Exploring the impact of broadband and technology on our lives, our businesses, and our communities.
Clash of the Titans
Microsoft and Google are each prepping for a fight to the death over ownership of users. This SlashDot article discusses the approach each is taking and what the consequences may be for both users and the two firms.
Google has a more clearly defined strategy; the company thinks most applications like email, word processing, spreadsheets, and graphics will be hosted by Google computers, and users will access the applications over an ever fast broadband network.
Microsoft still makes most of its money from software like Windows and Office, which run on the desktop, not from the network. To counter Google, Microsoft has been experimenting with network-based services and applications, but has not had the same success as Google.
The business models are different as well. If you look at Microsoft's net-based services, many of them rely on subscription fees. Google prefers to offer its services for free, although you can upgrade some of them for a fee, which unlocks more features.
For users, the real issue is not where the service resides, but whether or not you can trust a third party with your data. The end user license agreements for free services usually give the firm supplying the services the right to change the terms whenever they want, along with the right to rummage through your files. Google wants to read all your mail and files so it can find out what you buy. They then use that data to deliver targeted ads to you. If Google notices your email includes lots of references to camping, you may see more L.L. Bean ads popping up alongside your "free" word processor.
Hosted services offer many benefits, including access away from the home or office. But I am more inclined to pay for those services. If you want hosted email, why not buy it from a firm like Webmail, which simply provides you with email and is not trying to make a buck reading your mail at the same time?
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The Wired Road
Down in southwest Virginia, in the heart of bluegrass country, right along the route of The Crooked Road, The Wired Road is under construction. The Wired Road is an integrated fiber and wireless, open, multi-service network that intends to bring high performance broadband services to Carroll and Grayson counties and the city of Galax.
The effort is led by the Blue Ridge Crossroads Economic Development Authority (BRCEDA) and funded in part with the assistance of the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development. A highly energized management team of elected and appointed officials, business people, and community leaders have taken the project from a one page vision statement to putting the first customer on the network in ten months, with the long term goal of taking fiber to most homes and businesses in the 20,000 home region over the next four to five years.
Disclaimer: The Wired Road planning and implementation is being managed by Design Nine. Call us if you want this kind of network for your region.
Wiring homes for electric power
The Energy Economy continues to generate some of the most innovative new ideas we've seen in a long time. University of Delaware researchers have proposed V2G technology (Vehicle to Grid). A home and automobile designed to support V2G would be able to send electric power stored in the battery of an electric vehicle back up the grid--making your electric meter spin backwards and reducing your electric bill.
Why would you do this? You can recharge your electric vehicle at night, when the cost of electricity is lower, and sell some of that cheap power back to the electric company during peak demand periods when electric rates are higher. This approach turns electric cars into electric generation facilities.
The V2G system requires some changes to the onboard electronics of electric cars, and the home would have to have AMR/AMI (Advanced Meter Reading/Advanced Metering Infrastructure) installed so that the electric company could tell the car to send electricity back up the line.
Cities like Danville, Virginia are already designing AMR/AMI (Smart Grid) services to be part of its multi-service open broadband network. Danville's combination of a high performance, open "digital road"system combined with resilient and reliable electric power make it attractive for high tech businesses (Disclaimer: Danville is a Design Nine client).
Here is a question for local and regional planners: Do your building codes requires a separate 240 volt electric circuit to the garage to charge electric vehicles? Do you require a separate 240 volt plug in the garage for each bay (one plug per vehicle)? If not, why not?
Communities that work with developers to add the broadband and electric infrastructure to new homes to make them "Internet ready" and "electric vehicle" ready will have some real marketing advantages when promoting their communities to relocating businesses.
Technology News:
85% take rate for multi-service open network
The community of Nuenen, Holland has great news for those interested in multi--service open networks. The community broadband project, which had hoped for a 35% take rate, has seen much, much better results:
"The 'pitch' in Nuenen is not about 'bandwidth' 'fibre' or anything techie. Nuenen has an elderly community, consequently Ons Net aimed to appeal to a 75 year old woman who does not own a computer nor used the internet," he explained.
It is local services supporting security, home care, events on the local TV channel and improving the community that are attracting people.
In order to secure the necessary funds Ons Net was looking for an initial 35% sign-up rate. In fact it got closer to 85% and posted a £1m profit in its first year.
In Nuenen, residents get connected to a 100 megabit capacity fiber network, and buy individual services like Internet access, telephone service, and TV service. This is a fundamentally different business model that creates real competition among service providers and tends to lower service costs. Communities in the U.S. pursuing this approach include Palo Alto, California; Seattle, Washington; Gainesville, Florida; the 15 community MegaPOP project in Mississippi; Danville, Virginia; and The Wired Road project in southwestern Virginia. The last two communities are being assisted by Design Nine.
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NY governor calls for universal broadband
Eliot Spitzer, the governor of New York, has called for universal access to broadband in the state. The text of his speech is here (note that you have to scroll down past the agriculture remarks to get to the broadband stuff).
Unfortunately, Spitzer seems comfortable relegating rural areas to second class status. He calls for a minimum of 100 megabit connectivity in urban areas, but says that just one-fifth of that (20 megabits) is fine for rural areas. Cable and DSL are not going to provide universal access in rural parts of New York, so Spitzer has apparently decided that rural areas will have to make do with wireless while the cities get fiber. Rural citizens and legislators in the state should be outraged that the governor is willing to choke their economic future so easily.
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AT&T opens its network
Unlike the rest of the world, cellphones in the U.S. only work on the network for which they were originally purchased, and we have always had to buy the phones from the cellular provider. In Europe, for example, you can walk into almost any store and buy a cheap cellphone and then activate it for use on the network of your choice.
AT&T has announced that they are now taking the same approach on their GSM network in the U.S. This has apparently been an option for a while, but the company has never publicized it.
The one exception to this is the iPhone, which works only on the AT&T network. iPhone users will not be able to get their phone unlocked so it could be taken to another network.
Oddly enough, AT&T's new openness is probably due in part to the success of the iPhone. AT&T's new popularity as a cellular provider has been lifting out of last place in the U.S. cellular market, and the company probably sees this as an opportunity to bring even more customers--many of whom may not want an iPhone.
Technology News:
Pay phones slowly fade away
AT&T has announced it is dumping all its payphones. The "new" AT&T says they don't make any money. Payphone use has been declining dramatically as the use of cellphones has risen. Oddly enough, Verizon claims it still makes money from pay phones.
Even stranger: AT&T had more payphones in 1902 than it does today.
Technology News:
Wireless keyboards a security risk
Those handy wireless keyboards are a security risk. Researchers have discovered that they easily monitor every keystroke sent from a wireless keyboard to the computer. The keyboards use a very weak form of encryption that can be easily monitored using an inexpensive radio receiver from as much as thirty feet away, and the encryption algorithm is easy to crack using virtually any computer--no special supercomputer required.
This means hackers can easily monitor your keyboard and filter for passwords, credit cards, and other personal information.
Knowledge Democracy:
Rural America: 40% less costly
Here is an article about how Northrop Grumman is moving jobs to small towns and cities. The company reports that labor savings can be more than 40%--a substantial amount that pays off year after year, and more than covers the initial cost of moving facilities. One of the locations cited is the small Virginia town of Lebanon. Lebanon is a small town located deep in the heart of the Blue Ridge mountains, a good 30 minute drive from the interstate.
Why did Northrop Grumman put 600 jobs there? Lebanon had participated in a regional fiber project that assured Northrup they would have the broadband connectivity the firm needed to get its work done.
Hat tip to Ed Morrison's excellent economic development blog.
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Affordable housing draws workers
In yet another indication that quality of life is increasingly affecting economic development, a HUD newsletter had the following snippet:
“California has begun losing college-educated residents, on net, to other states, in large part because of the high cost of housing,” Virginia Postrel notes in Atlantic Monthly. “The South’s population growth since the 1980s has come from the lure of cheap housing created by liberal permitting policies, according to new research by the Harvard economists Edward Glaeser and Kristina Tobin. By lowering the cost of housing, these policies give residents higher real incomes compared with similarly paid workers elsewhere – a strong incentive to move, even if you don’t like bugs or hot summers. The mobile middle class gravitates to the cities where housing is affordable.”
Smaller cities that have affordable housing and affordable broadband would seem to have a valuable edge over communities that can't offer one, the other, or either of them.
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