Exploring the impact of broadband and technology on our lives, our businesses, and our communities.
Design Nine: Top 100 broadband firm in the U.S.
Design Nine has been named as one of the top 100 broadband firms in the United States by Broadband Properties magazine.
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Technology News:
3G iPhone smashes all records
Apple's second generation iPhone was released for sale last Friday, and promptly broke every consumer electronics record. Apple and AT&T sold an astounding one million phones in just three days, making it not only the most popular cellphone in history but the most popular consumer electronics device ever. Even more incredible, there are still long lines of buyers waiting for phones--according to numerous reports, all 1800 AT&T stores are completely sold out, and most Apple retail stores are out of stock.
What accounts for the phone's popularity? It is not the hardware; the phone has some incremental improvements over the previous model, but nothing groundbreaking. A combination of lower price and an open platform seems to be the appeal. As the iPhone was released, Apple also rolled out thousands of free and low cost applications and programs for the iPhone, making the phone not just a phone/PDA but a true platform that can be customized by the user. This is the key difference now between the iPhone and most other cellphones. The Palm Treo and the RIM Blackberry have had this ability, but both devices have been relatively expensive. More importantly, both the Treo and Blackberry have small, cramped screens and low quality interfaces. The large, very high resolution iPhone display is startlingly clear and easy to use compared to any other portable device.
Samsung and LG have rolled out new phones that look a lot like the iPhone, and cellular providers like Verizon are advertising them heavily. But you can only have what the cellphone provider will let you have on those phones, and many of the add-ons come with steep per month subscription fees. The iPhone App store offers hundreds of free programs, and hundreds more programs that average about $5 in cost. Over time, the other cellphone providers will have to move to this model, or everyone will end up as an AT&T customer and an iPhone user.
Technology News:
Tennessee is ready for electric cars
Tennessee legislators have done a very simple and very smart thing. They have passed legislation that allows small electric cars with limited speed (e.g. up to 35 mph) travel on roads where the posted speed limit is 40 mph.
This may not sound like a big deal, but it is, as it opens the possibility for a lot more people to purchase small electric cars (think "golf carts with doors") and use them for around town commuting and errands. These small cars are inexpensive, economical to operate, and don't use a drop of gas. With the right attitude at state and Federal levels, they could contribute to a significant reduction in the use of imported oil over time. Every state should adopt a version of this law--according to the article, only three states (Tennessee, Montana, Washington) allow this use right now. At the Federal level, relaxed licensing and safety standards would also accelerate the use of alternative energy vehicles. A car that can only go 35 mph does not need to meet interstate highway safety standards.
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Community news and projects:
Terabyte hard drives are here
Seagate, a big manufacturer of hard drives, has released a new hard drive that breaks yet another capacity record--the firm now has a 1.5 terabyte hard drive. This is 1500 gigabytes. It was less than fifteen years ago that I agonized over the enormous expense (at the time) of buying a one gigabyte drive. It cost a whopping $1200. This new Seagate drive, with 1500 times the capacity, will probably cost less than a third of that old 1 gig drive.
Technology News:
Comcast in trouble over service blocking
Comcast has been reprimanded by the FCC for blocking certain Internet services without telling customers and without regard for the level of use. Service providers can be as arbitrary as they like in managing their Internet access services, but they have to tell customer what they are doing. A service-based network would not need to penalize customers for doing something they enjoy, but they would probably pay more. Today's broadband model is upside down for service providers because they make the most money when a customer never turns their computer on; they make the least if the customer is on the Internet all day long. That is the exact opposite of every other business in the world, and it's why broadband is such a mess in the U.S. Fortunately, communities like Danville, Virginia are changing that model.
Technology News:
Google lets everyone be Big Brother
Google is busying driving cars with cameras mounted on top all over England, taking pictures of every single house in the country. Google promises to obscure significant details, which has led to bizarre photos with people's faces blurred out. A lot of British citizens are outraged, since anyone with a Web browser will be able to snoop around the front of your home from a distance. It sounds like a lovely tool for burglars, who will no longer have to risk driving through neighborhoods to case houses--they can do it from the safety and security of their own home.
Ditto with nosy neighbors, stalkers, and anyone else who might be disgruntled or angry. It's hard to understand what value Google is adding here. One might argue this might be quite useful for stores, who want customers to be able to find them easily, but the main effect of this new Google service would seem to be just another opportunity for Google to sell ad space. Google's corporate motto (Don't be evil) more and more just seems to be a sick joke. Google seems determined find a way to usurp every kind of information in the world, turn it into proprietary intellectual property, and then sell ad space.
Knowledge Democracy:
Do dial up users want broadband?
The Pew folks have rolled out another hilarious study that suggests most dial up users don't want broadband.
I have observed this phenomenon for fifteen years now--much longer than the Pew folks. It is very simple, really. People that have never had a broadband connection are, in fact, likely to believe it is something that they don't want or need.
But here is the problem. The Pew folks have never asked broadband users if they would go back to dial up. And you need to ask that question in order to be able to understand the survey results of the dial up question in the appropriate context. We all know the answer we would get from broadband users: no one wants to go back to dial up. In fact, I've been asking that question to rooms full of people for many years, and I have never had a single broadband user stand up and say, "Oh yea, broadband is waaaay too fast for me. I'm switching back to dial up next week."
You need to query both groups with the complementary version of the same question if you want to be able to draw any useful conclusions.
Technology News:
Broadband coops catching on
We are beginning to see the broadband coop as one very viable form of governance for community broadband efforts. Coops are a great ownership and governance model because they firmly vest the enterprise in the community--every subscriber is also a shareholder in the enterprise, and shareholder/members are able to vote and select board members. The Ripton Broadband Coop serves rural customers in rural Vermont via wireless, using an open access, open service model. Two service providers are selling services on the network.
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Community news and projects:
Broadband bringing $10 phone service
T-Mobile has announced $10/month VoIP (Voice over IP) phone service. It's an interesting twist on VoIP, with the company leveraging portions of its wireless cellular network to reduce the cost of providing the service. It is, however, a landline service, and you have to have T-Mobile cell service AND a broadband connection at your home. But you can't beat the price, which looks pretty good compared to an average $40-$50 per month cost of old-fashioned copper-based local/long distance bundles.
Technology News:
Driving while surfing
We already have too many people driving around with cellphones glued to their ears, not paying attention (clue: driving seven miles under the speed limit, wandering back and forth across the lane). Now Chrysler has announced they are building in support for WiFi in some of their automobiles. Great....now we'll have people driving while talking AND watching YouTube at the same time.
Technology News:
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