January 30, 2008
North America WiMAX dead? Hardly...
According to Reuters, quoting an online report by the Wall Street Journal (yes, parse that one out), Sprint and Clearwire are back at the table talking about a joint WiMAX venture.
Supposedly the deal could bring in funding from Intel (knew it!), Google (OK) and Best Buy (Hmmm) to help lower the price tag of the buildout.
Right now, allegedly Sprint and Clearwire are in "serious talks" on a plan to spin off Sprint's WiMAX unit and merge it with Clearwire... which would leave Sprint with... what? And Clearwire hasn't exactly been a cash cow, if you know what I mean.
Posted by dmohney at 01:51 AM
January 11, 2008
David Caruso, streaming video, and my sordid past
David Caruso, that red-headed guy from CSI: Miami, has a technology company, so he says.
Or at least he's doing a lot of TEASING about his technology company, popping up at different events, dropping some hints, doing pics with fawning journalists, then quietly riding off into the sunset.
"Are you OK?"
But seriously, I was hanging out in the press room at CES when a small crowd of people started swarming around an interview room and ta-da, David Caruso started walking around. I gawked for about two seconds, then went up to him and asked who he was promoting...
"I'm here promoting my company," says he, reaching into his portfolo and smoothly handing me an over-sized postcard with a stylized rendering of himself on one side, and his signature on the other side.
"Visit the website, it has a video on it," Caruso explains. "We came out here two weeks ago to make it, I think you'll like it."
He doesn't say anything else, so I ask his companions, Nils Lahr and Frank Nein for more information. Lahr was CTO and co-founder of iBeam broadcasting and before that was a senior developer at Microsoft when VXstreme was bought my MS.
Back in the dot.com day, iBEAM and SkyCache/Cidera went head-to-head in the ISP space deploying satellite dishes and servers on the "edge" of the edge of the network. (See, my sordid past!). So, Nils was basically The Enemy, but I hung out at iBEAM parties and smoked cigars while they came to our parties and ate our great food at our great party locations.
It was a very cordial sort of competition.
ANYway, the third member of this trio is Frank H. Nein, tied to Nils through OrionsWave. Nils is the founder and COO of OrionsWave, and Frank is the "Digital Media, Industry & Technology Consultant/Analyst" there, started in January 2004.
Caruso's company is called Lexicon Digital Communications. The cryptic video and an underpolished website can be found at www.lexicondigital.tv. The probably spent more on renting the plane used in the video than they did on the website. There's a lot of sunglasses in the video. Judge for yourself.
Posted by dmohney at 10:48 AM | Comments (0)
December 26, 2007
CES - Less than two weeks and counting
Bright and early (too early) on January 5, I fly out to Las Vegas for nearly four days of fun and excitement out at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES).
Saturday is "CES Unveiled," the official table-top exhibit before-the-show event put on by conference organizers. Last year the food was bad and the exhibitors weren't showing anything exciting, holding back on the goodies until Sunday and Monday.
Sunday morning, bright and early, there's "Cherry Pickers" aka the Marty Winston show. Last year, Marty opened his event with a scantily clad girl who brought him a scotch and a cigar at 9 AM in the morning. There's always a couple of interesting gizmos at Marty's dog-and-pony shows; this year I might actually get a Medis fuel cell to take home from the gig.
Sunday evening is "Digital Experience," one of two tabletop evening events for the press. Eating standing up is not a treat.
Monday is full of meetings, with Ericsson, Microsoft, Motorola, On2, Nuance, and a bunch of others on the list. In the evening, there's ShowStoppers, the second eat-while-standing tabletop press event. The ShowStoppers people have always been friendly and without pretense.
Tuesday is more meetings, between the Sands and the LVCC. There's a Sprint WiMAX vendor panel event that should be interesting and revealing.
Posted by dmohney at 11:22 PM | Comments (0)
December 04, 2007
Why I am going to CES
The Consumer Electronics Show has become a nasty habit over the past few years. Having spent too much time in Vegas during the dot.com days, I end up back in Lost Wages at least two or three times a year, between CES, DEFCON, and some-other-event-to-be-named-in-later.
Like it or not, CES pulls so many companies selling so many things that there's overlap between the CES big universe and the various VON-ish things I cover. There are at least (so far) two VON-exhibiting companies that will be at CES that have asked for meetings and I expect to spend some quality time with at least one or two carriers while I'm out there.
So, I am (reluctantly, but necessarily) going out to CES to make the rounds of vendors selling IP communications solutions while always on the look out for new and cool things.
Posted by dmohney at 12:30 PM | Comments (0)
Plane Fares to Vegas/CES down now - Figures
Yes, that $400ish United ticket from Dulles to Vegas during CES has dropped down to around $300. Oh yes, now there are PLENTY of $300-range tickets, where as a couple of weeks ago the cheapest fare was $400 and the average fare was in the $600s....
Will United show me any love at all because I booked my ticket early for an extra $100? I kinda doubt it. I'm already going to have to get up way too early on a chilly Saturday morning to get on the "cheapest" flight. About the only advantage in going so early is there's some slack time available in case of a weather disruption somewhere in the outbound leg.
That and if I'm lucky I get out there early enough for a late brunch...
Posted by dmohney at 12:16 PM | Comments (0)
November 29, 2007
Verizon Wireless! You Beautifully Insane Peeps!
If you've been following the mobile/cellular space, the last 48 hours should make your head hurt.
First, Verizon Wireless announces that they're going open standards in 2008, allowing people to bring their own (tested and approved, however) devices to the network, and allow third-parties to deliver any apps they want over their network.
Then they wait twenty-four hours to let the "pundits" grumble and whine about how being open doesn't make a whole lotta sense because they have CDMA-blah-blah, CDMA-is-not-GSM-blah-blah, this is just a cynical ploy by The Man, blah-blah...
Today Verizon Wireless announces they're going with LTE, the broadband "open standard" successor to GSM, with trials starting in 2008 -- and every vendor under the sun agreeing to pump out LTE equipment in 2009.
LTE, on a good day, can deliver anywhere from 100 to 144 Mbps to a handset. TO A HANDSET! Currently, Verizon FiOS is "only" delivering 50 Mbps over fiber to the home (well, plus TV and voice, but voice is noise compared to the bandwidth you get from everything else).
(Of course, there's this little issue of writing off all that CDMA/EVDO equipment and running two networks in parallel, but that's not my problem :)
Yes, I will be more than happy to carry around another phone on a "trial," if it is a Verizon Wireless LTE phone... (Hint-hint)
Posted by dmohney at 11:52 AM | Comments (0)
November 12, 2007
(U.S.) WiMAX Doomed? Not really...
Sprint and Clearwire couldn't come to terms on a joint buildout of a national WiMAX network. But is this doom for WiMAX? No, because WiMAX is already rolling out world-wide. Is this doom for WiMAX in the U.S.? I don't think so.
The New York Post has suggested that cable companies -- which have no wireless play to speak of -- might be Sprint's "white knight" in a nationwide WiMAX build. May happen, but Sprint may decide to just go-slow on its WiMAX deployment until the Wall Street harpies quiet down a bit.
There's also Intel looming in the works. Intel pumped $600 million into Clearwire (good news). Clearwire has lost a lot of money this quarter (Bad news). Regardless of how Clearwire does, Intel has a vested interest in the form of more chip sales to see that Sprint's WiMAX efforts don't hit a brick wall.
Posted by dmohney at 03:30 PM | Comments (0)
November 06, 2007
More "Gee, where have I seen this guy before?"
About two or three Spring VONs ago, I went out to dinner in San Jose at this dumpy pizza joint with my friend Frank McConnell and a bunch of his Silicon Valley running buddies.
One guy at the table was making jokes about hacking Paris Hilton's Sidekick and another one was trying to do something with his Danger device. "Well, I could give it to you, but I don't what you'd do to it..." said the Danger-holder.
ANYway, Frank goes to pony up for dinner (it's pizza, it's cheap), only to find the guy cracking-wise about Hilton's phone has picked up the tab and quietly left the building.
"Andy always does that..." Frank said.
The Andy in this case being Andy Rubin, he who is now the King of Open Source Handset Sets, Founder/creator/whatever of Android.
*sigh*
Posted by dmohney at 12:01 PM | Comments (0)
October 10, 2007
Sprint's WiMAX build - Now more than ever
Wall Street analysts and investors are notoriously short-sighted when it comes to long-term capital investment in network technologies.
Am I making this up? No. Wall Street bitched and moaned about Verizon Wireless putting money into their cellular network, then was happy to take the lift when that investment started paying off.
Same thing when Verizon did the *ahem* CORRECT thing and started invested in fiber optics to the home, enabling them to cleanly deliver both video and broadband to consumers, as well as to cut down on their maintenance and overhead costs. "Verizon is wasting money," whined the pundits until a few months ago....
Now you've got the same frickin' pitchfork-and-torch party gathering around Sprint's investments into WiMAX, a technology that, despite being deployed around the globe, somehow doesn't allegedly "work" when Sprint rolls it out.
Don't get me wrong, Sprint has made their share of mistakes, but WiMAX is about the best bet they can make right now because 1) Intel has already ponied up a bunch of money to make the technology work 2) If they don't do WiMAX, they are basically dead in the water or they have to go get into a bidding war for 700 MHz spectrum 3) WiMAX gives them a two-four year time to market over a 700 MHz services play.
"Hey, what's all this about 700 MHz, Doug? The bidding hasn't even started yet for the second auction block."
WAKE UP TELECOM PEOPLE!!! (With Apologies to Paul Moody) Earlier this week, AT&T dropped a cool $2.5 billion to buy already-awarded 700 MHz licenses that Aloha Partners had been sitting on. Aloha had the biggest chunk of first round 700MHz licenses sitting around, with Vulcan Ventures (some guy named Paul Allen) having the second largest, if memory serves.
So, AT&T already has the foundation of a 700 MHz network -- and remember, 700 MHz is the last "beachfront property" for wireless, and it can go into the second round of 700 MHz spectrum auctions in January 2008 or so and either buy some more stuff or simply go build what it wants with what it has.
Unlikely Sprint has the means to raise money to "up the pot" and bid on the second round of 700 MHz, so they'll have to work the hand they've been dealt.
Posted by dmohney at 01:28 PM | Comments (0)
August 17, 2007
Hey, I'm still catching up with LinkedIn
I know Jeff (Pulver) has gone to Facebook with a passion, but I can't bring myself to ditch LinkedIn.
As a matter of fact, my LinkedIn community -- that almighty established base of people who have linked to me -- continues to grow on a steady basis. So I can't really get spun up with a new social/business networking tool since I'm slowly creeping along in LinkedIn. There's the old DIGEX people, there's the steady community of people in the IP communications community I'll admit, and a couple of good endorsements to boot. Can't really transfer endorsements without retyping by a third party.
So, if I switch now, I'd have to start from scratch. Bummer.
I have to confess, LinkedIn hasn't really brought me a lot of fame or fortune. It has brought me some annoyances as a few people have asked to link to me and either I don't know them or don't remember them.
Is this an ENDORSEMENT of LinkedIn? Not really. It's there, I agree to link to people and I occasionally will scan the links of my compadres over the years to see who has reconnected with me since *gulp* 1993-1997...
Posted by dmohney at 07:42 PM | Comments (0)
August 01, 2007
A Rough Ride to TV White Spaces Usage?
The FCC released some initial test results of "prototype" devices designed to find open TV "White spaces" channels in the 700 MHz for unlicensed broadband use. You'll find them around July 31, 2007 at www.fcc.gov, along with a bunch of other docs.
Reading between the lines, it looks the "prototype" hardware is still, well, prototype. One device didn't act as advertised, while the other device did OK in the lab, but wasn't taken out for some ad hoc field trials. Devices were provided by Microsoft and Philips.
Needless to say, the White Spaces technical people are going to meet with the FCC technical people to discuss the initial testing protocols and examine why one of the two prototype devices didn't work as well as it should in terms of picking up wireless microphones and digital TV channels.
A source I spoke to today said the FCC results were a partial victory because one of the two devices was indeed able to detect DTV signals at a very very low signal level.
Stay tuned. It'll be interesting to see how the NAB folks react to the FCC report.
Posted by dmohney at 11:18 PM | Comments (0)
July 23, 2007
HDVoice - The Next Big Thing
Vanilla VoIP providers (VVPs) have a hard time differentiating themselves from the pack. They all offer cheaper rates, the same package of services, so they're left to compete amongst themselves to offer the lowest rate to Bombay or Shanghai or Hanoi and that's about it.
It gets worse because the phone companies and the cable companies have figured out that they can simply offer an all-you-can eat dialing plan for calls (local/North America long distance), effectively cutting the legs out of cost for a lot of people (Add up hassle time to switch, perceived QoS problems, maybe $10-15/month over the VVP isn't so bad).
Cable companies and VVPs need to upgrade to a better product. That product is HDVoice or BroadbandVoice or whatever you want to call it, but it is an effective UPGRADE when compared to the '50s era POTS quality phone call.
As a society, we want better quality media, be it on the TV, radio, or whatever. It's why we're moving from NTSC analog TV to HDTV. Why the radio industry has moved from AM (scratchy) to FM (better) to satellite and HDRadio.
Broadband Voice/HDVoice would bring to conferencing and phone calls the simplest upgrade of all -- moving from the 300 to 3500 Hz. of the POTS-era call to a full range of between 100 to 7000 Hz. Better call quality means we can hear the under-5 year old set better than on the clipped/crunched codecs of mobile phones. And a lot of other things.
Polycom says that people are more attentive with their HDVoice product on conference calls; I can believe that without getting into a long discussion of human factors issues.
Posted by dmohney at 04:18 PM | Comments (0)
July 19, 2007
Corpses or Collaboration? SunRocket v. Sprint/Clearwire
I'm going through my mental "Hmm, what should I put in the FOCUS e-newsletter?" prep today and find myself torn between discussing the demise of SunRocket vs. the collaboration between Sprint and Clearwire.
SunRocket hadn't even locked its doors before Vonage sent out a press release saying they had a "deal" for abandoned SunRocket customers, and Vonage's offer was quickly followed by ViaTalk and at least two or three other companies. One service provider sent out a "We'll help you, wayward customer" release today - 4 days after SunRocket had closed its doors.
Packet8 has laid claim to being the "official" something or another for SunRocket users; how much that will be worth is unknown given the other vultures, er companies circling around trying to pluck off the 200,000 or so people that SunRocket left high and dry.
ViaTalk claimed they had already "successfully" switched over "thousands" of SunRocket users within a 48 hour hour period, according to their their press release. Also in the release, the CEO says that "he has been in regular contact with executives throughout the VoIP industry" to make sure former SunRocket customers are treated fairly.
Hmm. Fairly?
Of course, this begs the question of why anyone who was once burned by SunRocket's (really dirt cheap) VoIP service would take a chance on signing up with another VoIP-only company rather than a cable company or one of the flat-rate all-you-can eat plans from the local phone company.
Consider that SunRocket was credited with being the second-biggest independent (i.e. not infrastructure bound) VoIP provider at 200,000 subs, Vonage being number #1 at 2M or so subs pre-Verizon lawsuits.
Take the 200,000, knock off embittered/jaded users who will "come home" to their own phone companies and/or give cable VoIP a go, then divide the unknown rest among 5-7 others...
It's a mess, no matter how you slice it.
Posted by dmohney at 05:53 PM | Comments (0)
July 13, 2007
Femtocells in the Enterprise?
Currently, the 3G world is going ga-ga over femtocells - basically, a mini-GSM access point that goes into a residence (House,apartment) and plugs into a broadband connection. Mobile users get the benefit of dedicated broadband to download stuff (music, videos, whatever) and better in-home cell phone coverage while the carrier is able to squeeze some more billable minutes out of phone (because of the phone).
It is likely that enterprise-grade (whatever that means) femtocells will start popping up to act as a quick-and-dirty way of extending in-building coverage in offices -- or people will just start buying consumer femtocells in at work and see what happens.
Currently, femtocell technology is a 3G thing, but I'm hoping it catches on in the CDMA-based/US space. Cell phone coverage on the first two floors of my house is, shall we say, less than adequate. There are various boosters one can buy, but a femtocell would seem to be a more elegant solution in some respects (i.e. I don't have to fight the cell tower for bandwidth).
Maybe femtocells will be a thing that brings cable and wireless carriers together...
Posted by dmohney at 11:31 PM | Comments (0)
June 24, 2007
Ultra-Broadband used by Ultra Man??
After two days of NXTcomm, I needed several days to recover. One year I'm going to book only an appointment every hour, rather than appointments every half hour from dusk until dawn, as it were....
Skimming through the morass of press releases last week, the marketing wonks have been busy coining new and more better terms to inject into their (typically mundane) prose. I've seen "Ultraband" and "Ultra-broadband" both used in releases last week and almost prefer to see more use of quad-play than the confusion ultra will bring to everyone.
After all, ultra-wideband (UWB) has been around for years/decades and is coming into the market both in terms of wired and wireless applications. Pulse~LINK has been on the UWB bandwagon for ages.
Just when does broadband become "ultra-broadband"? 100 Mbps? 1 Gbps? Call me when we get there, because you already have Verizon saying they are offering 50 Mbps in many markets and are going to go 100 Mbps as soon as product manager decides it's time.
(NOTE TO VERIZON: Watch "Conan the Barbarian" to learn how to crush your enemies. None of this half-step creep of "35 Mbps, 50 Mbps, 100 Mbps if the cable companies are doing it..."
Just go to 100 Mbps in all markets. Period. Make the cable companies play catchup. Then when they start, go to 200 Mbps. Crush your enemies. OK? You know you want to ...)
Posted by dmohney at 11:34 PM | Comments (0)
June 07, 2007
Intel Capital Doesn't Excite Me
I know people are going to take this the wrong way, but I just can't get worked up with Intel Capital investing in a company. I base my impressions on personal experience from the dot.com era.
Let's deal with the facts: Intel Capital invests into a lot of different things. If memory serves, during the dot.com era, they invested in a company I slaved for (SkyCache/Cidera) and our psuedo-competitor (IBeam).
SkyCache/Cidera ultimately went bankrupt in the post dot.com era and IBeam ultimately ended up in Level 3's hands for pennies on the dollar, if memory serves.
Getting money from Intel Capital doesn't, by any means, guarantee success. It does, however, guarantee you lots of phone calls from the investment to put out a press release saying you received money from them (Yes, this too, I know painfully well).
Intel Capital, the investment arm of Intel, spreads around a lot of money into a lot of different pots with the expectation of "Win some, lose some." They typically like to invest things that will most likely lead to new and more powerful Intel chips being sold in the millions and millions in future years.
Posted by dmohney at 06:24 PM | Comments (0)
May 30, 2007
Foleo - Dare I drool?
Palm has introduced a lightweight laptop called Foleo;they call it an Internet companion appliance or something like that.
Basically, it has a 10 inch wide screen, a full-sized keyboard, weighs in at 2.5 pounds, cell-phone-sized recharger, can do e-mail and web surfing, USB port, SD slot, CompactFlash spot behind the battery, VGA-out, has the ability edit and display Word/Powerpoint/Excel files, can also display PDF and Flash, based on a Linux-derived OS, so in theory, you can port new apps over to it.
Connectivity is via either Bluetooth (and thence to your EVDO-smartphone) or Wi-Fi. No Ethernet.
Booooh. 2.4 GHz is too noisy and burns battery power. But Palm has never been known as a bleeding edge tech company; would have been better if they had shoved in Wireless USB (next year, @#$!).
Your (secure, non-battery-burning) alternative is likely to be to tie up the USB port with a USB to Ethernet frob.
Onboard RAM is 256MB, according to sources, with additional storage via SD or CompactFlash. So I guess you can chip and stash your music and/or a movie or two. Be interesting to see if they have a slimline external DVD option to play movies for those pain-in-the-rear plane flights.
Opening cost is $499, supposedly going to go up to $599 once the intro is over. I want to see one first before I burn that much cash on something that is almost-but-not-quite an Intel-based laptop.
Haven't seen any notes on if it supports external headphones or mic, but in this day and age, I would certainly hope so.
Posted by dmohney at 04:29 PM | Comments (0)
May 28, 2007
Not everything online is up-to-date...
I received a flurry of LinkedIn invitations over the weekend. In the process of saying "Yea" or "Nay," I realized I hadn't updated my own LinkedIn profile for at least a year. Goes to show you can't believe everything you see on the Internet, despite the bad habits of many to do so.
Give you another TWO examples of this. Went into two different CompUSA stories, two different states, sought pricing on separate products, and the first (Trained) impulse of the on-floor salespeople is to go to ... the online website to look up pricing.
Neither product was in the online database -- discontinued models that were still on the shelves but not on the website -- so both times the sales droid ended up in a more elaborate search with the text-based (No, I kid you not) local store inventory database linked to the cash registers to dig out a price.
Last week I was shopping for half barrel planters (don't ask). Went to Lowe's website. The local Lowe's didn't have the item I sought in stock, but the web site tells you to call the local store and talk to someone in there to see what is available, since the local store may stock similar items not on Lowe's website.
The moral of this story is, in the words of Ronald Reagan, to "Trust, but Verify" -- and that goes double if you are shopping.
Posted by dmohney at 09:20 PM | Comments (0)
May 24, 2007
Before you pick up the phone, what time is it?
Using e-mail over the phone as a means of first contact is strongly recommended if you don't know what time zone someone is in.
Bob Emmerson, VON Magazine's European Editor, once got a call at 2 AM his local time (he lives in the Netherlands) from a PR flack in Southern California calling at the end of the day out there. Since Bob's office is his home, Bob was, shall we say, rather irate over the call; said caller ASSUMING that Bob was in Melville, NY.
After all, the magazine receives mail in Melville. Wouldn't the European editor be in Melville? Despite the fact of having to dial overseas codes to make the call +31
Didn't help that said caller was one of those just-out-of-college green-behind-the ears types who knows nothing and was left to her own devices by her supervisors.
And you wonder why I have no respect for most PR firms.
I've received a number of unsolicited after 5 PM ET calls from Left Coast PR firms that should know better.
Kids, if you're going to pick up the phone to pitch, at least know what time it is on the other end.
Posted by dmohney at 10:52 PM | Comments (0)
May 21, 2007
MilSPEC VoIP?
So there I was, out at Andrews Air Force Base, at the "Joint Services Open House" -- a mil-speak way of saying "Air Show" and among the first things I wander into is a Ranger standing beside a couple of hard cases stuffed with Cisco routers and switches.
The Rangers deploy anywhere in the world with satellite gear, so they can crank up a full duplex data channel with 768K to 4 Mbps, depending on the satellite and transmitters available.
Part of being in the military is the concept of being able to "Move, shoot, and communicate." Communication is vitally important because you need to tell the guys back at the Pentagon where you are moving to and what you've shot up, while the Generals want to tell you where to go and what the best thing is to shoot at.
Got it?
Anyway, the two box setup can "organically provide up to 4 unclassified and 8 classified phones using VoIP" as well as connect to network servers to set up a class C network.
Depending on location and where they are, they will either bring along the expensive Cisco VoIP phones and some of the cheap RJ-11 corded phones. If the expensive Cisco phones break, it's easy to acquire/scrounge up some more cheap RJ-11 phones.
The Rangers also tote around a Tandberg Video phone/terminal and they had a link back to Fort Bragg. Mr. Ranger (yes, I should have got his name) said that they pretty much exclusively use Tandberg video conferencing gear.
Posted by dmohney at 10:11 PM | Comments (0)
May 13, 2007
FMC, but not really - Cell Phones and Desk Sets
You'd think that U.S. cellular carriers would have figured out a quick and easy way for subscribers to "cross-load" their most valuable data -- the almighty phone number list, built up over time -- between cell phones and into desktop handsets.
Nope. There's the cellular network and the landline network and the twain shall not touch. Nor will cell carriers offer a quick obvious way to move phone numbers between phones.
Enter the third party. Susteen's DataPilot has all kinds of bells and whistles, but the basic fundamental value for the $74 off-the-shelf software is the ability to copy off a phone list from a cell phone and save it onto a PC. It can then be subsequently copied to a "new" cell phone (well, up to 7 actually, before Susteen tells you to buy another copy or the corporate version... I guess Susteen thinks a large family with multiple teenagers might be a corporate entity, but I digress).
This is a good thing, but I have longed for a consumer off-the-shelf device whereby I could cross-load phone lists from my cell phone into a desktop handset and vice versa, being able to filter out dupes and fine tune caller ID data. Everyone has run into a phone number that is either "unlisted" or simply lists the state and I'd like to, for example, call block a certain Alabama 205 number without having to deal with a company's softswitch.
For that matter, why should a carrier's softswitch be the only line of "defense" for filtering inbound numbers? A device -- cell or desk phone -- should be able to do it without breaking a sweat if caller ID is enabled.
Let's face facts -- the consumer handset people haven't really done squat in putting intelligence into their products. Oooh, I have a list of 50 or 100 phone numbers in caller ID. But I can't do anything with them, other than scroll through them. Gosh, wouldn't having a phone that had enough smarts to tack a "1" onto a long distance phone number for re-dialing purposes be useful?
I'm not even going to speculate as to when (and if) we'll ever be able to do an SMS text service onto the legacy phone system.
Posted by dmohney at 11:22 PM | Comments (0)
May 08, 2007
I'm an EVDO guy.
I love EVDO broadband service. Maybe you should too.
For me, it's connectivity without having to worry about the availability of Wi-Fi (quirky, limited, even if it's a pay service in a hotel - Thank you very much Imperial Palace) or an overloaded hardwired network. I distinctly remember a VON Fall where the Sheraton's network got a beat down so bad they told people a reasonable alternative was the Wi-Fi in the Starbucks in the lobby(!!!).
Oh yes, I want to haul my PC downstairs at 9 PM at night to "get signal." Pfffpt.
"Free" Wi-Fi is overrated and it makes me mad to hear intelligent people talk crap about how it going to put the phone companies out of business -- that is, until you fire up the microwave oven. Under FCC regulations you HAVE to take interference from other sources, and there's no way around this. 802.11n won't fix this; the legacy b/g networks will end up "dumbing down" N networks to slower speeds.
ANYway, my Sprint EVDO phone, used in a "tethered" fashion (i.e. there's a USB cable connecting it to my laptop) has delivered reliable service in downloading files in hotels and airports across the country. I don't want to drag around a PC card and a phone; why should I? Only drawback from a techie sense is that I wish the phone would recharge while I was using it tethered to a plugged-in laptop.
My only beefs with Sprint have been getting a straight billing plan (sigh) and when they'll deliver a REV A-capable phone. I am ashamed to say that I want and need the additional bursty speed that REV A will (supposedly) deliver. There are a limited number of REV A devices right now, couple laptop cards and the big honking PDAs. I don't want to press my face into a PDA.
I believe I got Jeff Pulver hooked onto EVDO for a while; you don't hear him talk about it much these days, but I remember he called me from his laptop at the airport and he was pretty tickled about it.
Posted by dmohney at 12:47 PM | Comments (0)
May 01, 2007
IMS and Public Safety
One of my deep-background types (The "Don't quote me, but this is what I think") suggested that IMS might find its way into public safety applications.
IMS, for instance, should/will/does handle roaming between different networks, be they wired or wireless or multi-wireless; such as with dual-mode cellular/Wi-Fi phones and forthcoming cellular/WiMAX phones.
Public safety people like to run their own networks for security and cost reasons. For example, the National Capital Region (i.e. DC and the surrounding counties) is implementing a 700 MHz wireless broadband network using EVDO Rev A with some tweaks.
If a police officer is in "hot pursuit" of a suspect up the BW parkway and runs out of 700 MHz coverage, you want/need the capability to fall back/onto an existing 3G network, say Sprint's EVDO Rev A network...THEREFORE, you need something to manage the roaming/switch between the networks.
Throw in different permutations such as WiMAX, muni Wi-Fi networks, cellular and you see how it gets to be a little tricky switching calls around unless you have an IMS component or components overseeing everything.
At least, that's the theory.
My source thought that this might be of interest to carriers, but then again carriers prefer to build and own the networks themselves rather than "play well" with someone else's (public safety) network.
Posted by dmohney at 01:08 PM | Comments (0)
April 30, 2007
Why I like Verizon's Fiber Strategy
Verizon has taken a beating for biting the bullet and investing in running fiber to the home (FTTH). But I think it's a smart move in the long run.
YES, it is more expensive once you have to get out the backhoes and start digging trenches to run fiber optic cable, but you only do it once and you have the real-world capability to go up to GigE speeds or faster to the home.
The alternative is to try to squeeze every last bit out of copper with multiple flavors of DSL, but that seems to be a more complex game of trying to pick winners and losers from the latest chip sets and dealing with the oh-so-many quirks of running copper at high speeds, based upon distance from the CO and what other "noise" is introduced into the copper.
Stick in fiber and you have a strict baseline of your infrastructure unbound by distance from the CO. It's clean, it isn't affected by electromagnetic noise.
Cable companies aren't dumb. They also have physical infrastructure (coax) able to support speeds of at least 100 Mbps plus phone (which at 100 Mbps or faster, is a noise and QoS issue, not a bandwidth issue) and video.
Trying to deliver video and "high-speed" broadband (depending on how you define that animal) over a last-mile copper network sounds like a lot more headaches than it's worth in the long run. Especially since cable companies can drop in new head-end equipment, rearrange some of their frequencies on their existing coax plant, and put some boxes on the customer end to get faster speeds.
(YES, it is a hassle to upgrade all of that stuff across the cable plant, but it beats the heck out of digging trenches).
I suspect the more interesting question to look at about 5 years down the road is exactly how much speed you can squeeze out of coax when compared to fiber. There's some UWB (ultrawideband) "magic" that could be applicable to cable plant that could (in theory) boost them up to GigE rates... which would be good enough unless you're running an Internet3 cluster in your basement....in which case you should be running fiber anyways.
Posted by dmohney at 03:04 PM | Comments (0)
April 25, 2007
Wild Wild World of Wireless
If you want a headache, think about all the new flavors of wireless technologies in the pipeline and coming to a neighborhood near you.
Wireless USB - Available, well, now, almost. Vendors are shipping devices in small quantities, but you should see a real pickup in the technology by the fall. Right now, it's a wire-replacement, but people are trying to figure out ways to graft mesh networking on top of it so you can have your HDVideo and view it (in the next room, next floor) too. Yes, 480 Mbps up to 10 meters, 110 Mbps for longer distances that I can't remember....
802.11n - Not to be officially finalized until March 2009, according to the latest timeline over at the IEEE, but vendors are determined to put out pre-N, draft-N, and N devices without it. Good news is, when it finally does arrive, it will have better security and speed. Bad news is everyone will have to upgrade to "True N" to take advantage of all the whistles. Will likely be used for both in-home and last mile access.
WiMAX - Clearwire and Sprint are deploying networks across North America and it should be interesting to see what Sprint does in coupling WiMAX with its cellular network. I suspect the biggest use of this tech might be in automobiles to download video for cross country road trips.
LTE - Long Term Evolution. There's talk about doing up to 120 Mbps (or faster) over cellular frequencies and technologies. Are you drooling yet? We're talking some serious bandwidth in the palm of your hand - speeds that are faster than most cable and DSL providers deliver today by a factor of 10x. (Comparison: Verizon FIOS 35 Mbps, some rare cable companies 50 Mbps).
700 MHz (Licensed) - This spectrum translates to freed-up TV channels between 52-69. QUALCOMM has tapped into one "channel" to implement MediaFLO aka Verizon Wireless's TV capability on a nationwide basis. Speculators sitting on a good chunk of it waiting for the spectrum to "clear" after the U.S. transitions to DTV in 2009. Another good chunk is scheduled to go up for auction in the next few months and they'll be a battle royale over the licenses.
TV Whitespaces - Anyone familiar with TV before cable knows that a (NTSC) TV only pulls in about a dozen or so channels between channels 2-69. As noted above, channels 52-69 are going away (being sold).
This leaves 2-51. And you can still only pull in a dozen channels. The rest of the channels, for various RF engineering reasons are not used or "whitespaces."
The FCC is working on a final ruling this fall to allow the UNLICENSED use of TV Whitespaces for broadband and there's a coalition of tech companies pushing hard for it to take place soon. Usage will likely be Wi-Fi-esque, except with better range and datarates... so both in-house and last-mile are possible/potential.
Posted by dmohney at 11:08 PM | Comments (0)
April 19, 2007
Dialogic's Baseball Bat - More Video Apps, Please
Dialogic has a baseball bat and they aren't afraid to use it.
At the Dialogic Analyst event in Boston yesterday, CEO Nick Jensen was keen to emphasize that while Dialogic doesn't do applications development, U.S. developers better get into the video applications game or they'll get left out/left behind by more aggressive developers in Asia Pacific (APAC) and Europe.
Dialogic figures to sell a ton of hardware to service providers and enterprises over the next two years with mobile video doing the "driving," but the apps have to be there once the hardware is in place. Both China and India - the largest growth markets in the world - are going to roll out 3G networks, so there's a big opportunity; China is expected to turn on its 3G network before the 2008 Bejing Olympics.
Jensen also expressed a frustration with the current state-of-the-art with mobile video calling in the U.S., noting that you can't swap calls between any of the networks -- unlike in Europe and APAC.
The big name of the game for Dialogic in the next couple of years is IP, as the world moves away from TDM into hybrid networks, with video and wireless driving the move into IP on the carrier side and unified communication doing the same in the enterprise space.
And if you're watching the M&A scoreboard, Dialogic is shopping for some complementary technology pieces moving forward.
Posted by dmohney at 03:37 PM | Comments (0)