Technology Futures

Wired reports that Google has changed its position on net neutrality. The search giant has apparently told the FCC that it may not allow residential customers on its Google Fiber networks to attach servers to their home fiber connection. The company is suggesting that instead, customers that want to run a server will be encouraged to purchase a "business class" service that costs more.

It makes sense to charge more for the symmetric bandwidth that is usually required to run a server efficiently, but on our open access, multi-service networks, we don't find it useful to try to control what customers do; it turns both the service providers and the network owner (typically a community enterprise) into bandwidth police, and forces the network owner to be judge and jury about what might constitute "business" use of a fiber connection.

Instead, we develop pricing models that focus on user needs, which lets the customers choose if they want a residential service or a business class service, and takes providers and the network owner off the hook for judging what their customers are doing. And not incidentally, that policy approach encourages innovation and entrepreneurship in the community by keeping the cost of starting an Internet-based business very low.

Fred Pilot excerpts two key points from a speech by Milo Medin, the head of the Google fiber initiative.

• Communities are still putting off taking control of their economic future...despite more than a decade of waiting for the private sector or the Federal government to do something.
• Many communities have a blind faith in wireless...that if they wait long enough, a "breakthrough" wireless technology will save them the effort of investing in duct and fiber. Medin makes the point I have made many times, which is you can't expand wireless without lots of fiber.

Read Pilot's summary, and he also links to Medin's full speech.

Here is a great article on how to manage people working remotely. This article has very specific and useful tips on what you need to do, what software tools you should use, and provides links to some of the recommended tools. We have been using this approach very successfully for years, and the two most important things we have found are:

1. Videoconferencing that is easy to use and can be "always on" or nearly always on. This means Skype or some other one-click video tool, rather than something like Webex or GoToMeeting. We use GTM all the time, but you have to go through a dialogue to set up a videoconference with Webex and GTM, and the overhead is too high for remote collaboration.
2. Good symmetric bandwidth at every worker's location. This means if you have someone working remotely from their home, they need business class broadband with a minimum of several meg of upload bandwidth. You need symmetric bandwidth to support the videoconferencing.

There are a variety of collaboration and project management tools, and you need something, but the minimum requirement will be a tool that can be accessed remotely so that all employees can easily keep project activities up to date.

Facebook and LinkedIn now appear to be exchanging subscriber information, as I just received a Facebook email suggesting that I friend two business associates. The only way Facebook could know I have any relationship with these people is if Facebook had access to LinkedIn subscribers. I only use Facebook for close family and a few friends, so Facebook could not have made the connection with these people (one of whom is in Asia) by doing a second and third degree of separation search. While the NSA data collection is troubling, we need to keep in mind that all the "free" services like Facebook and LinkedIn are "free" only because we give them permission to sell/give away/distribute our personal information. Anyone who complains that Facebook is giving personal information to the NSA is forgetting that you already gave them permission to do that when you asked for a "free" subscription.