Technology Futures

This new study shows Internet use has entered most households in the U.S., with 78% online. And 92% of those households have some kind of broadband...typically "little broadband" from DSL or cable providers. The most interesting statistic is that growth in households dropping traditional TV has increased about 13% in the past two years, from 8% of household to 9% of households. If that percentage does not increase (which seems unlikely), in ten years, OTT and other IP-TV services will have about half the market.

Apple and Roku are dominating the IP set top box market, with Apple owning 56% of this still small market segment. I'm not convinced that Apple or Roku will ultimately end up with a major portion of this market, as the total number of households that have converted to OTT is still very small. Rapid market growth in the next several years could let a yet unidentified firm capture a big portion of this.

This article in readwrite confirms something I have suspected for a long time: that most successful entrepreneurs are not twenty-three and worth a billion dollars. In fact, according to the article, "...twice as many successful entrepreneurs are over 50 as under 25. A whopping 75% have more than six years of industry experience and 50% have more than 10 years when they create their startup."

For a client located in Canada, we're assisting with the design, specification, and procurement of a very large regional DWDM backbone network that will bring Gigabit services to more than twenty rural and remote communities.

For one of our clients located in the Caribbean, we designed, engineered, built, configured, and lit a 10Gig backbone network in just six weeks. Working under a very tight deadline to get the first customer on the network, Design Nine staff developed the network architecture, coordinated the fiber construction, ordered and shipped equipment, procured pre-fab shelters, had the shelters shipped by boat, got all the network equipment shipped, racked and configured the equipment, and brought the network up in time to meet the customer deadline.

An FAA advisory committee has said it is safe to use smaller electronic devices during taxiing, takeoff, and landing. It is about time, since flight crews have been using iPads in the cockpit for years. Larger items like laptops will have to remain stowed because in the event of sudden stops or change in direction, a laptop could become a missile in cabin because of its heavier weight.

Amazon has announced new Kindle tablets ahead of Apple's expected announcement of new and upgraded iPad tablets in October. As I have noted previously, the Kindle tablets, especially the Kindle HD, are really good devices and are very affordable. It is great that Amazon is providing strong competition to Apple. The new Kindle features include higher resolution screens and lighter weight, similar to what is expected from Apple.

If you think you are going to attract those young, business-hungry entrepreneurs types with some mediocre broadband, a couple of bike paths, and a Starbucks, think again. A start up company called Happy Hubs has just ratcheted the whole entrepreneurial attraction game up several notches. Happy Hubs is renting out luxury workspaces in Costa Rica, and is offering five star amenities like massage therapy, gourmet food service, maid service, and access to a beach.

The first step in overcoming a problem is to admit you have a problem. The national focus on "broadband adoption" is not likely to have much impact without a parallel track that increases the availability of high performance AFFORDABLE broadband infrastructure. I started doing broadband adoption in 1993, when the take rate for broadband was 0%. What I learned the hard way is that people and businesses "adopt" broadband services when the infrastructure to support them is available AND affordable. Both conditions have to exist.

Over on LinkedIn, someone wrote, "....Netflix and video-conferencing do not require more than 6 to 10 Mbps. Outside of IPTV, I have no idea how the target of 25 to 50 Mbps can be justified for the average household or business."

Let's not confuse the bandwidth needed for Internet access with the bandwidth needed for other services and applications. The incumbents do this intentionally all the time with sarcastic "Nobody needs a Gig of Internet" remarks that are designed to belittle anyone that criticizes them.

We're watching the death of traditional "TV" and traditional "radio" in slow motion. The networks are going to be the big losers. At one time, they provided a useful service as an intermediary between content producers and watchers/listeners, but today, the content owners can cut out the middleman completely. I just heard an ad from a radio commentator who was promoting her iPhone app. It is free, and allows you to listen to her radio show live from your iPhone, but also automatically downloads the podcast version so you can listen to it later....no radio "channel" required.

David Strom has some great (and easy) tips on minimizing your privacy exposure on some of the popular online services like LinkedIn and Google, and additional tips for iPhone and the iPad.

Color me skeptical about the buzz around "The Internet of Things." This is getting a lot of attention, because there is a lot of money to be made getting people to throw out their perfectly adequate $12 toaster and replacing it with a $60 WiFi-enabled toaster that you can control from your smartphone. But adding electronics to analog devices does not automatically make them a)more secure, or b)more reliable.

Stockholm's Stokab may be the oldest open fiber system in the world, and a recent study covering nearly twenty years of operations shows that the network has delivered over two billion dollars in economic benefit.

Fred Pilot, who writes the excellent Eldo Telecom blog, has started a terrific new site called Work Anywhere Nation. Fred has already posted some very useful stuff on the site, and his notion of "Work Anywhere" ought to be the slogan of every rural town and community in America.

There is some moderately coarse language in this article, but it is worth reading if you are interested in economic and community development. What caught my eye is how successful Chattanooga has been in re-inventing itself as the "Gig City." Three years ago, it is hard to imagine that the creative class in places like New York and Los Angeles could even tell you what state Chattanooga was in, but today, it has become the place for the young and restless to move to.

I see two things driving bandwidth demand in the business sector: VPNs and videoconferencing.

So I just ran across a word I had never seen before: phablet. It was in this article about a new Android phone that is allegedly going to be released soon by HTC. You can see from the picture that it is much bigger than current smartphones, but not quite as big as "mini" tablets. I don't know how you could lug this thing around; my pants and jacket pockets just are not that big.

"When Toilets Attack" would make a great name for a B-grade movie, but this is a true story. We hear constantly now about "the Internet of Things," and Cisco is promoting this idea among many other companies. It's the idea that we will have many devices in our homes and businesses that are IP-addressable (and hence the need for IPv6, but that's another story). A Japanese toilet has an accompanying Android app that lets you "control" toilet functions like flushing, bidet faucet, and odor control fans, among other options.