to provide our information to a criminal element.

Even without having provided the keys to the kingdom to an outsider, we could have been vulnerable to this kind of attack if we had not been careful about the username / password combinations that we put on our machines. Here is something that I hadn't thought about until after we were compromised -- while most people do a good job of protecting their systems from external attacks, it is VERY hard to protect from attacks when the outsider has a legitimate user account on your system.

PRIVILEGE ESCALATION
These kinds of attacks are called "privilege escalation" attacks. A legitimate user account is used to run a variety of programs on a compromised system which allow that user to gain root permission on the system. Once the user has root access, he can do anything he wants with your computer.

In our case we were used as a PayPal phishing server. Emails are sent out to unsuspecting users telling them that they need to log on to their PayPal account. When a user does log on, their user ID and password are then emailed to the attackers.

THE LARGER COMPLACENCY PROBLEM
And this brings up the second area of complacency that we (the big we) need to address. We have sent numerous emails to EBay letting them know that we have shut down this rogue server and letting them know that we have log files showing the IP addresses for the 29 people that were foolish enough to fall for this phishing scheme via our servers. Admittedly a lot of cooperation between EBay and various ISPs would have to occur to track down these 29 people -- but why aren't we doing it? EBay isn't responding to us and most people I've spoken with say that they won't -- that this happens so many times a day that EBay can't follow up with them all. This is ridiculous.

Spam blocking company Blue Security recently shutdown with CEO Reshef saying that "...large ISPs and governments need to recognize that spammers are connected to criminal syndicates and that they, not a small startup, are the only ones who can shut down these networks."

These criminal syndicates are the same ones that are setting up phishing scams. This is the new underworld and it is only going to get worse. Especially when companies like EBay do nothing to mount effective defense. If the phishers were deprived of gaining value from their theft of user IDs and passwords, would they continue to use that method of attack? If the FBI (and other police organizations) had effective programs in place to track these people down, would it be the scourge that it is today? I'd like to think we as a society could become bolder and smarter in our defense against these criminals.

Of course the first defense begins in addressing our own complacency. I've changed all of my passwords over the weekend. Maybe this post will cause you to ask the question of your own company, and help make the whole Internet more secure as a result.

Internet Freedom -- NOT Network Neutrality

2006-06-15T07:30:00.000-07:00

Following up on my previous post, "Network Neutrality is the Wrong Frame", I have written a column for VoIP Magazine Online entitled "Internet Freedom -- Not Network Neutrality"(registration required).

The core of the article is this -- the technology industry has mis-cast the entire debate about what is happening with telecommunications regulation. Mis-cast both because the focus on networks and neutrality is too esoteric for the average congressperson (much less the average American) and also because it is too easy for telecommunications companies to focus people on the wrong issue -- on packet prioritization as opposed to fair and equal access.

I propose that we shift the debate and shift it NOW -- this argument is really about INTERNET FREEDOM. Its about, in the words of David Isenberg:

"...an Internet where it would be legal for a monopolistic gatekeeper to stand between us and our medical information, us and our financial transactions, us and our travel plans, us and the information we try to find, us and the news we choose to read and watch, us and our leisure time activities, us and our intimate correspondence with our friends, us and our creativity, us and our political expression."

Jeff Pulver are you listening?? It is time to stop talking about neutrality and start talking about freedom. The debate should be about whether we want to continue the spirit of common carrier regulation of the monopoly telecom companies or whether we want to create a new OPEC, controlling something every bit as important to the competitiveness of American business and the quality of American lives.

More ranting over at VoIP Magazine...

Shame on you, Washington Post

2006-06-12T16:32:00.000-07:00

In an editorial today in one of this country's greatest newspapers, The Washington Post, the editors repeated the false statement that healthy competition exists in the market for consumer broadband services. In the editorial, entitled "The Internet's Future: Congress should stay out of cyberspace" the editors write:

The advocates of neutrality suggest, absurdly, that a non-neutral Internet would resemble cable TV: a medium through which only corporate content is delivered. This analogy misses the fact that the market for Internet connections, unlike that for cable television, is competitive: More than 60 percent of Zip codes in the United States are served by four or more broadband providers that compete to give consumers what they want -- fast access to the full range of Web sites, including those of their kids' soccer league, their cousins' photos, MoveOn.org and the Christian Coalition. If one broadband provider slowed access to fringe bloggers, the blogosphere would rise up in protest -- and the provider would lose customers.

But this is entirely incorrect and misleading. There are just two pipes into the majority of consumer's homes -- a telephone wire and a cable TV wire. Every broadband provider in the country must connect to the consumer over one of those two wires. The only third party access deals that exist were created as partnerships with telephone companies back when there was an FCC enforcing access regulations. Those regulations are gone. Phone companies now have no obligation to allow other providers to offer service to consumers and as those agreements end, they will not be renewed. So there are at best TWO providers.

However, the situation is getting worse as we begin to look at "broadband" as 14 mbps or 40 mbps instead of 1.5 (or less) -- as we "need" and "want" real broadband speeds, fiber to the home will be the only wire capable of providing this speed. Then we will be reduced to a single option, the phone company.

Write to the Washington Post and let them know what you think: letters@washpost.com

Astroturf Commenting

2006-06-07T10:01:00.000-07:00

IP Democracy has confirmed my suspicions -- in this article, "Net Neutrality Astroturf Commenting Harms.. The Telcos" IP Democracy notes that they have been seeing the same behavior that we have here at IP Inferno --

a coordinated group of possibly paid blog commenters who roam the web looking for blog items on net neutrality. (See here and here.) These commenters almost always write in generalities and their comments are always negative of net neutrality regulations.

Here is someone else noticing the same behavior -- "Anti-network neutrality astroturfing comment spam" So OK guys. The jig is up. Stop the spam.

This is a great case study for why the net needs less anonymity.

My Suspicion Grows

2006-05-30T17:27:00.000-07:00

I am up to 5 comments now on my post "Net Neutrality is the Wrong Frame" which is a wildly large number of comments for this blog to get. Looking through both my blog stats and my feedburner stats there is virtually NO change in the amount of traffic that I am getting. AND none of the people who I called out specifically in my last post, "Just Because Your Paranoid" have bothered to defend themselves... So am I getting spammed by a sneaky campaign launched by the telcos to try and make it LOOK like there is grass roots support for their efforts to block congressional legislation? Anyone else out there seeing this kind of spam?

Just because you're paranoid...

2006-05-27T10:53:00.000-07:00

I find it interesting that my most recent post, Net Neutrality is the Wrong Frame, has excited three random anonymous strangers to go to the trouble of creating brand new blogger accounts in order to post comments which can be read as supporting the telcos battle to stop Congress from legislating network neutrality. Call me paranoid, but is this an attempt by paid lobbying activists to make it look as if there is grass roots support for the monopoly telcos? Let me make something clear. I SUPPORT the efforts by congressional leaders to put some controls on the telephone companies. My complaint is that the approach is wrong, not that we don't need government intervention.

"Luv2Box" and "Net Chick" and "SoCal619" - if you want to join the conversation, do the responsible thing and expose your true identities. Join the debate as citizens instead of as anonymous blogger accounts. Otherwise you risk being confused with comment spammers -- in this case perhaps a coordinated attempt by the telcos to make it LOOK like there is actual "grass roots" support for their notion that they should be unregulated monopolies...

Net Neutrality is the Wrong Frame

2006-05-25T09:20:00.000-07:00

With all due respect to Jeff Pulver and to the rest of the gang (including yours truly) that have been breathing life into the idea of Net Neutrality, we in the tech industry have done a lousy job framing the debate with the telcos. Martin Geddes is right when he says that "... network neutrality law is a tactical, practical, strategic and philosophical error."

But I would offer a simpler formula than Martin for what does need to be done. And as an aside, simpler is part of the lesson that the tech industry needs to learn if we are going to be successful in the political realm. Here it is:

The two most important issues facing our nation and the world economy are energy and telecommunications. These are the two economic drivers that will determine our prosperity and health in the coming decades. Do we need really need another OPEC in telecommunications? By ceding control of the Internet to a small number of powerful companies, we risk a set of unintended consequences -- limits on innovation, an impact on competitiveness in a world market, decisions about where investment capital will flow, and a negative impact on our individual quality of life.

Improved networks that are capable of prioritizing the flow of certain kinds of information are not in themselves the problem. The debate should be about two things:

(1) Who gets to decide which packets are prioritized?
(2) What obligations are inherent in the use of public rights of way ?

My answer to #1 is THE CUSTOMER. Look, if AT&T wants to offer me the ability to prioritize my VoIP traffic, that is fine. But they can't discriminate amongst providers. So I get to chose which VoIP product I prioritize. Or maybe I want to prioritize my online game. And a hospital wants to prioritize MRI data. But the CUSTOMER decides. Not some backroom deal between a telco and a vendor.

And on #2 my answer is that there needs to be ewqual access to the last mile. I have an electrical line running into my home. I have a water pipe as well. Power and water comes into my home from many places. Lots of independent companies can hook up to the grid or the water supply and sell power or water to my municipality. Great. Why can't the Internet be more like electricity or water?

At the end of the day the role of government that is being overlooked in this debate is to protect the interests of the people. Government is our voice at the table. To the extent that the government hands out licenses to airwaves or to rip up our city streets to install bandwidth to our homes, they should be doing so to improve our cities, our economies, and our lives. Creating a new OPEC, with an unreasonable amount of power over what we can and cannot do with the telecommunications infrasturcture is a direct threat to our pursuit of happiness.

Press Releases Aren't the only Problem

2006-05-23T11:48:00.000-07:00

Shel Holtz adds to the ongoing discussion about the purpose and future of press releases in this post entitled "The press release is dead! Long live the press release!" in which he responds, in part, to Tom Foremski's rant on the subject a few months ago -- "Die Press Release, Die!". In Tom's original screed he states:

Press releases are nearly useless. They typically start with a tremendous amount of top-spin, they contain pat-on-the-back phrases and meaningless quotes. Often they will contain quotes from C-level executives praising their customer focus. They often contain praise from analysts, (who are almost always paid or have a customer relationship.) And so on...

Press releases are created by committees, edited by lawyers, and then sent out at great expense through Businesswire or PRnewswire to reach the digital and physical trash bins of tens of thousands of journalists.

This madness has to end. It is wasted time and effort by hundreds of thousands of professionals.

Shel offers an example of a company Shift Communications, that purports to answer this critique with a new kind of press release. Shel writes:

The release is broken into sections that are easily put to use by busy reporters and editors. First is contact information, followed by a headline and core news facts, preferably in bullet-list format. Then come a link and RSS feed for a “purpose-built” del.icio.us page. This page offers links to “relevant historical, trend, market, product & competitive content sources, providing context as-needed, and, on-going updates.”

So my question, though, is why should we call this new thing a press release? Perhaps a mini-site about a specific news event which becomes a resource for reporters -- but in that vein, why shouldn't it also be a resource for customers?

The core problem of the press release remains the same in any case. Top-spin, meaningless quotes, and poor writing won't change. And the endless spam from companies to reporters, trying to make their news item into the next thing on the cover of (name your publication) isn't going to stop. It isn't just the press release that is a problem -- it is fundamentally the relationship between public relations and the media that needs to change.

Wired: Why We Published the AT&T Docs

2006-05-22T09:27:00.000-07:00

"I wrote the following document in 2004 when it became clear to me that AT&T, at the behest of the National Security Agency, had illegally installed secret computer gear designed to spy on internet traffic. At the time I thought this was an outgrowth of the notorious Total Information Awareness program, which was attacked by defenders of civil liberties. But now it's been revealed by The New York Times that the spying program is vastly bigger and was directly authorized by President Bush, as he himself has now admitted, in flagrant violation of specific statutes and constitutional protections for civil liberties. I am presenting this information to facilitate the dismantling of this dangerous Orwellian project."

-Former AT&T technician Mark Klein

Read the full document on Wired News

Who Funds "Hands off the Internet" ?

2006-05-15T15:22:00.000-07:00

Here is a list of the organizations that are backing a new campaign to fight against government regulation of monopoly telecom providers, lets just follow the money (also check the work of Source Watch on this subject):

Actiontec -- Supplier of telecom equipment to the monopoly telecoms ("Actiontec is led by a seasoned management team with over 100 years of collective experience gained at companies such as AT&T..."

Alcatel -- Supplier of telecom equipment to the monopoly telecoms

America Channel -- Video content provider with major distribution deals via telecom monoplies

American Conservative Union -- industry funded political organization with ties to AT&T

AT&T -- Primary monopolist

BellSouth -- all but a division of AT&T

Center for Individual Freedom -- Alleged (source watch ) to have started in response to a conversation with a front group for the tobacco industry. Doesn't disclose financing but did weigh in to support the SBC and AT&T merger...

Cinergy Communications -- Supplier to monopoly telecoms...

I could continue down the list, but the conclusion I come to is that this is a telecom industry effort through and through.

Cingular -- a division of AT&T

Lack Of Mobile DRM To (Generate) 3.5B Euros

2006-05-09T09:44:00.000-07:00

Moco.News is reporting a story on Frost and Sullivan's recent dire warning about the lack of mobile DRM -- the article is titled Lack Of Mobile DRM To Cost 3.5B Euros But I'd like to suggest the nutty idea that actually the REVERSE is true. The question is really about WHO will be making money and WHO will be "losing" revenue.

The core of the issue is about the cellular operators who would like to apply a tax to every content elements that slips across their networks. While F&S poses this as a problem for the entertainment industry itself, I would suggest that mobile phones are more important as an opportunity for viral marketing than they are as the sole end consumption device for digital content. Moco.news writes:

Combined, F&S thinks these activities will cost the mobile entertainment industry around 2.7 billion euros this year. Another 800 million euros “is missed due to the lack of widespread interoperability for content across PCs, mobiles and MP3 players”.

But what if the entertainment industry allowed content to be easily spread (for free without DRM) from mobile device to mobile device? What if consumers could easily share video and music content thus creating demand for purchases of these products for other kinds of devices?

Sure, you don't want the highest quality MP3 or video product circulating for free (oops, that cat is already out of the bag) but consumers don't want HDTV versions of videos on their cell phones -- they only need a small, low-res version. That is all they can play anyway with that screen size. And a low-sample rate version of a song allows more songs to fit on the phone. And a ringtone made from a song simply PROMOTES the song.

Of course, if the entertainment industry allowed people to make their own ring tones for free, share low-sample rate music for free, share low-res video for free... the cellular operators would be back to being a DUMB PIPE. But don't they make a lot of money on that bandwidth?

Note to F&S -- please calculate how the entertainment industry might use viral marketing of freely available (lower quality) digital content to generate sales of high quality versions of the content for other devices as well as generating more fan adherence to entertainment properties which result in additional sales of secondary products. And does all of this generate more revenue for the entertainment industry than they would have gained by locking up their content?

UPDATE - TechDirt weighs in, similarly calling the F&S report "ridiculous..."

Comparative broadband ideas

2006-05-08T11:07:00.000-07:00

Susan Crawford stirs the pot, asking "How do you increase competition in the U.S. for broadband access? " She points out that:

The primary reason that Japan and Korea do so much better than the U.S. on any measurement of broadband (availability, penetration, price, speed) is that there is fierce competition in the market...

She goes on to identify three routes to broadband competion -- briefly facilities based competition, wholesale access, and local loop unbundling (go read her post). David Isenberg weighs in with two additional options:

4) Trust the incumbents. That's the current strategy. No further dignification needed.

5) Find new network architectures that do not have the barrier of high fixed costs. Mesh networks.

And Paul Kapustka adds some thoughts, "How much for the 'third pipe' for broadband?" asking the question "How much will it really cost to build the so-called "third pipe" of broadband? And might it just be cheaper to pay the telcos off, and buy their local network elements?" He points out Reed Hundt's guess that "it would cost $20 billion to bring fiber to all homes in America." So why not pay them off asks Paul...

Read Susan's post

Read David's post

Read Paul's post

Vonage gets squeezed from above-Verizon- and below-AOL

2006-05-05T10:36:00.000-07:00

So will Vonage be able to go public? Or will the market notice that they are nearing the end of their rope as this market continues to rapidly evolve... Here are Russell Shaw's comments:

On Wednesday, Verizon announced that it would lower the cost of its VoiceWing service from $34.95 a month to $24.95 a month. That's a tad cheaper than Vonage's most comparable, $24.99 plan. But unlike Vonage VoiceWing's activation will be free...

Read the rest at Russell's ZD Net Blog...

CA Government Works

2006-05-03T15:41:00.000-07:00

Recently I ordered a T1 from ATT (SBC... PacBell...) for my small business and encountered such tremendous difficulties that I decided to complain to my government representatives. While I recieved no response from the offices of Feinstein or Lee, Boxer's office was nice enough to send this non-commital reply:

Dear Mr. Shelton:

Thank you for contacting me regarding the proposed merger between AT&T and BellSouth. I appreciate the opportunity to respond to your comments on this issue.

As you know, AT&T has announced its plan to buy BellSouth for $67 billion. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will now conduct a review of the proposed deal to ensure that it would be in the public interest.

As a member of the Senate Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over telecommunications issues, please know that I am monitoring this situation closely. Rest assured, I will keep your views in mind as the review process continues.

Again, thank you for writing to me. Please feel free to contact me again about any issue of importance to you.

However, I also decided to complain to the California PUC. Do you know what? Within one week of my complaint I received a call from "the Chairman's office" of ATT, offering to make sure that my problem was corrected. And today I am happily sitting in my new office with a working T1 circuit. Hooray! Complaining to the government works! Here is where you can go for help, if you are in California -- CPUC File a Complaint Online

Support the Markey Network Neutrality Amendment

2006-05-01T09:18:00.000-07:00

David Isenberg offers these thoughts on the upcoming (MAY 4th) proposal on the floor of the house to ammend the Barton-Rush COPE Bill with the "Markey Amendment." Go straight to the page where you can add your name in support of this amendment or read more about why the Barton-Rush bill is bad for all of us and why the Markey Amendment might make it a little bit better... As David says "Where were you when the DMCA passed?"

Oakland Muni WiFi Initiative

2006-04-28T16:23:00.000-07:00

Today I attended the first meeting of Oakland CA CTO Bob Glaze's working committee to pursue Mayor Jerry Brown's initiative to bring WiFi to the citizens of the city of Oakland. Bob held a well organized meeting that included local businesses, the chamber of commerce, citizens, and representatives from a wide variety of Oakland municipal services -- public works, real estate, human services, public safety, economic development, libraries... While not everyone from every interested sector was present, it was a packed room and a great start.

A start to the public part of the process, in any case. Glaze's group actually began work over a year ago when Bob assigned Oakland IT project manager Ken Gordon the task of surveying the various business models that are evolving and how other municipalities are pursuing WiFi initatives. The goal was to build a knowledgebase from which Oakland's unique problems could be addressed... Unique? Yes!

As was raised at the meeting, we have a significant challenge in Oakland. Start with demographics (well below the poverty line to very weathly), continue on to the diversity of the topography (from dense urban to hilly, forested suburban), and the challenges of our business climate -- approaches that are working in other cities are not going to be cookie cutter approaches for Oakland.

But there is a dedicated crew on the job with a focus on real needs that the municipal departments have identified, objectives that economic development and human services have set, and real projects already underway in some corners of the city that will benefit from a city-wide initiative.

Of course given the city's ongoing battles with Comcast (still no contract, headed for litigation?) and big telco's objections to WiFi in other parts of the country... and the fact that it is an election year here in Oakland, things could get... interesting. I am crossing my fingers that a combination of pragmatism and logic will win the day and that Bob will succeed in his goal to issue an RFP by this coming summer. And that enough other cities will have shown the way from RFP to signed contract by then that a cookie cutter approach in this department will be practical, leading to a 2007 start to an era of WiFi in Oakland.

Let New Orleans build a wireless network without outside interference!

2006-04-21T16:57:00.000-07:00

The Wireless Report carries this update on New Orleans battle to keep their public WiFi network running and the efforts of broadband incumbants to squash this network:

"(New Orleans) has been fighting to keep this little network running at 512-kbits-per-second, a pretty nice speed I'd say. However, BellSouth, Cox, and others are bitching and moaning about this network..."

And are our senators and congress people listening to the people or to the money? Here is the latest response from CA Senator Barbara Boxer's office on my emails about AT&T's monopoly power:

"As a member of the Senate Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over telecommunications issues, please know that I am monitoring this situation closely. Rest assured, I will keep your views in mind as the review process continues."

To be clear, my email to Boxer was not about New Orleans, but about municipal WiFi in general and AT&T specifically.

Google declines to rule out wireless airwave bid

2006-04-21T10:03:00.000-07:00

Good article from Reuters today on Google's interest in regulated bandwidth: Google declines to rule out wireless airwave bid

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google Inc. on Thursday opened the door to the possibility that it could bid on U.S. licenses for wireless radio spectrum in order to offer Internet access services, but said...

It certainly would be interesting to see Google drive convergence between regulated and unregulated wireless...

Guide for cities considering municipal wireless (using St. Cloud as an example)

2006-04-20T15:17:00.000-07:00

MuniWireless has posted a guide authored by Intel and MRI called The Dollars and Sense of Government-Led Wireless Internet: A Guide for Government Employees and Community Activists

"The document lists various municipal applications that cities should considering running on these networks to improve efficiency and save money. It also emphasizes the concept of citywide Wi-Fi as a utility like water and electricity, which benefits the entire community. Finally it contains a short step-by-step guide on how to plan and deploy the network. The lesson: there are no shortcuts. Cities must involve their employees, residents and businesses in the decision-making process.

Source: http://www.personalbee.com/bee_article.php?grpno=215&artno=2078066

Letter to Congress

2006-04-19T10:17:00.000-07:00

Letter sent to Senators Boxer and Feinstein and my representative, Barbara Lee:

I am writing you today about the AT&T's abusive behavior, allowed because they are a (relatively) unregulated monopoly.

Frankly, I feel like I must be living in a 3rd world country.

I own a small business here in Berkeley. Internet connectivity is as important to a business today as a telephone was in the past. I am trying to get a T-1 installed. For a variety of reasons I want a 3rd party vendor to provide this service. However the ONLY company that can provide the physical infrastructure is AT&T - they have a monopoly on "the last mile" -- connectivity directly into my office.

So my provider called them to schedule an installation time -- the earliest date they would give us was in 30 days! Since we HAVE NO OTHER ALTERNATIVE, we scheduled this delivery (April 22nd).

Yesterday (the 18th) their technician called to install the service. How nice, 4 days early (only a 26 DAY WAIT for this essential service).

Because I was unavailable yesterday, I called back this morning and was told by the technician that BECAUSE I MISSED THE CALL, I MUST NOW RESCHEDULE!!

If this were NOT a monopoly, no business would survive treating its customers in this way. It is ESSENTIAL that you and our other elected officials take whatever monopoly power you can away from AT&T and effectively regulate whatever monopoly power that remains.

Sincerely,

Edward Shelton
Business Owner and VOTER

Comment and Spread the Word on Post-Disaster Communications Petition at the FCC

2006-04-13T11:57:00.000-07:00

From Jeff Pulver:

SOS to the Blogosphere: Please Comment and Spread the Word on our Post-Disaster Communications Petition at the FCC

Summary: On Monday the FCC put out for public comment the Post-Disaster Communications Petition that Tom Evslin and I filed back in March. While there was some "blogosphere buzz" around the initial filing of t...

Visit: Jeff Pulver's Blog for details...

US really lags in broadband: 12th according to the OECD

2006-04-12T09:04:00.000-07:00

"At Freedom to Connect (April 3-4, 2006 in Washington DC), someone mentioned that the US was 20th - behind Slovenia."

Or maybe we are 12th... What the study doesn't touch is the issue of the speed of our broadband connections which makes the picture even worse. From Muniwireless:

Title: US really lags in broadband: 12th according to the OECD

Summary: Despite FCC Chairman Kevin Martin’s fervent wish that it were not so, the OECD says that, as of December 2005, the US ranks 12th among industrialized nations in the number of broadband subscribe...

URL: http://www.personalbee.com/bee_article.php?grpno=215&artno=2008327

BART, Amtrak may get Wi-Fi in Calif.

2006-04-11T12:09:00.000-07:00

I have been hoping for WiFi on BART for some time... now comes news that "The Capitol Corridor Joint Powers Authority and the Bay Area Rapid Transit District are taking the first step toward making it possible for travelers to surf the Internet while riding the 105-mile BART system and the 171-mile Amtrak corridor between San Jose and Auburn, in the Sacramento area."

Title: BART, Amtrak may get Wi-Fi in Calif.

Summary: April 11 - Now comes a proposal for the ultimate in mobility: widespread wireless on the rails. (Jessie Seyfer, Mercury News)

URL: http://www.personalbee.com/bee_article.php?grpno=215&artno=1999918

Senator Feinstein on Muni WiFI

2006-03-16T14:07:00.000-08:00

I wrote to my senator (I hope you did too) about the importance of allowing municipalities to manage their own futures with respect to broadband and WiFi initiatives. After a few weeks delay I received the reply attached below. I have phoned the number at the end of the email as well as sending a follow up email asking a simple question that I hope Senator Feinstein can answer -- what is her position on this issue? Is that too much to ask?

Email from Senator Feinstein:

March 16, 2006

Mr. Edward Shelton
xxx xxx Avenue
xx, California xxx

Dear Mr. Shelton:

Thank you for writing to me with your concerns about prohibiting local governments from providing high-speed Internet services, or broadband. I appreciate hearing from you and welcome the opportunity to respond.

To encourage competition among providers of telecommunications services, Congress passed legislation in 1996 which barred states from "prohibiting the ability of any entity to provide any interstate or intrastate telecommunications services." However, in recent years, some states have passed laws which prohibit or limit local governments from providing telecommunications services. Last year, the Supreme Court ruled that current law is not specific enough to protect both private and public entities from the prohibition, but that Congress could do so by amending the language of the law.

Legislation has been introduced in the Senate which would specifically permit governments to provide broadband services. However, competing legislation in the House would prevent state and local governments from providing telecommunications services and cable in any area which already has similar service provided by a private sector company.

The demand for broadband services for private and public sector use is only going to increase in the coming years, and Congress is reviewing our telecommunications laws to see where improvements can be made. Please know that, as legislation is developed, I will be sure to keep your views in mind.

Again, thank you for writing. If you should have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact my Washington, DC staff at (202) 224-3841.

Sincerely yours,

Dianne Feinstein
United States Senator

http://feinstein.senate.gov

Further information about my position on issues of concern to California and the Nation are available at my website http://feinstein.senate.gov. You can also receive electronic e-mail updates by subscribing to my e-mail list at http://feinstein.senate.gov/issue.html.

Digium Targets The Enterprise

2006-03-15T11:55:00.000-08:00

(Spring 2006 VON, San Jose CA) Mark Spencer is all smiles as Spring 2006 VON opens in San Jose, CA. And why shouldn't he be? His company, Digium is celebrating yet another year of profit and growth. By his estimate, Asterisk is now running on over half a million servers worldwide. And more importantly, large enterprise deployments of Asterisk are now becoming an important part of Digium's business. "Hardware is still important," Mark said in an interview at the show, "but software and services are growing much faster."

The company is announcing two new hardware products this week, an echo canceling card with 1024 taps (TE420P and TE415P four-port T1/E1/J1/PRI) and a transcoder (TC400P VoIP transcoding card). Both products are aimed at the high-end of the market where Mark says that customers are "looking for a more deterministic solution." But hardware has become an extension of the Digium's software and services business. Last year the City of Manchester in Connecticut selected Asterisk for a 1500 handset deployment and more enterprise sized deployments are on the way. As these larger customers choose Asterisk, they are also increasingly fingering Digium for support and integration services.

"We have a special level of expertise since we drive the development of Asterisk - all of that code goes through our hands - and that is a value that enterprises are looking for," explains Mark. But he is quick to assure partners in the Asterisk "ecosystem" that Digium has no intention of competing with them. "We'd even be happy if we had partners that managed these enterprise opportunities."

Mark hinted that at least one large PBX manufacturer may be moving to do just that. While he wouldn't name the company, Mark suggested that a traditional proprietary PBX vendor was evaluating Asterisk as a possible product line extension. And if that happened, there might be a large enough partner for Digium that large enterprises wouldn't insist on Digium's participation in every installation.

I also followed up with Mark on IBM's initiative to build a "carrier-grade" Asterisk (which IBM demonstrated at fall VON). Unfortunately for IBM, Mark reports that their lead Asterisk advocate has left IBM - but this turns out to be good news for the Asterisk community as he has started his own company to bring Asterisk to businesses. Meanwhile IBM is getting back up to speed.

But asked about the importance of "carrier-grade" service, Mark spoke of his belief that this was not crucial to consumer adoption of VoIP. Mark pointed out how cell phone use has changed our expectations about call quality and reliability. "20 years ago if you were in the middle of the phone call and it dropped you would think that the person hung up on you or that the world is about to end. But today we just call back and say 'I don't know what happened, I'm back.'" In Mark's view dropping one in a million or one in 10 million calls isn't a problem. "If you want to go from 4 9s of reliability to 5 9s the cost is enormous -- and that one call that doesn't get dropped is a very expensive call. Do consumers really want to pay that expense?" Mark did, however, say that he was happy that organizations like IBM continue to work on these hard problems.

VON PR Workshop

2006-03-14T14:06:00.000-08:00

I am sitting in the press room at VON which has been taken over for a VON workshop for press people. They have distributed a booklet called "A Step-by-Step Exhibiting Primer" and they have a speaker telling us what Marketing is... he wrote a book called "The Paradox of Excellence." He has just told the collected PR people that they are "trunk monkeys..."

Why am I blogging about this? Because of the posts that I recently made -- PR is Broken and More on the Death of PR... and also the corresponding posts by Andy Abramson (who is sitting right next to me), Jeff Pulver, and Tom Foremski. In other words, a growing concern that the way in which companies, their hired PR reps, and journalists interact is NOT WORKING.

The choice of Michael Weissman (author of Paradox...) as the speaker here strikes me as being entirely wrong. His message seems to be that the better the job we do, the less praise we will receive because our clients take us for granted. He used the analogy of the water district -- they always deliver water, so we don't praise them anymore. Well, PR is definitely not delivering. This is not the water department that is dependable and thus I can ignore them.

Looking at the "Step-by-Step Exhibiting Primer" what I see is a marketing brochure about why companies should attend VON.

I don't blame VON management for not solving this problem -- this is not limited to the VoIP industry, this is a major crisis for the PR/Media co-dependent relationship. Here is my brief take on the core problem, and it comes from following the money.

Companies see that advertising is becoming less and less effective. But people still read articles, so less money is spent on advertising and more money is spent on PR.

This has two unintended consequences -- on the Media side, as ad budgets shrink, editorial budgets shrink. So a smaller number of reporters are being paid to write about a given topic (VoIP in this case). On the PR side, more and more money is being spent to reach this smaller group of journalists.

The result is that PR companies are flooding a shrinking number of journalists with less and less relevant information. This model will ultimately fail.

What is the solution?

Pulver/Evslin Petition to the FCC

2006-03-13T09:50:00.000-08:00

Jeff Pulver and Tom Evslin have filed an important petition with the FCC on post-disaster communications that deserves the community's attention and support. From Jeff's Blog:

Today, Tom Evslin and I filed a Petition with the US Federal Communications Commission in an effort to mitigate the effects of long-term telephone outages in the event of natural disasters or other public crises. Our concern is that if the FCC waits too long for formation and formal recommendations before taking any further action to address emergency situations, then communications providers will be unprepared in the case of an immediate emergency. With the threat of terrorist action still looming and the next hurricane season right around the corner, we thought it was important for the FCC to act soon to ensure that the consequence of outages to telecommunications services are swiftly mitigated prior to the time communications links can be restored.

Read the rest on Jeff's Blog.

VON Coverage

2006-03-08T17:42:00.000-08:00

IP Inferno will be attending VON. We are looking forward to a great show with many substantive issues discussed. Consumer adoption of VoIP is now accelerating so we hope to see new applications that truly show how VoIP can be different from POTS... surely the market is large enough by now! Unfortunately most of the pitches we've heard so far are about the infrastructure. Not that its unimportant -- but its not differentiating! How do you present VoIP as an improvement over POTS when you have to spend all of your time talking about security issues? If I didn't know better, I'd guess that VoIP is actually a big step backwards. You have to worry about hackers breaking into your PBX?

So while security and network management are necessary, expect our coverage of the show to focus on innovations that truly make VoIP different from just picking up a telephone. Surely you folks are out there! Drop us a line at press (at) ipinferno.com.

More on the death of PR

2006-03-06T10:43:00.000-08:00

Attention PR people! Your days are numbered! GET SMART OR GET A NEW JOB. Another terrible call this morning prompts me to write again on this topic. A PR person called me to pitch a meeting with her client and didn't know anything about me as a writer or blogger, who I might write for, or why I might be interested in her client. She was simply dialing for dollars. PLEASE, at least know something about me and what I write about before you call me! As I pointed out to her, without knowing the basic facts, she might be wasting my time and her clients time. Of course, since she gets paid by the hour by here client, her time isn't wasted... which is the problem here!!

A quick roundup -- Andy Ambramson has a great (long!) post entitled "Ted's Right And I Have The Answer" (blush) In which he, fairly, makes the point that journalism is broken also. Yes, it is a two way street and we all need to evolve a new model. Andy's comments are a good start.

Jeff Pulver has a good post announcing a briefing for PR people to be held on March 14th -- hey Jeff, want some help on the messaging?

And Tom Foremski has another great post about killing the press release... These two issues -- press releases and press cold calls -- are tightly linked in my book and both need to be solved. Let's figure this out folks!!

Putting AT&T Back Together Again

2006-03-06T09:25:00.000-08:00

All the way back on September 23rd, 2005 this correspondent reported the rumor that SBC would buy BellSouth and then change the name of the company to ATT... So I got the order wrong. First SBC changed its name to ATT. Now they are buying BellSouth. I guess they didn't feel the need, given the current administration, to conceal their desire to reconstruct the old AT&T monopoly.

The question that we as citizens should be asking is, in a country where politics clearly can be influenced by money, why do we want to have only one (or two) companies to have responsibility for a public trust like our data networks? Remember the old saying, "what's good for General Motors is good for America?" Will we soon hear, "what's good for ATT... ?" I don't want public policy in the US to be determined by corporations at all. But since it is, let's at least encourage healthy debate amongst the corporate interests by having a multitude of voices calling for the governments attention. Not a single behemoth that simply dictates policy.

PR is Broken

2006-03-02T09:16:00.000-08:00

Tom Foremski, over at Silicon Valley Watcher, said it so much more eloquently -- Die! Press release! Die! Die! Die!. But to this refrain may I add, Die! PR Telemarketing! Die! Die! Die!. And to what do you owe this morning rant? Jeff Pulver's VON. HELLO VOIP COMPANIES -- STOP WASTING YOUR MONEY ON PR PEOPLE. I just got a call from a PR person representing Nero, Inc. asking if I would be interested in coming by the company's booth for a demo. I try to be nice when these calls come in (about 5-6 a day). So I said, innocently enough, "ok, what does the company do?" This is where things went downhill fast.

The PR person on the other end of the line said, breathlessly "free computer to computer phone calls!" Oh boy. That really set me off. I couldn't be nice anymore.

"That's it?" I asked. "That's your pitch to get me to meet the company?"

"Uh, yeah..." said the now worried PR flack.

"Wow! What will they think of next? Free phone calls!" I'm afraid I got a bit sarcastic...

I asked him if he actually knew anything about the company or if he was just making phone calls and he admitted that he knew nothing. And for that, poor Nero is probably paying $150 an hour!!

Here's a hint, SAVE YOUR MONEY. PR has fallen, and doesn't know how to get up.

By the way, with 5-6 calls a day coming in, I can't possibly agree to meet with anyone anyway -- especially when there is no news angle provided by the caller. "Umm, we'll be making some announcements but I can't say what..." is the typical comment from PR flacks. Well guess what, if you can't say what the news is, I can't say if I can come to a meeting.

See you at the show.

Datapoints

2006-02-21T20:57:00.000-08:00

Two items, in case you missed them.
First SIP is it when it comes to emerging VoIP standards.
The latest from Frost & Sullivan suggests that many developers are using SIP, versus other standards in building multimedia communication applications.

The caveat is that there's a growing need to standardise video services, which spells the need for regulatory bodies to weigh in. The FCC has already proven to be rather telco-friendly under Chairman Martin, but other standards bodies are likely to have influence on this front, both within and outside the U.S.

Datapoint Two: VoIP use is growing. Eighteen percent of Americans are using a residential VoIP service, up four percent from last June, with Vonage holding slightly under a third of the market.

The show gets better and better.

Enter Redmond

2006-02-21T20:01:00.000-08:00

So the hype surrounding Microsoft's entry into the VoIP race has already burned through its second stage.
First, there was the announcement: Microsoft's chief executive Steve Ballmer had unveiled a mobile version of the software giant's voice-capable business IM system, Microsoft Office Communicator at 3GSM.

Some believed that this Skype-style free internet voice service for mobile phones could, essentially, kill companies like Vodafone.

Then a day or two passed, and Vodafone's stock held steady. What gives?

Seems analysts were unimpressed. Talk went along the lines of, okay, so they have a client now, so what? Is there a 3G version? Techworld had a nice piece featuring an analyst from Disruptive Analysis. It's too good not to quote: "The main importance of the announcement is to show that mobile VoIP is now important enough for a sluggish brute like Microsoft to lurch aboard, said Bubley: "The history of Microsoft has been to leave it up to third party developers, and then move in when it is important enough. It's instituionalised mobile VoIP."

Good on MSFT to show us that VoIP had reached prime time, something we've been saying for many, many, many months.

The open question, now that the opening salvo has been fired, is what Microsoft will do next.

And also, what AOL will do next. Looks like AOL and MSFT are chasing the same market: business-class users that like the chat function of the various IM products, and get how taking it to the mobile VoIP level would be a good idea.

Without going out too far on a limb, it's safe to say that Microsoft, not to mention Yahoo, AOL, Skype, Vonage (with its IPO pending), and many others have ushered in the mobile VoIP era.

Microsoft's primary option would be an Office bundling (Office is its cash cow, after all, after Windows) which would take VoIP to the streets. AOL is still struggling to justify its existence in a post-we-are-no-longer-the-top-dog-at-Time-Warner-era. For them, VoIP's a good play in its rapidly eroding proprietary-Internet play. Skype and Vonage will be the ones to beat in the open market, as will Yahoo, and perhaps, in time, Google.

Personally, I can't really see how Microsoft can mess up an Office integration, except for the fact that the savvier the market gets, the more people migrate away from closed systems.

On the other hand, packaged products continue to have their appeal, and the more successful MSFT is at making VoIP integration completely transparent, easy to use, and virtually cost-free, then that will be how Redmond claws into the VoIP space. Witness how they killed a third of Netscape's business, and how they took on Quicken.

Of course, Netscape and Intuit are still around, the former in radically changed form, and the latter less so.

Proving that Microsoft can't kill every space it targets, can't dominate on demand, and can't prevent nimble competition from flanking it at will.

It's Goliath. And there's lots of Davids.

A new Telecom Publication -- on IMS

2006-02-11T18:35:00.000-08:00

In response to a discussion about TMC's new publication on IMS, which Rich Tehrani blogged about in a post titled "IMS is our future".

Rich -- thanks for the response.

I guess that my need to critique your position stems from the unqualified first sentence of your post --

"Never before in my history in the telecom space have so many agreed on something so quickly."

I felt it was important to point out that many people do NOT agree. I believe (as many others do) that IMS carries with it as many pitfalls as it does solutions.

In the end technology is neither good nor evil -- people are. And the uses people put technology to are in service of their good or evil intentions.

I understand the mercantile impulse to promote your new publication, but a healthy debate about the role of different players in the ecosystem and how IMS could be used as a technical front for cartel behavior by network operators should be at the forefront of your publication -- if you intend this to be a service to our industry at large and not just a vehicle for certain large and entrenched players.

Vonage files IPO

2006-02-08T10:44:00.000-08:00

Andy Abramson has the news here on his VoIPWatch blog

$250 million raise

Citron out as CEO

Also, Jeffery Citron steps down as CEO Michael Snyder takes over. Snyder signed an agreement and will join the Vonage board of directors and become its Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Snyder was the President of ADT Security Services, Inc., a subsidiary of Tyco International Ltd., from 1997 to 2006. He is expected to assume his duties with Vonage on February 27, 2006.

Snyder better be planning on some big cost cutting moves... otherwise $250 million won't last long. Or maybe this is a feint in an M&A negotiation?

Net Neutrality Debate Gets Rough

2006-02-07T21:35:00.000-08:00

A lot of good stuff coming out of Michigan... Here is a good summary of the latest in the net neutrality debate: Michigan Telephone, VoIP and Broadband blog: Another good, if discouraging summary of the net neutrality issue, plus telco attempts to influence the press? Within the post are some excellent excerpts from two articles:

David Utter in WebProNews --

Telecoms like Verizon and ATT have been pushing harder to get their dreams of a two-tiered Internet supported by Congress and content providers.

Telcos Up Ante In Net Neutrality Game

And in John Batelle's Searchblog --

According to sources that are very well informed inside the paper, SBC (now ATT after the merger) is quite upset with the way a Chronicle columnist has been covering the company. Now SBC is pretty much the top Old School corporation around here (the SF Giants ballpark is named after it, for example), and it spreads its advertising budget around like oxygen in an intensive care ward. I'm told that annually, SBC spends around $5 million with the Chronicle.
But recently, SBC has turned off the spigot. Seems Chronicle columnist David Lazarus pissed them off one time too many,

John Battelle's Searchblog: AT&T/SBC Plays Hardball

David Utter in particular has some amazing passages from a Verizon senior VP... Follow the links. Read the articles. Get ready for the debate that will determine the future of the Internet.

technorati tags: Internet, Neutrality, SBC, ATT

Cable VoIP Set to Skyrocket

2006-02-04T09:29:00.000-08:00

What would the industry do without bullish surveys? Suffer more, we're sure.
Our friends at IDC have unleashed a new one. Seems the US market for VoIP-by-cable is set to mushroom from 2.2 million last year to 19.8 million by 2009, or, a nine-fold increase.

That's if they get their gameplan right, and take into account the shifting standards landscape.

Right now, the MSOs have adopted the PacketCable architecture and standard, and the emergence of IP multimedia subsystems (IMS) could throw a spanner into MSO VoIP plans.

So the challenge is for PacketCable to embrace IMS, so as to take advantage of SIPs multimedia potential.

In summary, big market opportunity, and the challenges of getting a homegrown standard to get with what's happening in the broader IP universe. Our take? Given how cable companies have long considered their networks as a walled garden, the cultural barriers to adopting IMS will likely be stiff. Then again, a 9x increase in audience is a lot to leave on the table.

Head of ATT Labs Resigns

2006-02-01T14:23:00.000-08:00

Behzad Nadji has resigned from AT&T. Here is the text of his email announcement:

Dear Colleagues and Friends,

After 18+ wonderful years at AT&T I have decided to leave AT&T in search of other opportunities. It was not an easy decision for me, but I had many reasons weighing in favor of it. I will probably be taking the next few months off and then I will start looking at other possibilities.
My last day at AT&T is March 1st.

Regards,

Behzad Nadji
Sr. VP. , AT&T Networks, Research, and Architecture,
Head of AT&T Labs

Tell the CEOs: Hands Off Our Internet

2006-02-01T09:57:00.000-08:00

A public service announcement on behalf of FreePress:

After destroying TV and radio by hoarding the public's airwaves for profit, mega-media corporations have now turned to the Internet. They're scheming to control what content you view, which services you use online, and whether others can see the content you create.

The only way to stop them is to raise hell right now.

Join me and other Media for Democracy/Free Press activists by sending a letter to the CEOs of the nation's largest ISPs and telling them to keep their hands off our Internet.

Go here to take action:

http://www.freepress.net/action/neutrality

Go. Sign. Now.

Conspiracy to Control the Internet?

2006-02-01T09:10:00.000-08:00

Jeff Pulver has recently been beating the drum to rally our attention to the fact that broadband providing phone companies are looking for ways to create a new multi-tiered Internet in which they can exercise pricing and content control. Back in October when I attended the WiMAX conference and had my first close look at IMS, I started writing about this threat (which due to the magic of print publishing finally appeared in VoIP Magazine's January issue -- Paranoid about IMS?). As I observed in this column, the story is not just about landline Internet providers, but includes the mobile operators as well.

Richard's excellent VoIP and ENUM blog has this article and a link to a recent post by Bob Frankston entitled Assuring Scarcity in which he explores the question of whether there is a conspiracy within the mobile industry to create market conditions in which they can insure pricing control. These posts are in response to recent presentations at the TRIS - TISPAN WG4 Workshop on NGN Interconnection and Numbering in Copenhegan. Bob writes, "...here we find the cellular carriers themselves decrying the dangers of abundance..." He goes on to write:

If you think about it, this is a clear and blatant call for manipulating a marketplace so that only the privileged few can create new products and they can even specialize without worrying about competition. Best of all they can charge as much as they want.

So has Bob joined me in the club of the paranoid? Since writing my column back in October, both BellSouth and SBC (AT&T) have clearly stated their intentions to charge Internet application providers like Google for access to customers of their Internet access products. I am feeling a lot less paranoid today, and a lot more worried about the future of a free and open Internet that creates an environment which promotes innovation and equal access to information.

If the telecommunications industry is self-documenting attempts at price-control and market manipulation, perhaps the FCC need not weigh in at all -- how about going straight to a Justice department and EU inquiry? Do the telecommunications companies have a motivation to "Assure Scarcity?" Do they have the ability to re-construct the Internet into a multi-tiered "...marketplace so that only the privileged few can create new products... (and) charge as much as they want?" And where there is motivation and ability, shouldn't the rest of us be very concerned? Read Bob's article.

IPrivacy

2006-01-27T18:04:00.000-08:00

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

2006-01-23T15:10:00.000-08:00

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

2006-01-19T14:07:00.000-08:00

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?

2006-01-19T09:55:00.000-08:00

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?

2006-01-12T20:37:00.000-08:00

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

2006-01-12T05:34:00.000-08:00

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

2006-01-11T07:04:00.000-08:00

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.

Skype Voice Mail + Orb = V4S

2005-12-14T16:27:00.000-08:00

My old employer, Orb Networks, has released a really compelling voice mail solution for Skype - and I don't just say that because I am a shareholder (full disclosure - I am a shareholder). Bill Campbell has a great review over on Skype Journal in which he writes:

V4S is worth trying even if you have Skype VM as I do. If you don’t have Skype VM then I think this is a must have product for most Skype users.

Skype Journal: New Voice Messaging System for Skype fills a gap

Must have product... what does it do for you? Lets you make your PC into our voice mail server, and serves your voice mail to you anywhere anyplace you have a web capable device and an IP connection... And it lets you send voicemail as emails -- not just to yourself, but to others as well.

Pulver - "Let the Communication Wars Begin"

2005-12-06T15:15:00.000-08:00

Jeff Pulver's recent post regarding SBC and Bellsouth should be required reading for anyone who cares about the future of the Internet. That's Internet with a capital "I" as in, the one unified Internet, not a world in which many fragmented vendor controled internets balkanize our experience, slow innovation, reduce competitiveness, and undermine our basic freedoms -- as the monopolistic broadband vendors wish...

Jeff writes:

...the new battlelines are emerging in the communications war. The battle -- once waged between ILECs and CLECs, between cable and LEC, between wireline and wireless, between terrestrial and satellite -- has officially morphed into a battle between Internet Access Provider and Internet Application Provider.

The Jeff Pulver Blog: The Second Glove Is Thrown Down - Let the Communication Wars Begin:

Read the rest. IP Inferno previously posted on this topic, when Ed Whitacre made his ridiculous comments to Businessweek...

BusinessWeek: How concerned are you about Internet upstarts like Google (GOOG), MSN, Vonage, and others?

Whitacre: How do you think they're going to get to customers? Through a broadband pipe. Cable companies have them. We have them. Now what they would like to do is use my pipes free, but I ain't going to let them do that because we have spent this capital and we have to have a return on it. So there's going to have to be some mechanism for these people who use these pipes to pay for the portion they're using. Why should they be allowed to use my pipes?

The Internet can't be free in that sense, because we and the cable companies have made an investment and for a Google or Yahoo! (YHOO) or Vonage or anybody to expect to use these pipes [for] free is nuts!

IP Inferno: Ed Whitacre Wants The End of The Internet

Right after I visited WiMAX Forum in October, I wrote my January column for VoIP Magazine. I focused on a technology called IMS which I predicted that the incumbent Telcos would use to block competitors and control consumer access to Internet Application Providers. I didn't think these predictions would come true so soon...

Call your congressman. Get the EFF on the case. If at all possible, leave SBC and Belsouth and get your broadband from some other source so that competition can be promoted. I recently moved to Sonic.net here in the bay area. While they still have to pay SBC for access, at least SBC gets less of my money... Don't sit idly by and let the monopoly broadband providers further destroy American competitiveness by stifling creativity, innovation, and liberty.

Skype Blocking in China

2005-11-14T14:16:00.000-08:00

Verso has announced a partnership with a "Tier-1 Telecom" carrier in China to test their Skype blocking software.

“The trial is representative of the significant opportunities for Verso’s products in the Chinese market, where VoIP is highly regulated and the use of Skype software has been deemed illegal,” said Yves Desmet, senior vice president, worldwide sales, Verso Technologies. “More and more countries are following China’s direction in evaluating the risks associated with the growing popularity of P2P communication such as Skype, due to intense security concerns with the use of this medium for unlawful purposes and its impact on carriers’ revenues and the bottlenecks their networks are experiencing. We believe that this is just the beginning of a tremendous opportunity for Verso.”

Beware Ebay! Hopefully the more "open" markets of the west don't follow suit...

Testing Flock

2005-11-10T11:41:00.000-08:00

I am testing Flock as a new tool for the IP Inferno editorial team...

technorati tags: Flock

Open vs. Regulated Markets

2005-11-08T09:58:00.000-08:00

Today I had a visitor who commented on almost all of my recent blog posts. You can read his comments here, here, and here (two comments on that last one). While B.M.'s comments rant at times, the point is reasonable. And he/she might be surprised at the degree to which I agree with the points. The core question is, what role should government play in regulating industries? The poster seems to see this issue as black and white -- communism vs. capitalism. He/she makes the argument that we should try pure capitalism in this country. I think this is a great idea, except that a short history lesson will tell you that this hasn't worked in the past.

Sure, the world hasn't ever tried COMPLETELY unregulated commerce (no governments?) but our own past here in the U.S. has certainly included periods of significantly less regulation. In fact a reasonable argument could be made that industrialists in the first half of our nation's history would look at the system we have today and decry it as socialism, or worse. By comparison to today, the 1800s in the US were practically a time without regulation.

However, arguments like the ones put forth by B.M. tend to ignore a few sad facts:

Capitalism is good at rewarding
(a) short term investment horizons
(b) the people who have the capital
(c) private interests

Capitalism is not good at protecting
(a) the environment
(b) workers
(c) the public good

Would B.M., for example, like to live in a country where the highway system had to be built by private enterprise? It is unlikely that the modern US highway system ever would have developed without a strong federal government. Part of the problem is that the "repayment" period is far too long and uncertain for industry to undertake this kind of investment. Without the perceived needs of national security (moving wartime men and materials rapidly across country) the Eisenhower administration would not have receieved support for this infrastructure investment.

Another interesting example is the FDA -- how many worthless (or dangerous) drugs might be sold on the market to unsuspecting consumers if we didn't have an agency regulating these products? Sure, you can criticize the FDA for some of its mistakes and some of its commerce limiting practices, but does anyone really want to live without an FDA?

And how about working conditions? We can plainly see the difference between our relatively safe and clean working environments and those in countries that have no protections for their citizens. Does B.M. want us to return to an economy on which children routinely die in factories because of unsafe conditions? Check our own history books -- this was what the US was like before regulation.

Finally, lets talk briefly about the environment, something we still do a poor job of understanding and regulating in this country (but definitely the battle of this century). Capitalism provides no motivation to protect the environment for our children or our grandchildren. If I can pollute Louisiana today in order to earn higher profits for my California corporation, why not? And companies routinely foul the water we drink and the air we breathe -- even with the regulations we have in place. And this is a global problem -- the pollution that China is now pumping into the atmosphere is rapidly becoming a US air quality problem.

So yes, I like the idea of relying upon private enterprise to solve many of our problems, but no I don't "trust" them to always do the right thing -- because that is not how the incentives of Capitalism work. This is not black and white, it is about finding the right shade of grey.

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming about the IP revolution - one entirely generated by business and which I wholeheartedly support...

EV-DO Coming on Strong from Sprint

2005-11-08T09:44:00.000-08:00

It is possible that EV-DO is actually available in my neighborhood from Sprint. The company announced this morning that it has now rolled out service in "141 major markets and 250 airports." Looking at this map of the bay area I can't quite tell if my house is in the coverage area... but then again I already have Wi-Fi here at home. The important question is, will there be coverage in most of the places I travel to? And it is definitely starting to get there. Here is a link to Sprint's coverage maps so that you can check if your neighborhood currently has coverage.

The 222 airports alone might justify the service, which has "...average download speeds of 400-700 kbs and a peak rate of up to 2 Mbs" according to the company's press release. This is more than fast enough for email and web browsing and would entirely eliminate my need to find WiFi in the airport when travelling. It is even fast enough for high quality VoIP calls, which will definitely be interesting to test.

No Tollbooths

2005-11-07T10:00:00.000-08:00

An excellent post by Tom Evslin on his fractals of change blog about the Ed Whitacre BusinessWeek interview (about which we previously wrote about here and here. Tom writes:

This isn’t about freeloaders; it’s about tollbooths. As local access monopolies, the baby Bells have been able to maintain tollbooths for voice traffic for years. Voice over IP (VoIP) got much of its original impetus by providing a bypass around those tollbooths. Even though they’ve done better than their long distance rivals (whom they are now buying), it’s getting harder and harder for the baby Bells to increase or even maintain profits. They could have been leaders in Internet access but they weren’t. Now they are providing DSL – great. Now they would like to erect new tollbooths on what used to be called the Information Super Highway – that sucks.

Read the rest of this excellent post. Tom ends: "Meanwhile, it’s a good idea not to get your broadband hookup from someone who’s already said that they intend to erect a tollbooth on YOUR pipe. If you have a choice, that is." And that lack of choice is the point, isn't it. SBC (when do we start calling them AT&T?) is trying to make sure that we don't have a choice. When will our government be back off of their Martin-vacation to protect us, the consumers? Wasn't that supposed to be their job?

SBC Digs Hole Deeper

2005-11-05T14:31:00.000-08:00

Following up on my post a few days ago on how Ed Whitacre wants the end of the Internet, it is interesting to note that SBC press folks are now trying to squelch the flames lit by Ed. According to the VoIP and Enum blog:

SBC spokesman Michael Balmoris said Whitacre was not talking about charging companies for letting customers access their Web sites. Rather, he said, Whitacre was referring to access Internet companies may want to the "managed and secure" portions of the fiber-optic network SBC is building largely to deliver video to customer homes.

Read the rest of what Balmoris had to say over at VoIP and Enum. That blog post also offers a link to Kevin Werbach who adds:

Ahh, so broadband over fiber isn't going to be "the Internet." It's going to be a private, tolled garden controlled by the phone companies.

This all points back to a nasty littly technology called IMS that the phone companies are rather excited about. The new fiber network that SBC is rolling out will come complete with "gateway media controllers" which will allow the network to determine which applications and which content receive priority, and indeed are even allowed, to run over the network. If consumers allow the network monopolists to insert network controls over our applications and content, they network operators will try to turn the Internet into Television. Remember the Information Superhighway? Control from the top.

Worse than no 911

2005-11-04T10:10:00.000-08:00

In general I have not been a supporter of the frenzy with which the telecommunications industry has pursued the nascent VoIP providers with the demand that 911 services be activated properly... My point in the past has been that cellular operators have squeezed out from under the requirement to have location analysis for 911 calls over and over again... so why are we insisting that VoIP providers know where there customers are calling from? But after reading this account of someone using the Vonage 911 service my views on the subject have changed.

In this case, Corey had correctly set up his Vonage account with his address... but when he called 911 the call had to be transferred twice before getting someone who would respond to the incident (gunshots in the street outside his building). Read his transcript of the experience.

Forget about the issue of having one's address correctly registered in the Vonage database. Forget the issue of whether or not you are using your Vonage account from that address at the time you make the call. We should hold VoIP providers, at least those like Vonage that offer VoIP as a primary connection to the PSTN (and thus a replacement for the PSTN) to the same basic requirement that cellular operators are held to -- sure, they may not know where you are. But they do have a system for funneling your emergency request to the right person for a response.

Ed Whitacre Wants The End of The Internet

2005-11-02T15:30:00.000-08:00

Important notice to readers of this blog -- if you are a customer of SBC, you may not be able to read these priceless words in the future if SBC chief Ed Whitacre has his way. Whitacre, in a candid interview with BusinessWeek, has uttered a challenge to the Internet that cannot be ignored. In short, he wants to end the Internet as we know it, bringing on a new era in which broadband providers like SBC can completely control every website, service, or person that we can access over the network that they provide. Think I am exagerating? Here is an excerpt:

BusinessWeek:How concerned are you about Internet upstarts like Google (GOOG), MSN, Vonage, and others?

Whitacre: How do you think they're going to get to customers? Through a broadband pipe. Cable companies have them. We have them. Now what they would like to do is use my pipes free, but I ain't going to let them do that because we have spent this capital and we have to have a return on it. So there's going to have to be some mechanism for these people who use these pipes to pay for the portion they're using. Why should they be allowed to use my pipes?

The Internet can't be free in that sense, because we and the cable companies have made an investment and for a Google or Yahoo! (YHOO) or Vonage or anybody to expect to use these pipes [for] free is nuts!

Hello Mr. Whitacre, I (the end consumer) am paying you for that broadband access! What makes you think it is "free?" And what makes you think that you can tell me what to do with it??

I have to agree with Techdirt's observation that "If there were real competition (in providing broadband), SBC would never even dare to suggest that they might cut off a Google, Yahoo or Vonage.

FON - Anarchic Wireless Network

2005-11-01T14:49:00.000-08:00

There may be others out there that have started building anarchic wireless networks, but perhaps no one with the class and style of Martin Varsavsky's FON. Martin writes about starting Fon in his blog:

What is FON? Very simple. At FON we developed a software client that you download from the net and you install it in your wifi base station. At that moment your wifi gives you a password of your choice but starts accepting all the other passwords of all the other FON members. FON is based on the premise that with wifi now being 54MB on cable and DSL platforms of 1MB or more that wifi users are only taking advantage of 3% of their capacity on the average or in other words wasting 97% of their capacity. At the same time what users want is for their laptops, PDAs, wifi phones, and soon wifi enable ipods, wifi enable digital cameras to access to everyone else´s wifi so they can walk around cities taking pictures, listening to music, playing games on wifi playstations, etc. And this we accomplish by turning millions of wifi installations into a unified wifi FON network with a standard interface to accept all kind of wifi enabled devices.

This could get very scary for the incumbent wireless network operators! A citizen driven network? Sounds a lot like democracy smashing down the walls of the tyrants, telecommunications style...

Motorola's 4G Bet

2005-10-31T11:17:00.000-08:00

For TelecomBeat, I interviewed Motorola's director of 802.16 products, and the person at SprintNextel responsible for evaluating 4th generation gear. The resulting story is posted here. An excerpt:

While Motorola is a manufacturer of 3G equipment, at least one team at the company is betting that some operators will bypass 3G and invest in fourth generation networks based on WiMAX. Called MOTOwi4 (the 4 stands for fourth generation), the group is leveraging the company's existing Canopy wireless data products, VoIP access devices, and Motorola IMS to enter the market quickly with a complete 802.16e solution for delivering broadband data and voice into consumer's homes.

More on Motorola's plans, including a description of their CPE's and a comment from Sprint on TelecomBeat's website.

Welcome Back Ma Bell

2005-10-27T08:28:00.000-07:00

During my podcast with VoIP Magazine's Bryan Richard at the VON conference a month ago I suggested that SBC would take the AT&T name once the merger was complete. It looks like I was right. Andy Abramson was right as well. Gee, we should put our heads together and make a few more prediction :-)

At the end of the trading day, SBC will be announcing their new logo and trading symbol:

At close, the new company will unveil a fresh, new logo. After completion of the merger, the transition to the new brand will be heavily promoted with the largest multimedia advertising and marketing campaign in either company's history, as well as through other promotional initiatives. At close, the company will also announce the stock market ticker symbol it intends to use.

During that same podcast I also predicted that SBC's (err.. AT&T's) next target would be BellSouth. They already co-own Cingular...

VoIP over WiMAX from Motorola

2005-10-27T06:38:00.000-07:00

This morning I spoke with Juan Santiago, Senior Director of Motorola's 802.16 products. He detailed their WiMAX plans and I found it especially interesting to hear that Motorola would be taking their existing VT1000 home VoIP gateway product and integrating a WiMAX CPE to offer VoIP over WiMAX. The VT1000 supports 10 different VoIP service protocols, including Motorola's own IMS implementation, allowing operators to offer high quality voice services over mobile broadband. He also said there was a VT2500 on the way which would also be integrated with the WiMAX CPE. Both products are expected in January 2007.

Juan said this would be one of three CPE's that Motorola will be offering for consumer access over WiMAX -- there will be a broadband only, the VoIP/broadband product based on integrating the VT1000 and VT2500, and a combined VoIP WiFi product... and he hinted at WiFi VoIP handsets, "entirely eliminating the need to go to an analog telephone."

Of course none of these products will be available in the U.S. market. You'll have to go over the border to Canada or Mexico, or overseas. Motorola is focused on delivering WiMAX in the 3.5 GHz range, which is a portion of the spectrum reserved in the U.S. for the military.

WiMAX: Fixed vs. Mobile

2005-10-26T16:38:00.000-07:00

TelecomBeat has posted my first article from the WiMAX World show -- outlining the debate about fixed vs. mobile WiMAX deployments -- WiMAX: Fixed vs. Mobile

The nascent WiMAX industry finds itself at a turning point in its evolution as the WiMAX World Conference and Exposition opens in Boston, Mass. this week.

While the early “fixed” version of the 802.16 standard has been ratified, and long delayed certification of products appears certain before year-end, the newer (and unfinished) 802.16e “mobile” version of the standard is now getting all of the attention from large manufacturers and potential customers. Unfortunately for vendors and customers, it will be late in 2007 before certified 802.16e equipment is available. As a result, pre-conference presentations at this year’s conference tried to bring attention back to applications for fixed WiMAX.

Cognitive Dissonance

2005-10-26T15:46:00.000-07:00

Cognitive Dissonance is a fancy way of saying, "huh?" And that is just what I have been saying while sitting here in the Boston "World Trade Center" and listening to the WiMAXWorld press conference while simultaneously fielding emails from my friend Paul Kapustka at the USTA Telecom '05 show in Las Vegas. Its almost as if we are living in two different worlds...

As an example, Mo Shakouri (chair of the WiMAX Forum Marketing committee) says that BellSouth made an announcement that they are using WiMAX to deliver "instant circuits" in places like New Orleans and Florida where hurricanes have devastated the physical layer. But a quick search on the web finds that they have a test service running in New Orleans. According to another report they have only deployed three base stations.

Another news report from the USTA Telecom show states that "WiMAX is just hype without spectrum." In this article the author reports on BellSouth's CTO's comments on WiMAX:

BellSouth owns MMDS and WCS spectrum, and will focus its exploratory efforts there, said CTO Bill Smith. “But it’s hard to start building something on the expectation of spectrum. We have a lot of opportunities to invest capital that are more certain.”

It seems that at the USTA show, carriers are skeptical about WiMAX. Perhaps that is why they didn't come to Boston. But does that mean that the folks that came to Boston are pathological optimists? Or just represent different parts of the industry?

For now I'll take the second of these two options. But I'll keep working on answering this question while I am here...

SBC WiMAX Presentation

2005-10-26T13:12:00.000-07:00

Arun Ghosh, Principal Member of the Technical Staff, Wireless Networks, SBC Labs;"what I will try to do is speak from the perspective of an operator that has both wireline and wireless experience. In the last 10 years, mobile users have gone from 10 million users worldwide to oer 2 billion today. Broadband during this same period has gone from basically zero to 150 million users worldwide. While this is enormous growth, why hasn't broadband grown as fast as wireless? And what does this say about the adoption of wireless broadband?

Complexity, spectrum, regulatory issues, applications... these are all issues for the adoption of broadband. Wireless broadband has these and more.

Business challenges -- the bar is constantly being raised by wireline technologies (ADSL, VDSL, DOCSIS); there is a lack of global spectrum (which means the market is fragmented and you lose economies of scale); devices are still under development; and there is competition from 3G.

Technical challenges -- there are high spectral efficiency requirements for broadband, there is spectrum scarcity, QoS over wireless networks, and mobility (which is a big differentiator).

How does WiMAX address these challenges?

Most importantly, it is a global standard which allows for economies of scale. The price of the CPE, for example, is a very critical factor. With other broadband wireless technologies the CPE can cost thousands of dollars. We are already seeing WiMAX CPE's at around $200.

The business opportunities of WiMAX will be different in different countries. In developing countries there is a high rate of adoption of wireless technologies since this is a significant time to market and financial advantage over physical infrastructure. In countries where we already have a very good wireline network it is much more difficult. However, there are opportunities for broadband wireless -- not by competing with wireline broadband but by complementing such services. Mobility will be the key differentiator.

Earthlink WiMAX Presentation

2005-10-26T13:01:00.000-07:00

Bill Tolpegin, Director of Corporate Development, Earthlink gave a presentation on "an operator's perspective of WiMAX." He specifically focused on municipal broadband deployment. "We have been searching the world for alternative broadband, the third pipe to the home. And I think we've found it..."

Municipal Broadband -- "Earthlink's focus is on the public/private partnership model." recently won the contract to build the Philadelphia open access WiFi network.

"If you had told me a year ago that I would be standing in front of this audience, I would have said you were dead wrong. I was fully convinced a year ago that licensed spectrum was the way to go. I thought that the only way to deliver QoS was with licensed spectrum. But having spent the last year doing diligence on WiFi... this stuff is out there and it works. It enhances the fixed line model and provides a mobile experience."

WiMAX provides the backhaul to our local pops. Why are we interested in WiMAX? bandwidth, QoS, services, standards, and a rural model. But there are some big challenges: spectrum, timing, perception, and hardware.

Samsung WiMAX Presentation

2005-10-26T12:34:00.000-07:00

Hungkwon Song, VP Global Marketing Group, Samsung presented the South Korean perspective on WiMax. Samsung's WiBro technology will be the first mobile broadband technology in the world, and it is being merged into the WiMAX "e" standard.

Korea broadband market:
78% has wireline and wireless data access and next year some uesers will have 100 MB service. There are 37.8 M mobile subscriptions -- 36 M mobile data users. Revenue from data is 25% of ARPU. There are already 12 M EV-DO subscribers. Last year CAGR for the mobile data market was 85%. The very first toy that children play with in Korea is a mobile handset.

Applications:
5.7 Billion SMS messages a month. Every subscriber is sending an average of 5 messages a day. Data services has become an essential service for every day life.

May 2005 we launched satellite digital media broadcasts (DMB). As of August 2005 we already had 145,000 subscribers. In December 2005, a terrestrial DMB will be launched and will be free.

Cyworld is a combination of mobile blogging and web blogging. The upload traffic is 10 times the download traffic. In August, 2005 15 million subscribers including 1 million mobile users.

Three Generations of consumers:
Analog (30+); Digital (20s-30s); Post Digital (13-24). This last category is the one that is driving high speed mobile data services. They are living simultaneously in the cyber world and the real world.

WiBro rollout next year:
The South Korean government has mandated that WiBro will have a minimum download of 512 Kbps and a minimum upload 128 Kbps. We have demonstrated a 4 Mbps download and 2 Mbps upload. Just yesterday we announced a PDA with WiBro capability.

Voice and the WiMAX/3G Debate

2005-10-26T12:16:00.000-07:00

Various representatives of the WiMAX community have been repeating the marketing mantra that WiMAX is not a threat to 3G. I had a chance to speak with Mo Shakouri, the chair of the WiMAX Forum marketing committee, and I thought I'd try to nail him down on this issue.

"Its two different mindsets," Shakouri said. "The 3G standard is optimized for delivering voice first, ubiquitous coverage second, and increased data access but within a walled garden." On the other hand, "mobile WiMAX is DSL on the move. It is not optimized for voice..." And then he added the marketing phrase again, "WiMAX complements 3G."

So I said, wait a minute... are you saying that the primary difference between WiMAX and 3G is circuit-switched voice? I can do that with GSM and CDMA... And all morning long I have been hearing from vendors that voice revenue will be cannabilized by VoIP over WiMAX... So is it the ubiquitous part that I am supposed to care about? Because I certainly do not think that the market is a fan of the "walled garden."

"We are hoping that 3G is successful," Mo started, "but we do think that the advantage in the long run for WiMAX is that it is a flat low cost network. This is IP. It is 4G. 5-10 years from now, sure WiMAX may be the preferred use for spectrum over current 3G. In the meantime, it is a complement."

So I believe the correct answer to the question "is WiMAX a threat to 3G" is "not yet..." But 3G operators had better prepare for a day when the walled garden is gone, WiMAX is as ubiquitous as 3G, and voice is just another application on the IP network. And that day may be closer than the current financial models suggest...

KT to join WiMAX Board

2005-10-26T12:11:00.000-07:00

Just learned from Mo Shakouri, chair of the WiMAX Forum marketing forum, that there will be an announcement tomorrow that South Korea's KT will be joining the WiMAX Forum board of directors. According to Dr. Shakouri, "KT is investing a billion dollars in bringing WiMAX to consumers." This follows the decision by Samsung to combine their Wi-Bro efforts with mobile WiMAX.

South Korea will have the first consumer mobile broadband service in the world, in operation using Wi-Bro technology in mid-2006. The rest of the world will wait for mobile WiMAX, expected in mid-2007.