Exploring the impact of broadband and technology on our lives, our businesses, and our communities.
Lights, action, pass the butter
As I visit communities around the country and work with local economic developers and elected officials, I find great skepticism focused on my insistence that we need minimum acceptable bandwidth of 100 megabits per second to every home and business. These officials often scoff at the notion that their citizens will ever need that kind of bandwidth, and the example they often cite is elderly people in their community, who "will never need that kind of bandwidth."
Uh huh. Accenture is busy designing a new home to home video system that allows family members in different locations to enjoy meals together. The three essential ingredients are High Definition cameras, HD flat panel monitors, and a high performance broadband connection between the two locations. A single channel of high quality HD video requires 18 to 20 megabits per second each way, for a total of about 40 megabits per second.
This kind of system is well beyond the capacity of DSL and cable modem systems, can't run at all on WiFi, and would overwhelm the Passive Optical Networks (PONs) being rolled out by the phone companies.
Once in production, these systems are expected to sell for $500 to $1000, and have great promise in telehealth for the elderly. Regular contact with distant family members and with health care professionals promises to delay moving some older people into assisted living facilities or nursing homes for months or years, making the systems a real bargain--the typical monthly cost for assisted living or a nursing home is upwards of $3000 per month.
Is your community attracting retired people because of the good quality of life? These folks are prime candidates for this kind of system in a few years, and high capacity, affordable broadband is needed. High performance broadband is going to change our lives in many small and large ways, and communities need to invest in the right kinds of open service provider networks to ensure that their citizens and businesses have the right kind of broadband.
Economic development bonus: There will be lots of business opportunities for local entrepreneurs to install and maintain these new kinds of systems--if the community has the right infrastructure in place to support them.
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Is the 'net being ruined by spam and crooks?
The popular social networking site MySpace is beginning to have problems with spam, phishing, porn, and other kinds of unfriendly and malicious content. At the root of much of this is the anonymity of the sites. Anyone can register as a MySpace user, which has delighted sexual predators who use the site to find vulnerable underage children.
The phishing schemes are made simpler because you don't ever really know who you are talking to in a MySpace group or content area. So "someone" who appears to be interested in the same things you are might turn out to be a credit card crook from Asia. The business of spam and Internet fraud is accelerating as more and more parts of the world get connected. Go to a small, poor Asian country, and you can hire people for a $1 an hour to place spam on Web sites with discussion forums (which is why I had to disable anonymous posting on this site).
Eventually, we will evolve solutions to minimize many of these problems, but others may be with us for a long time.
Technology News:
Microsoft's Vista degrades performance
Peter Gutmann, a well known software security expert from Australia, has posted a long piece on the some of the problems he sees with Vista. Gutmann's piece is not the typical anti-Microsoft rant; he has done extensive research and consulted with many other reputable experts. His focus on on Vista's new "features" that are designed to prevent unauthorized use of copyrighted content like videos and music.
The article is very long and provides extensive detail, but the key concept is that the Vista code that degrades the quality of music and video if the output device (like a TV or a stereo) does not have the same kind of software content management as Vista. In some cases, Vista will completely disable a video or audio card or certain other kinds of hardware installed in your PC if Vista decides it does not have the appropriate level of content protection.
To illustrate this, Gutmann cites someone who purchased a new HP Media Center computer that came with an HD video that would NOT play on the buyer's flat panel HD TV because the TV was not "Vista compatible." In fact, Gutmann says virtually all audio and video entertainment systems lack the software Microsoft expects.
Gutmann characterizes these new controls as a blatant attempt by Microsoft to monopolize all entertainment content, in the same way that Apple has monopolized music with the iTunes store. It is worth noting that Gutmann is equally unhappy with Apple and the way it has structured digital rights management (DRM) with iTunes content. And I have to agree; I still buy music the old fashioned way, by purchasing a CD, which does not have DRM limitations on it.
Gutmann sees a dreary future for PC users, and predicts that ultimately, Microsoft will fail, because we simply won't bother using our PCs to play videos and music....we'll buy cheap CD/DVD players for $50 that do not come encumbered with all this nonsense. Finally, Gutmann raises the spectre of real damage arising from Vista. Gutmann mentions a medical professional who says he cannot run the risk of having vital medical systems shut down autonomously because Vista software has decided some medical device does not have the correct DRM installed. That's something to think about the next time you or someone you know is checked into a hospital.
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Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all my readers. I am deeply appreciative that I have so many people visiting this site, and I hope that my writing has been helpful. I have been blogging since early 2002, and each year, traffic has steadily increased. The number of visitors to the site on a daily basis has gone up by 50% or more every year since I started writing, and this year new records were set, with many days logging more than 1000 visitors per day.
It is an exciting time for communities, which are poised to begin finally reaping the dividends of technology, and I expect that 2007 will see many towns, cities, and regions taking control of their economic destiny with broadband investments.
Thanks again for your continued support.
Andrew Cohill
Do we really want faster horses?
"If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses." --Henry Ford
Communities interested in broadband almost automatically decide that the first step is to ask residents what they want. But Henry Ford's comment from decades ago still rings true. If you are trying to prepare your community for the future, you need to remember that not everyone thinks much about it (the future).
Broadband surveys still routinely show that half of dial up Internet users don't see any need for broadband, and I have sat in more than one meeting where one or more public officials have used such data to "prove" that a community investment in broadband is wrongheaded.
Surveys, done properly, can provide useful data, but they survey needs to be designed well and administered by a professional polling firm. Just mailing out surveys to the Chamber members and asking them what they want may not help, and it may hinder the effort.
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World's largest copper reserve is in the U.S.
Much is being made in the media over the rising price of copper. It is apparently now cost effective to melt down pennies and nickels for the copper content, although the Federal government is about to outlaw that.
But there is no copper shortage in the world, and the world's largest copper reserve is right here in the United States. It is not the Kennecott copper mine in Utah, which is the world's largest open pit mine. In fact, these copper reserves are not even in the ground. There is hundreds of millions of pounds of copper hanging on telephone poles in the U.S., and much of it has already been abandoned. One problem communities face is a lack of pole space for community fiber. The problem has been exacerbated over the years because it has been cheaper for the phone companies to simply lash new copper cables to poles than to first take down old cables. It is very common in many areas to see as many as four or five phone cables lashed to poles, which effectively prevents anyone else from using that pole space, even if they have a joint use agreement in place.
As the price of copper rises, someone will figure out it is cheaper to mine copper on poles than to dig it out of the ground, and some of those old cables will finally start to come down. In fact, we may already have crossed the threshold where copper telecom cables cost more than fiber telecom cables. And there will never be a shortage of raw materials for fiber cable--it is made from purified sand.
In any "crisis," there is always an opportunity. The copper price "crisis" will not only create new business opportunities, it may help solve some difficult community broadband problems as well.
Technology News:
Still looking for fiber's upper limit
Communities that worry about investing in fiber because it might not last long enough in terms of capacity need not worry. No one has yet found the upper limit of capacity. Siemens just set a new record for the amount of data pushed through a single channel of a fiber cable: 107 Gigabits, or about a thousand times faster than the "standard" 100 megabit off the shelf network gear used today.
The key word here is "channel." A single fiber can have multiple channels, and off the shelf network gear today supports, for example, 40 and 80 channels. Fujitsu has equipment that can push over a terabit of data (1000 Gigabits) over multiple channels (20 channels of 10 Gigabits each).
This makes fiber a very safe investment.
One more thing: all these new systems use "active" networks, rather than the telephone companies preferred "passive" or PON systems. If you want to future proof your communities investment in fiber, active systems are the way to go. You won't find anyone doing cutting edge research and development on PON systems, which are designed mainly to prop up legacy telephone networks and to keep customers locked into monopoly providers.
Technology News:
Top jobs in the next ten years
I think there are some interesting new job opportunities that are going to emerge in the next ten years, and one would hope K12 schools and colleges start now with new and revised curriculums to meet demand.
The first hot job is going to language specialist. Linguists who can speak at least four languages and ideally six or more are going to be able to write their own ticket in the work world, and will be able to command high dollar salaries. As the world economy continues to heat up, more and more businesses are going to be able to grow only by expanding into international markets, where they will have to be able to speak languages other than English. If six languages sounds like a lot, it really is not. Once you get past three, it is pretty easy. Languages that are going to be important include Chinese, Japanese, and Russian, among others.
The other hot job is going to be information manager. Traditionally, "information management" has been relegated to IT departments, where geeks build complicated databases and systems that usually require users to cram information into often convoluted and rigid formats, because that is the way IT people think. The new information manager will NOT be part of an IT department, but will work alongside business managers, salespeople, and project team members to keep information flowing between team members and clients. The information manager will have a high degree of skill using a wide variety of information tools, and will be able to craft custom solutions for individual projects using lots of off the shelf applications and judicious (and limited) use of scripts and small amounts of programming. This job will be the antithesis of the IT department approach to information management.
How about your local schools? Are they looking ten to twenty years ahead and trying to identify where job demand is going to create opportunities and needs? If not, why not?
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Community news and projects:
New Year's resolutions for communities
Old minds (communities) think: If it didn't work last year, let's do MORE of it this year.
New minds (communities) think: If it didn't work last year, let's do something ELSE this year.
Old minds (communities) think: How do we stop these bad things from happening?
New minds (communities) think: How do we make things the way we want them to be?
Quoted from "Beyond Civilization: Humanity's Next Great Adventure" by Daniel Quinn (of 'Ishmael' fame)
Technology News:
Franchises and big boxes
AT&T is in fights with several communities over it's "U-verse" data service. It used to be called "Project Lightspeed," but the company dropped that name, probably when people noticed that the system actually delivered services over copper (speeded up DSL).
Some communities are fighting the firm over franchise fees. AT&T is offering a triple play (voice, video, and data) set of services, but wants to classify the new system as a "data" service rather than the two traditional classifications: telecommunications (used for telephone providers) or cable (used for TV services). The distinction is an important one, both for communities and for the companies that offer the services. Cable services have typically been subject to franchise fees, while data services are unregulated. AT&T wants to use the data classification to avoid franchise fees.
Some communities have come to rely too heavily on franchise fees, and want every new service provider to pay them. I have said for a long time that communities would be better off letting go of the forty year old tax system (that's all it is, really, a tax) and encourage competition for service in the community. Prices would go down, and everyone that buys telecom services would benefit. I think it is always a bad idea when you make certain businesses tax collectors, but not others.
The broader issue for franchise fees is that as the kinds of services we want extend beyond triple play, how do you tax them services and businesses, many of which have no physical presence in the community. The answer is that you can't, so do you really want to tax only those companies that actually make physical investments in infrastructure? The answer, again, is "No."
There are two alternatives to franchise fees. One is to charge companies that want to use public right of way a right of way fee. You charge the same fee to every firm that places cables and equipment in right of way. This is fair because every firm is treated the same way, regardless of the service they offer, and it is fair because there is a real cost to the community to manage public right of way. But it should not be used as a general fund revenue enhancement (tax) unless you want to inhibit competition and unless you like paying high prices for telecom services.
The second alternative to franchise fees (and right of way fees) is for the community to build its own digital road system and to let private companies use that road system to sell services. Companies that do use it will pay the community a portion of revenue to cover the cost of building and maintaining it. This is the best approach, in my opinion, because it preserves public right of way (a scarce resource) and these Open Service Provider Networks (OSPNs) lower the cost of telecom services in the community, saving both tax dollars and business dollars. More money is freed up for other uses across the entire community.
AT&T, in addition to the franchise fee fight, is also arguing with communities over right of way issues. The squabbles highlight why it is so important for communities to have a thoughtful and even-handed right of way policy before companies like AT&T show up with the big new equipment boxes that they want to scatter all over town. I identified this as a problem more than six years ago. I call these boxes NSAPs, or Neighborhood Service Access Points. These streetside cabinets house the electronics needed to deliver telecom services to homes and businesses.
AT&T does not want to tell communities where they intend to put the boxes (for fear competitors will find out), and they often appropriate right of way or even part of someone's yard for the boxes. A pro-active right of way policy that anticipates these kind of uses will help a community avoid lawsuits.
For more information on these NSAP boxes, take a look at this one, to see the ugly side of not planning for these. One advantage of a community system is that you minimize the number of NSAPs needed. And this long article should be required reading for every town and county planner and every elected official.
How about your community? Is there a recently revised right of way policy in place that reflects the new realities of an unregulated telecommunications marketplace? What about NSAPs? Do you have a policy that requires all new subdivisions to plan for the placement of these units and that requires right of way set asides for them in locations that minimize their landscape impact? What about franchise fees? Have you developed a new approach to right of way management that reflects current and future telecom trends, rather than clinging to a forty year old tax model?
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