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August 23, 2006
I think Dvorak gets this one right: Suppose Google discovers that providing free wifi in its hometown actually makes money. Google then has the know-how and the motivation to replicate it over and over and over…
Of course, my outlook is heavily tinged with hope. Google is far more aligned with my view of the Web’s role and importance than are any of the incumbent telcos. [Tags: google wifi telecommunications dvorak]
July 19, 2006
Teletruth has sent a letter to the judge considering the Bell0AT&T-MCI merger suggesting that because Bell companies never delivered on their commitments to deploy optical fiber —despite the fact that “customers paid over $200 billion for networks they never received” — perhaps the judge ought to have some concerns about this latest merger. [Tags: telecom teletruth fiber_optic broadband]
July 1, 2006
Terrific piece by Robert Cringely based on his conversations with Bob Frankston about why we ought to get together and lay some fiber.
Bob’s explanation of the telco’s model — they’re all about creating billable events — I find persuasive and clarifying. [Tags: bob_frankston robert_cringely wifi net_neutrality]
June 27, 2006
Gerry Blackwell writes about Dewayne Hendricks’ initiative to deliver one gigabit per second to every citizen wirelessly.Very cool stuff, and way past what we’ve been led to expect. [Tags: wifi dewayne_hendricks]
June 26, 2006
It’s a big news day for Fon. (Disclosure: I’m on its board of advisors because I favor Fon’s social goal of spreading wifi, particularly in areas that can’t afford it; advisors get some stock options.)
Fon is going to heavily subsidize a million routers: You pay $5 and agree to share your wireless connection for a year. If you don’t, you keep the router and are charged $45. The new routers are smaller and cuter than most I’ve seen. Giving them away is a big financial risk, but Fon has to get over the chicken-egg problem somehow. If it works, people will have a good reason to sign up with Fon and to start sharing wifi. If it doesn’t, Fon will have gone through a lot of the money it raised a few months ago. (Both Google and Skype invested.)
Other news:
You can now be a “Bill,” i.e., someone who shares her Fon connection and receives half of the $3 (or €3) per day charged to those who aren’t Linuses, i.e., people who share their Fon connection in exchange for free roaming. A five-day pass is $10. (Bills get half of the $3 after taxes and payment service charges are subtracted.)
There are a whole bunch of new features, some of which are pretty cool, including the ability to see a travel log of where you’ve been based on the Fon routers you’ve accessed, and the ability to add personal information to the page that others see; you can also allow people to go to a couple of sites of your choice for free. (I still hope Fon includes mesh networking in the routers because of the potentially transformative effect that could have, overlaying local communities with local Web communities. Maybe someday.)
There’s also a South-Parky video of Martin Varsavsky, Fon’s founder, explaining Fon.
April 10, 2006
The OPLAN Foundation wants to be a central watering hole for those enthusiastic about the possibilities of “open public local access networks,” from wifi hotposts to city-wide fiber. The site points to www.ftthcouncil.org and www.wifi-forum.com as organizations working on elements of this; OPLAN wants to be the “canopy.”
Any organization working toward spreading connectivity bottom up has my support. (Note: If the KKK adopts open wifi as a plank in its platform, I will regret that sentence.)
Perhaps you wonder how I, as a member of the board of advisors of FON, can also support open wifi hotspots [disclosure]? That’s because FON is not in competition with open wifi. FON is intended for the 99.999% of the world that doesn’t know a WEP from a hole in the security. For them, FON provides: 1. A mix of incentives (either roam for free or make a buck or two from people using your router); 2. Ease and security; 3. A case to be made to the ISPs about why sharing broadband is good for them. 4. Eventually, some very interesting, and possibly transformative, community apps.
If the world woke up one day and decided to wrap itself in a snuggly blanket of free, open wifi spots, FON’s founders and advisors would weep with joy. (Some of the investors might have more complex reactions.) In the meantime, FON’s mixed incentives may help spread truly low cost coverage, especially in poorer parts of the world. [Tags: wifi muniwifi oplan fon]
April 4, 2006
Chris Sacca is head of Google’s Special Initiatives.
There are about 5 million terabytes of info in the world and google has collected about 170T so far.
Chris talks about global access by which means plug and play simplicity of access. “I’d like to see a bunch of little networks” that are interoperable. Google is not the one to build those networks. He’d also like to see more devices. No one company can do it all.
So, how can Google help, he asks. 1. Build location-based apps that users want. This increases demand for and value of ubituitous wifi. 2. Make more money for network operators. E.g., if Google search knew where you are… 3. Convince others.
Chris talks about the free network they’re building in Mountainview. They’re using mesh, which means you don’t have to connect each of the lamp post radios to the Net. Mountainview is 11.5 sq miles; they’re installing 300+. One Mbps access will be free to anyone.
They have annonced that they will treat all packets as created equal.
Q: What about privacy?
A: We’ve invested a lot in privacy. We take it very very seriously.
Q: (Phil Wolff) Anything new on your China policy?
A: Sergei’s parents left an repressive regime to come to the US. The last thing he wants to do is endorse a similar institution. For years, they’ve debated what to do about China. I don’t even know if the decision is fixed or fluid. But we look at from the point of the Chinese user experience. It was bad because they’d get returns that were dead ends and they’d think Google is broken. So, we tried to balance it…
Q: Have you thought about mobilizing your user base to lobby Congress?
A: We haven’t even marketed our own services to our user basis.
Q: Will there be open access for other ISP to your Mountainview network, including interoperability with other meshing devices?
A: I’ve opted for the simplest model. I haven’t built any of that into MV. It’d take a whole other set of tools.
David Isenberg thanks Google for standing up for Net neutrality and for an open, free network. [Tags: f2c google wifi]
Reed Hundt is a former FCC Commissioner. He gives a good presentation that I did not take notes on. Here’s how it ended:
We ought to invest in building a public thoroughfare of access. That thoroughfare should get faster and faster — symmetric. If it costs $1K per household to get fiber to the home, that’s a tenth of the cost the anti-missile shield that doesn’t work. The total cost would be about $20B-25B. (This is the amount it would cost to deploy minus what people would be willing to pay.)
The thoroughfare gets us to the public space of the Web. In this public space democracy in the US will be defined. It is in that space that we will learn how to debate issues and form groups. We won’t agree, but we’ll learn to talk with another.
Q: You’re a socialist.
A: Nope. I don’t the government to own it. I want it to write a check. Frankly, if Warren Buffet wanted to write it, I’d be happy. My point is how small that check would be.
Q: (Dave Hughes) There was a school library fund of $2B (E-Rate). It wasn’t well spent
A: There’s never been a perfect government rule. The big story is that a country were able to create $4B spent every year on Internet acccess in classrooms, which is why 75% of all kids 6-20 have learned about the Internet at school. That is almost half again the penetration in that group outside of school.
Q: It’s not just telephone companies. Media companies are also part of this equation.
A: If it were up to me, I’d say let’s have an auction. Whoever comes forward locally and offers to be the lowest-cost provider of the 100Mb thoroughfare would win.
Q: You’re for telecom subsidies. From our perspective, the subsidy process is subject to gaming by large companies. Smaller operators can’t play that game. It’s a disincentive for innovation.
A: There’s pork and there are good public services. The last several Congresses should make us wary. A modest public expenditure could create a very large public property.
[Tags: f2c reed_hundt]
Ron Sege, Jim Baller and Esme Vos and James Salter talk about muni wifi.
Jim says the public now is “getting it” and asking hard questions. Jim puts it in terms of public safety, cultural enrichment, homeland security, economic development…etc. Things are going pretty well, he thinks, although much needs to be done. Fewer states are passing anti-muni-wifi laws, for example. One bad trend: Municipal governments ask for wifi for free.
Esme sees a huge explosion in the number of muni networks being built, by cities and by counties. Given cities’ budgetary problems, they try to set up wireless networks for municipal uses as well as for public access. “This is nothing more than the next IT upgrade.” In Europe, providers have been forced to open their network to competitors on a non-discriminatory basis; that’s the model that lots of cities are trying to replicate. “Cities say they have no money but the next day they can find $70M for a Nascar museum. People should be hard on their municipal officials and ask them what their priorities are. All I want is for people to have as much choice as possible.” Inside the bellhead companies are webhead factions, she says. “Largely it’s a generational change.”
James Salter believes that broadband is the most important economic, educational and social enabler of this century. Fiber is the best way to get it but the incumbents will not deliver it. Municipalities may be the broadband savior. His company (Atlantic Engineering Group) has done 50+ municipal fiber projects. We need private-public competition, just as we have in schools, garbage, health care, etc. He puts up some amazing quotes from the incumbents saying stupid things about bandwidth. He says the average marketshare of the 53 sites he’s done is 50-60%. People flock to them because the service is better. “I’m a rightwing Republican and I want to keep the government out of everything but we’re out of options.”
March 15, 2006
STAMPS (System for TAgging Messages, Post-Inferential Semantics) is a research project that lets you a tag a physical space via your mobile phone. Others who traverse that spot can then see the tag you left. This will work with ShoutSpace, an app built on the wifi platform that shows you messages left by other users. Cool! (Thanks to Branko Collin for the link.)
[Tags: wifi stamps everything_is_miscellaneous EverythingIsMiscellaneous mobile smartmobs]
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