|
|||||
FEATURED TOPICDigital Transition -The term "Digital Transition" describes the process all organizations must go through in the 21st Century, as they leverage new technologies that provide new options for Applications, Equipment, Processes, and Networks that make them more effective. In contrast, the term "Municipal Wireless" is limiting. It puts the network technology ahead of the application and process changes that drive the business case. ORIENTATION |
« October 2007 | Weblog | December 2007 » November 2007 ArchivePearls of Wisdom make up a Broadband NecklaceIf I could summarize and pull out the Pearls of Wisdom that fell out from my conversations yesterday, they would make up a string that looked something like this. You'll find some original thought in this list, some retreads. Interesting conversations happen not only with other industry insiders comparing notes, but also with smart people outside the industry looking in. 1. For Alternate Broadband to succeed and thrive, we'll need creative solutions to at least these three issues (deals that lack a solution to any one of these three issues have a high fatality index - some may make it, but most will not): 2. Technology Change is moving faster than Cultural Adaptation. On the one hand, some technology is entering a mature phase, which means that costs are coming down and acceptance is hitting the mainstream (e.g., desktops, storage, cellular voice). On the other hand, the introduction of innovative new technology continues to occur more rapidly than the mainstream culture is able to adapt, so that we see are pockets of early adopters and large areas of slower adoption. What's more, societal institutions, such as laws and mores, will need to adapt to these changes, in some cases, but in other cases, it is the technology itself that will need to adapt. Either way, such adaptation takes time and it's ugly as it happens. On the one hand, more patience is needed, on the other hand, some parties need a kick in the pants. As much as we want things to move faster, the future will take a while to happen, and that's probably for the best (but once it starts to really take hold, watch out, rapid adoption is likely). 3. Opportunity abounds, even as risk remains high. There are ever more opportunities to accommodate these changes, and there is another Google lurking in the wings - some companies will solve these riddles. The challenge for investors is in discerning which particular idea has legs. Areas to watch include: 4. We need less hype, more reality. The market has been too harsh and impatient on the new Alternate Broadband industry, whipsawing it in both directions. While riding the Gartner Hype cycle up, it has raised expectations beyond the capability to deliver. When the slide to the trough happened, it dashed hopes beyond reason. Alternate Broadband, from Wi Fi Mesh to WiMAX to BPL, has been neither as good as described, nor as bad as feared. 5. Four Different Story Lines are emerging, use these to connect with others when discussing Alternate Broadband 6. Four Alternate Broadband Business Models hold particular promise; combining two or more into one project compounds the benefits. As in any new endeavor, but especially in a private-sector competitive market, the smart and the quick end up capturing most of the lessons learned sooner and are thus able to gain early market share advantage. Whether they are then able to sustain their early success and grow into the large and the powerful before they get swallowed up by the bigger fish is one thing that makes these new markets so exciting. Posted on November 29, 2007 at 04:29 PM | Comments (0) Two Great Conversations Highlight All That is Good Right NowI'm a lucky guy. I have a great family and great friends. I still have my health, more or less. I manage to keep the lights on and the bills paid, so far. I spend my time deeply involved in a fundamentally important industry in a time of great change and opportunity, and have a good shot at making a difference in life. I have a Passion that drives me forward and energizes my life. And, I get to live in a beautiful spot on the planet, in an open society, within a dynamic and vibrant community. I love living in Austin, the only place I want to be in Texas, which has to be one of the best states in these United States, which is still despite all its many warts and current problems, a country that is a beacon of hope for the world. And from everything I've read about what we know today, in this unimaginably large Universe with billions of galaxies and untold solar systems and planets, the Earth is pretty unique as planets go in its ability to support intelligent life. Whether through some kind of great accident, twist of fate, or Grand Plan, looked at this way, we're all pretty damn lucky, I guess. I hope by now that you're not thinking I'm secretly BiPolar, and this happens to be one of my Good Days...it is, but that's not because I'm bipolar ... in fact, yesterday was one of those better days that highlight all that is good in my life, and I can only hope I have many more days like that ahead of me, because I know there will be plenty more of the other kind that will challenge my patience and will. I woke up this morning reflecting on two really good conversations I had yesterday, with two friends I hadn't spent time with for quite a while. And just the week prior I had a great lunch with another friend I had known since 1970, home for the Thanksgiving holiday. And I'm starting to get the emails and invitations of the season, which promise to reconnect me with many more friends and relatives whom I see all to rarely. So, let the holidays begin, a time when we reconnect with old friends, in breakfast meetings, lunches, Happy Hours, dinner and Holiday parties, office receptions - let's all celebrate our connectedness and the richness of our lives! I'll have to dive down on those conversations in a second post, but for the record, I met my friend Eric Rothfus for lunch yesterday. Eric's one of the more fascinating guys I know - a successful serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist, MIT grad, electronic engineer, vintage computer collector, and fellow Cub Scout dad. Given my Liberal Arts approach to life, Eric and I are in a sense two sides of a coin, which makes for stimulating conversation. Not long after lunch, I had a phone call with Greg Richardson, founder of Civitium, a principal consulting agency and driver of the nascent Municipal Wireless industry. Greg and I hadn't spoken in a while, and he and I always have good conversations comparing notes on how far this Alternate Broadband world has come. Greg's insights on the current events of the past several months are without equal. Sharing thoughts on where the world is going and having an opportunity to help shape Change and Progress are what energizes me. Yesterday's conversations highlighted for me that there is still so much work to be done, yet so much potential in where we are today regarding technology and cultural change. I've been tremendously influenced in my life by the thoughts and writings of Joseph Campbell, a professor of comparative religion who spent his life mapping the world's myths and integrating Eastern and Western philosophies - Campbell's interviews with Bill Moyers, captured in the PBS videotape series The Power of Myth in the 1980s, are a must-watch, I recommend them. His classic The Hero with a Thousand Faces inspired George Lucas' Star Wars saga, enjoyed by billions on the planet, in no small part because the storylines of Anakin and Luke, the Empire and the Rebellion, track great themes in world literature. The universal Hero Myth that Campbell documented and studied is the foundation for the best storytelling in Hollywood screenplays. Campbell's principal admonition to his students throughout his career was to "Follow Your Bliss," pithy advice that's easier said than done. Still, if you make the pursuit of passion and fulfillment your guiding light in life, you're guaranteed both a challenging and fulfilling life. It's The Road Less Traveled, tough going, but worth the work in the end. I've come to realize in the past five years that my life Bliss is helping the world better understand Community, and building strong and healthy communities starts and ends with good Communication. Most of what energizes me, from my participation in a small Episcopal church community, from my leadership in Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts, from my membership in my kid's school communities, and in my daily work with city leaders and communication specialists, has to do with making communities work better, and there's no end in the improvements possible in this area. Most communities are dysfunctional in one way or another, and because they're living and breathing entities, they're dynamic, fluctuating in their levels of optimization, in need of constant fine tuning, maintenance, and care. Seen in this context, Broadband is about much more than the Triple Play - Voice, Video, and Internet Access - much more than cheap phone calls, abundant entertainment options, or even surfing the Web and getting access to emails more conveniently. Broadband is becoming the connector that makes our lives worthwhile. I'd summarize it thusly: Broadband is the foundational infrastructure that enables communities to function in today's world, and life in community is the only life worth living. In my view, the broadband network - today's Internet - is like the electricity grid. It has become a fundamental requirement for the civilized society we live in. Think that's an overstatement? Just imagine a world without the ready access to Energy and Information that we currently enjoy. Many parts of the world lack both ready access to electricity and information, living their lives daily, both literally and figuratively, in the dark. I can think of no more fulfilling life than working to extend the broadband network as far and wide as the electric network has reached. In fact, when you think of it, that goal is too limiting. We can and will push out the information network farther than the electric network, because wireless technology will let us put access to information everywhere that a person can walk while carrying a mobile device. We can't do that with the electric network, although batteries are the substitute, I guess. And when much of that information we access has to do with connecting to our communities and making them more effective, then that is a very exciting prospect indeed! This is the beginning of an extended Holiday Greeting to you, my reading community. I don't know you, but I feel connected to you, and I appreciate your continued readership. Posted on November 29, 2007 at 08:56 AM | Comments (0) Can I See the Rest of the Mail Bag?What a great country where we actually have this kind of informed debate in a national newspaper! In response to a provocative NY Times OpEd piece a few days ago, Taking Science on Faith, readers shared their own opinions in these Letters to the Editor, Scientific Method: Evidence, Not Faith. I was left thinking what a fun job this must have been for the Letters Editor staff, to wade through what must have been hundreds of letters to pick the Lucky Seven that made it onto the page...what the Times hasn't yet realized is that they could have put ALL the letters they recieved up on their website. Limiting the responses to seven is a hold-over from the print days, when there was a real cost to publishing, and they had to winnow the list down to the most essential. I say, "Thanks for the summary, but I want more! Can I see the rest of the letters?" Check out the list if you want a little jolt to your brain...deep thoughts, but good ones. I'd echo their comments, because I lean on both traditions very heavily. There's a place for faith in my life, which feeds a hole in my soul, giving me hope and keeping me going. There's also a deep reliance on science, which methodically explains things. Having to choose between the two would be like having to choose between bread and water - I need both. This argument highlights the false choices we are presented with on a daily basis. To simplify arguments, the press often boil things down into two opposing arguments, but life is immeasurably more complicated than that. Such simplicity presents a false choice. We can use the dualistic approach - "This or That?" - to get the conversation started, but never to finish the argument, because more often than not, the answer lies in the middle - "A little bit of This, a little bit of That." The beginning of Wisdom is abandoning the choice between Black and White, and embracing the fact that the world is a Canvas of Graytones. Getting to the nub of complex issues, and they abound in today's society, takes patience, understanding, compassion, and no small dose of hard work. And, we could all use more training day in and day out in developing that side of our intellect and heart that lets us tolerate ambiguity. Many issues we deal with are quite simply insoluble and subjective. Sometimes, the best we can get from a good argument is to gain respect for the opposing viewpoint, expand our horizons, and better understand why we hold the beliefs that we do, yet still tolerate the views of other intelligent people, who see the world differently than we do. Posted on November 29, 2007 at 07:50 AM | Comments (0) Another Kind of ChangeOne Last Word on Change, Then I'm On to Another Topic! All the time, our customers ask us - "How do you make money doing this?" - the answer is simple: "Volume." Saturday Night Live Faux TV Commercial: First Citiwide Change Bank Maybe that was Citibank's secret strategy with subprime mortgage debt - Volume? Posted on November 28, 2007 at 05:12 PM | Comments (0) When Complexity Overwhelms, Is It Finally Time for a Change?How Do You Feel About Change? Sooner or Later, with everything in life, there comes a time when .... * more and more is expected from the same old system. and you begin to realize that you may have ridden this horse about as far as it can go; Some of us are more conscious of this process than others, but in today's highly dynamic environment, it makes sense to bring change out of the closet and to be more explicit and deliberate about our attitudes towards Change. How do you feel about Change? I hit a moment of change last May when I decided to sell my old car. I hit a moment of change nearly five years ago when I left my job to go out on my own. Neither of those changes came about suddenly, rather, the pressure to change built up gradually. But sometimes BIG Change is not warranted - sometimes you just need to freshen things up a little, sometimes you need a little change, a tweaking, so to speak. Whenever I begin to feel unsettled with my home life, I dig deeper to see what's bothering me and I ponder what I can do to renew my relationship - because I'm not ready for a wholesale change there, and I don't think I ever will be - I love my wife. But sometimes, even that relationship needs more energy and some adjustments are called for. The point I'm exploring here is that as powerful a hold as the Status Quo has on our lives, it makes sense to re-evaluate on a regular basis to see how well your "Tried-and-True" is holding up. Over time, even in the best systems, employees get stale, machines slow down and become less effective, strategies wear thin...nothing in this universe lasts, even the Sun and the Earth are winding down, ever so slowly. So, how do you feel about Change? Sometimes, change is warranted not because of environmental shifts but just because complexity has reached a breaking point. One problem with evolution or incrementalism that avoids the shock of bigger change by changing slowly by adding to the Status Quo, is that complexity can build up to where more complexity adds little to no improvement, but most certainly adds more stress. I've heard this complaint about software, where instead of adding ever more lines of code, it becomes more expedient to start over with a cleaner approach. So, if you feel your stress level rising, or notice that you get stressed over things that used to not bother you, take a look at your situation and ask yourself if its time to make a change to address what's bothering you. Does the situation call for a small change, or is something bigger in order? We can become so used to the Status Quo that we forget why we do things, we just always have. We can become so used to the Status Quo that we become attached to it. We can become so used to the Status Quo that we consciously avoid something that would be better for us because we have turned Change into some kind of Big Negative, when in fact, it's the Status Quo that has become the Big Negative. Sometimes, we need to put a hold on our emotional brain for a moment, the one that keeps us in our current situation - "Better the Devil that I know than the one I don't". Sometimes, we need to shed our assumptions and look clearly at our situation in a new light. Sometimes, we need to be more conscious concerning our attitudes about change. Sometimes Simple can be like a breath of fresh air, when we have become so used to Complex... Sometimes, the world has come up with a better mousetrap, but we don't know because we haven't been out there looking. Or, we know, but still, we find that we've become used to our old mousetrap. "You don't understand, I like hitting myself in the head with a hammer..." So, how do you feel about Change? Posted on November 28, 2007 at 04:36 PM | Comments (0) The Times They Are a Changin' ... Or Are They?Something tells me I may have to post this music video some more in upcoming months ... I hope! Rudd, who was expected to be sworn in as prime minister in the coming week, had accused Howard of being out of touch with modern Australia and ill-prepared to deal with issues such as climate change and high-speed Internet. Australian Leader Defeated in Election Long, long sigh here .................................................................... Oh, to live in a country with a parliamentary democracy. Sure, it would take some getting used to having a Prime Minister instead of a President, but just imagine having a Vote of No Confidence to Force an Election! Now that's what I'm talking 'bout! I clipped this article because it tied together a "march to modernity" with the need to address the issue of High Speed Internet, or Broadband, as it's otherwise called. I can only dream that one day my countrymen and women will wake up and realize that the issue of broadband infrastructure is worthy of more attention...if Australia can catch on, what about us??? So, at least Down Under, it's Out with the Old - Conservative Prime Minister John Howard, one of the Bush administration's staunchest allies - and In with the New - Labor leader Kevin Rudd, a Chinese-speaking former diplomat (and apparently, a broadband internet lover). While much attention in the article is on Rudd's anti-Iraq War positions and plans for Australia to join the Kyoto Protocol, leaving the US alone out on an island - get it ("island", "Australia", oh, never mind), I'll be watching to see how the new government treats broadband differently. It will be interesting to see what happens when yet another national government actually focuses on national broadband policy - could they offer us lessons? Will we even be aware of if they do? Stay tuned! Posted on November 28, 2007 at 04:02 PM | Comments (0) Are You on Facebook? Maybe it's Time to Join ... Come on Over to the Dark Side, Luke, the Power ... the Pooower ...I called my old friend Bill Wong recently - he and I got to know each other in Austin three years ago, when he was at Tropos and I was consulting with Austin Energy, running a broadband research project we called GENie (Geodesic Energy Network - information + electricity). I went on to a consulting engagement with Tropos and Bill and I got to know each other better, then Bill went over to Cisco . Bill has become one of a handful of subject matter experts in how Wi Fi Mesh works in practice. He knows more about the technology than I could dream of knowing. I love to check in with old friends like Bill from time to time and compare notes, inevitably we wind up complaining about this or that - this time, we bitched about changes in our little industry and I put forward my idea that Municipal Wireless was too narrow for me anymore - it leaves out private sector wireless, public sector projects that also include fiber, FTTH, BPL, etc, etc. I've written on that theme here many times. So, my hat's off to Bill, who challenged me to get out on the social networking site facebook. He said it's become more than a place where college kids hang out and socialize. It provides good tools for industry discussions, for instance. So, on Bill's urging, I joined yesterday, and we promptly launched a discussion group on Alternate Broadband. As you can tell, this is all very spontaneous. I invite you to join us for a conversation at Facebook...I'm not altogether sure where it will go, but this is a chance to get a little more interactive. I'll keep writing my thoughts down here, but I see Facebook offering an opportunity for a broader discussion. Please check it out! Posted on November 28, 2007 at 03:00 PM | Comments (0) Ahem ... The Word is "ExaFlood"A flood of new video and other Web content could overwhelm the Internet by 2010 unless backbone providers invest up to $137 billion in new capacity, more than double what service providers plan to invest, according to the study, by Nemertes Research Group, an independent analysis firm. In North America alone, backbone investments of $42 billion to $55 billion will be needed in the next three to five years to keep up with demand, Nemertes said. The study is the first to "apply Moore's Law (or something very like it) to the pace of application innovation on the 'Net,"the study says. "Our findings indicate that although core fiber and switching/routing resources will scale nicely to support virtually any conceivable user demand, Internet access infrastructure, specifically in North America, will likely cease to be adequate for supporting demand within the next three to five years." Internet Could Max Out in 2 Years, Study Says For more on the potential inadequacy of the Internet as bandwidth-hogging applications proliferate, see my sort-of recent post EXAmine This: A Growing Gap in Capacity Demand and Bandwidth Supply? Posted on November 28, 2007 at 02:57 PM | Comments (0) Onward, Through the Fog
I rode off today to drop my kids at school, after wiping off the windows, so dense was the fog. I waited at a busy corner, pulled out, only to hear a honk and see a pair of headlights on a silver Mercedes....just the color of fog. Note to self - don't buy a gray or silver car, you can't see it in low visibility. After dropping the kids off, I made my way out onto the highway and as I moved up the hill, the fog dissipated and I had a spectacular view of Lake Austin at sunrise, something like this image I found on Flickr. It struck me that "Onward Through the Fog" is a great metaphor to capture where we are when it comes to Broadband in America. We're not sure what lies ahead, yet we can vaguely see into the near term future. We know that it involves lots more bandwidth, more mobility, and different business models than we have today - at least, that's my vision. But how it will work out is anybody's guess. Still, if we keep on driving, at some point we'll emerge from the fog and enjoy clarity of vision - a beautiful sunrise lies ahead of us, once we emerge from this fog. Onward, then! Posted on November 27, 2007 at 09:04 AM | Comments (0) There's a Place for Fear, and Sometimes, Fear Should be Put In Its PlaceJust because you're paranoid doesn't mean that everyone is NOT out to get you... I write a considerable amount about Change, because it's impossible to think about the Internet, technology, and society, and not give a full dose of rational thought to Change, how it works, and how to be more effective at it. And anytime you consider Change, it follows that Fear must be close behind, because change involves moving into an unknown future, and it requires Courage. I sometimes forget if I made something up, or if I heard it somewhere, so my apologies if the quote above is from a movie or something that I should be able to place. It's become a favorite expression of mine on the the danger of making blanket statements and one of the principal ironies of life. You can be paranoid and still be in danger. Don't be paranoid, but don't forget about danger either. We live in a dangerous world, and it makes sense to have fear. Fear is a very healthy emotion built into our genes through countless generations of natural selection. Our ancestors who had a healthy respect for danger and listened to their fears survived long enough to reproduce and pass along our genes. Fear is built into our culture and we teach our kids to be afraid, almost from the beginning, in order to help them learn to establish boundaries and get along in life. Growing up is all about learning what to be afraid of and what to dismiss. Unfortunately, too many of us learn to give fear a central role in our lives and in today's society, fear has become all too common. It's an easy path to go down, and it is fraught with negative outcomes. It's the wrong path to go down. Besides recognizing that life is inherently ironic, then, another truth I believe is "Life is About Balance." We live in a dualistic world, a world of opposites, so anytime we focus on one to the exclusion of its opposite, we fall out of balance. I think balance and harmony are the essence of Buddhism and most major religions, for that matter. To have balance, then, in a world where fear is a constant, we need a counterpart to fear, which I think is two-fold. First, faith lets us carry on when we don't know what the future holds (other than danger, loss and death) and without faith, would otherwise be paralyzed by fear or go insane. And knowledge lets us put to rest unreasonable fears and empowers us to know the difference between healthy, rational fear and excessive, unhealthy, irrational fear. I've got to go take the kids to school, so I'll stop for now, but leave you with this Good example of Fear as a Frame to Avoid. Posted on November 27, 2007 at 06:24 AM | Comments (0) Stepping Out in Front of a ParadeSometimes leadership is more about acknowledging the inevitable than it is about being a visionary. Our nation's youth congregate on college campuses, and their lifestyles and technology adoption rates are driving significant trends in IT and broadband communications. College campuses have been and continue to be an early adopter of communication technology, as they respond to pressures created by their students. This is a parade that those who wish to stay ahead of change can watch and learn from. If we want to see where our cities are going, it makes sense to watch college campuses. If you have the good fortune to have a college campus in your city or town, I'd spend some serious time contemplating how your city leadership can harness that energy to pull your town along with them. Indeed, the largest campuses often resemble little cities all on their own. I live in Austin, home of the University of Texas and somewhere around 50,000 students. This fall, when we've walked to the DKR Memorial Stadium on football game days, we passed by a monstrous chilling station and one of the largest dormitories in the nation. I've been reminded that the University has its own zip code and it's own electric power plant. It has a huge budget and administration and by necessity, strives to meet the needs of its unique population with an administration not unlike that of a city. I see the same in San Marcos, just to the south, where Texas State University goes through much the same experience, if on a little smaller scale. And I see a similar sense of independence in both administrations that I'm sure keeps host city leaders in Austin and San Marcos busy adapting and accommodating. So I was struck by this article in Government Technology about two trends that drive technology adoption: digital media and security. Today, many students are digital natives, Web 2.0 consumers who expect their college or university to create a collaborative experience that integrates familiar technologies such as podcasting and on-demand video into their learning environment. Three of four young adults download and view Internet videos daily according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, and Burst Media reports that college students spend more time online than they do using any other form of media, including TV and radio. Additionally, schools are quickly moving to streamline campus communications not only to prepare for disaster responses but also to bolster efficient day-to-day operations that save university officials time and money.Two Significant Technology Trends Sweeping College and University Communities - Government Technology In a sense, all cities and towns have an element of this trend playing out under their noses. It makes sense to spend some time understanding what these two trends portend, because the uptake of digital media and mobile devices and the need for security both benefit from a network. Start with the network and you will be in front of the parade. Posted on November 23, 2007 at 06:17 AM | Comments (0) More from the "You Get What You Pay For" FileSometimes when I start a post, there are more titles that come to mind than insightful analysis. A sampling of aternate titles for this post that came to mind: Anyone Who Is Surprised, Please Raise Your Hand The Other Shoe Falls So, after more analysis, EarthLink has decided to turn the faucet all the way off. What does this mean for the rest of us? Not much, I think. It's like the impact of news on stock prices - we already devalued EarthLink's impact on this industry, some of us as long ago as this spring. We wrote an awful lot about EarthLink's first major announcement of pull back in August (peruse the Archives for the second half of August and the early part of September). More interesting developments will be in smaller towns, like San Marcos, where we have an active positive process underway, focused on municipal applications, Digital Divide, Economic Development and a Win/Win Public/Private Partnership. (See San Marcos Texas Progress Report) More interesting developments will be in regional coordination, like in Orange County, where the county and the business council will analyze wireless broadband and host a summit to encourage integration and interoperability, where we have an approach best characterized as Regional Coordination, Local Control. (See SCAG Wireless: Wireless Broadband Reigns in Southern California) This is not to say that the aftermath of EarthLink will not be interesting and educational, but less I hope, for the morbid fascination of watching a good company go down for the count, and more to highlight that the industry is moving in a new direction and to offer lessons for interested public and private sector players. Because, they have a lot to soak up, as we move Alternate Broadband in a new direction, as I discussed in a post last month (See Phoenix MetroNets, Rising from the Ashes). For more detail on this latest news, see some of these articles I especially recommend Greg Richardson's analysis at his corporate blog (See Breaking up is hard to do - good title, Greg!). Greg has been perhaps the most intimately involved with some of these big city wireless deals that are likely to be the most affected by the recent actions of EarthLink, so his analysis carries a lot of weight. Note the common thread in these analyses. Stay tuned, stay informed, Raise Your Network IQ, Feed Your Head. Avoid the mainstream press and surface analysis, which is often more misleading and confusing than it is informative. More to follow. Posted on November 20, 2007 at 09:25 AM | Comments (0) A Wicked Wind Blows Through the Senate, The Shankill Butchers Ride Tonight
Shankill Butchers - Decemberists Live 10/27/06 "At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide. I hope I am over wary; but if I am not, there is, even now, something of ill-omen, amongst us. I mean the increasing disregard for law which pervades the country; the growing disposition to substitute the wild and furious passions, in lieu of the sober judgment of Courts; and the worse than savage mobs, for the executive ministers of justice. This disposition is awfully fearful in any community; and that it now exists in ours, though grating to our feelings to admit, it would be a violation of truth, and an insult to our intelligence, to deny. " -- The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions, A. Lincoln, at his Address Before the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois on January 27, 1838 I think that if Abraham Lincoln were a young (28 yrs old) lawyer today, he would be as likely to write a blog as to give a speech. In the particular speech that helped kick start his political career and make his reputation, young Abe decried the angry mobs that had strung up and burned a mulatto man for nothing more than his racial identity. He decries in this speech the angry mood of the country that preceded the Civil War, and calls on his countrymen to redouble their fealty to the spirit of the founding fathers, to the laws and system of government that they created to ensure justice. He warns that the institutions will not stand up on their own, but must be supported in times of peace as well as in times of strife. Today, if he were around, young Abe would highlight another kind of mob spirit that is animating our nation and causing it to support actions by our political leadership that go well beyond the boundaries of the law, as they manipulate the system to evade the system of checks and balances designed by our forefathers. We are a nation that remains, six years after that horrific attack on September 11, 2001, a nation in fear. We live in fear of another attack. We're reminded, in gory detail, by our president and opportunistic politicians that we could be subject to another attack at any moment, and encouraged to trade away our civil liberties in exchange for an opportunity to feel safer. (Over 1 Million Hits in Google search for "Bush+fear mongering" - or If you prefer the evidence in video form, see this search of You Tube for "Bush+fear mongering" - 58 hits, though some may be repetitive). The measures this administration and its supporters would take cannot make us any safer, but they do offer to make us feel safer, in exchange for long-lasting political changes that serve their agenda. In response, we should be demanding hard evidence, we should demand to know: "How do massive violations of our laws to survey all data communications make us any safer?" What's the track record to date? It's been six years, after all. We're fed the impression that we're being protected, but in fact, that's not possible by such means. In fact, our civil liberties are being traded away for a pittance in an historic power grab. We're buying a temporary feeling of security, in exchange for handing over our most precious asset: the system of laws, checks, and balances that are the very foundation of our government and our stable civil society. This issue is coming to a head in the Senate, and I'm concerned. In the Senate, two competing versions of the FISA Act have passed out of Senate committees. One, passed last month by the Intelligence Committee, saw Democratic Senators Schumer and Feinstein vote with the Republicans in favor of a version that contains immunity for telecom firms that cooperated with requests from the executive branch to break laws and provide surveillance of domestic data traffic without warrants. The other, passed by the Judiciary Committee, voted out a version that did not include immunity, but also did not expressly condemn immunity, in effect punting to the Senate floor resolution of the issue of whether large telecom firms should be left subject to the consequences of their illegal activity. In contrast, the House passed a version that expressly excluded such immunity. This article in Techdirt and its associated links help explain the confusing state of affairs in Congress. I am not confident in our Democratic leadership, I'm afraid to say. I fear an ill wind blowing through the Senate, which could see this issue traded away in some high-minded compromise. I think it's important to take this stand, because the legal fight that would ensue when telecom companies are called to task for their behavior has the potential to uncover law-breaking by this administration as well, and that is the bigger fish. We have an opportunity to educate our nation on the risks we are taking, and turn the tide on the steady erosion of our civil liberties. Similar voices echo Abe Lincoln, calling out today, warn us to beware. Consider this article and video clip, where a whistle-blower visited Washington two weeks ago to tell what he knows about illegal collusion between AT&T and the federal government. Those documents detail how AT&T diverted portions of fiber optic internet cables, included powerful snooping hardware and a fat fiber connection out of the room. The EFF filed those documents under seal with the court as part of their ongoing class action suit against AT&T. Wired News independently acquired and published the documents in May 2006. Even prior to the Senate Intelligence committee's assent to the president's push for immunity for the telecoms, Klein believed that Congress was helping the administration cover up the spying, according to an interview with Wired News in May. [KLEIN]: I've called and sent letters to senators and Congress members. They haven't called back. I don't think they want to pursue it. They want to talk about this behind closed doors. These days I am angry at Congress for helping them keep it secret. They could hold hearings and subpoena people and give them immunity. Right now there are people who could come forward and say what they know, but they need immunity. That's the bottleneck. I don't see a resolution coming from this Congress. It's a conspiracy against the American people. But on Wednesday, Klein had a full D.C. day -- meeting with senators and Congressional staffers and doing rounds of interviews with the press, who have largely ignored the soft-spoken retiree. Klein's stated intent for the visit is to stop Congress from giving immunity to well-connected telecom firms that the administration and its platoon of consent manufacturers say are being treated unfairly. http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/11/att-whistle-blo.html Here's Klein in person, in a clip put up on Sen. Dodd's website - watch it. Having watched this video, I urge you to pause for a moment and then read Lincoln's speech in its entirety, below. Lyceum Address William Herndon, Lincoln's law partner, describes the event this way: "we had a society in Springfield, which contained and commanded all the culture and talent of the place. Unlike the other one its meetings were public, and reflected great credit on the community ... The speech was brought out by the burning in St. Louis a few weeks before, by a mob, of a negro. Lincoln took this incident as a sort of text for his remarks ... The address was published in the Sangamon Journal and created for the young orator a reputation which soon extended beyond the limits of the locality in which he lived." The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions: As a subject for the remarks of the evening, the perpetuation of our political institutions, is selected. In the great journal of things happening under the sun, we, the American People, find our account running, under date of the nineteenth century of the Christian era.--We find ourselves in the peaceful possession, of the fairest portion of the earth, as regards extent of territory, fertility of soil, and salubrity of climate. We find ourselves under the government of a system of political institutions, conducing more essentially to the ends of civil and religious liberty, than any of which the history of former times tells us. We, when mounting the stage of existence, found ourselves the legal inheritors of these fundamental blessings. We toiled not in the acquirement or establishment of them--they are a legacy bequeathed us, by a once hardy, brave, and patriotic, but now lamented and departed race of ancestors. Their's was the task (and nobly they performed it) to possess themselves, and through themselves, us, of this goodly land; and to uprear upon its hills and its valleys, a political edifice of liberty and equal rights; 'tis ours only, to transmit these, the former, unprofaned by the foot of an invader; the latter, undecayed by the lapse of time and untorn by usurpation, to the latest generation that fate shall permit the world to know. This task of gratitude to our fathers, justice to ourselves, duty to posterity, and love for our species in general, all imperatively require us faithfully to perform. How then shall we perform it?--At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it?-- Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never!--All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide. I hope I am over wary; but if I am not, there is, even now, something of ill-omen, amongst us. I mean the increasing disregard for law which pervades the country; the growing disposition to substitute the wild and furious passions, in lieu of the sober judgment of Courts; and the worse than savage mobs, for the executive ministers of justice. This disposition is awfully fearful in any community; and that it now exists in ours, though grating to our feelings to admit, it would be a violation of truth, and an insult to our intelligence, to deny. Accounts of outrages committed by mobs, form the every-day news of the times. They have pervaded the country, from New England to Louisiana;--they are neither peculiar to the eternal snows of the former, nor the burning suns of the latter;--they are not the creature of climate-- neither are they confined to the slave-holding, or the non-slave- holding States. Alike, they spring up among the pleasure hunting masters of Southern slaves, and the order loving citizens of the land of steady habits.--Whatever, then, their cause may be, it is common to the whole country. It would be tedious, as well as useless, to recount the horrors of all of them. Those happening in the State of Mississippi, and at St. Louis, are, perhaps, the most dangerous in example and revolting to humanity. In the Mississippi case, they first commenced by hanging the regular gamblers; a set of men, certainly not following for a livelihood, a very useful, or very honest occupation; but one which, so far from being forbidden by the laws, was actually licensed by an act of the Legislature, passed but a single year before. Next, negroes, suspected of conspiring to raise an insurrection, were caught up and hanged in all parts of the State: then, white men, supposed to be leagued with the negroes; and finally, strangers, from neighboring States, going thither on business, were, in many instances subjected to the same fate. Thus went on this process of hanging, from gamblers to negroes, from negroes to white citizens, and from these to strangers; till, dead men were seen literally dangling from the boughs of trees upon every road side; and in numbers almost sufficient, to rival the native Spanish moss of the country, as a drapery of the forest. Turn, then, to that horror-striking scene at St. Louis. A single victim was only sacrificed there. His story is very short; and is, perhaps, the most highly tragic, if anything of its length, that has ever been witnessed in real life. A mulatto man, by the name of McIntosh, was seized in the street, dragged to the suburbs of the city, chained to a tree, and actually burned to death; and all within a single hour from the time he had been a freeman, attending to his own business, and at peace with the world. Such are the effects of mob law; and such as the scenes, becoming more and more frequent in this land so lately famed for love of law and order; and the stories of which, have even now grown too familiar, to attract any thing more, than an idle remark. But you are, perhaps, ready to ask, "What has this to do with the perpetuation of our political institutions?" I answer, it has much to do with it. Its direct consequences are, comparatively speaking, but a small evil; and much of its danger consists, in the proneness of our minds, to regard its direct, as its only consequences. Abstractly considered, the hanging of the gamblers at Vicksburg, was of but little consequence. They constitute a portion of population, that is worse than useless in any community; and their death, if no pernicious example be set by it, is never matter of reasonable regret with any one. If they were annually swept, from the stage of existence, by the plague or small pox, honest men would, perhaps, be much profited, by the operation.--Similar too, is the correct reasoning, in regard to the burning of the negro at St. Louis. He had forfeited his life, by the perpetuation of an outrageous murder, upon one of the most worthy and respectable citizens of the city; and had not he died as he did, he must have died by the sentence of the law, in a very short time afterwards. As to him alone, it was as well the way it was, as it could otherwise have been.--But the example in either case, was fearful.--When men take it in their heads to day, to hang gamblers, or burn murderers, they should recollect, that, in the confusion usually attending such transactions, they will be as likely to hang or burn some one who is neither a gambler nor a murderer as one who is; and that, acting upon the example they set, the mob of to-morrow, may, and probably will, hang or burn some of them by the very same mistake. And not only so; the innocent, those who have ever set their faces against violations of law in every shape, alike with the guilty, fall victims to the ravages of mob law; and thus it goes on, step by step, till all the walls erected for the defense of the persons and property of individuals, are trodden down, and disregarded. But all this even, is not the full extent of the evil.--By such examples, by instances of the perpetrators of such acts going unpunished, the lawless in spirit, are encouraged to become lawless in practice; and having been used to no restraint, but dread of punishment, they thus become, absolutely unrestrained.--Having ever regarded Government as their deadliest bane, they make a jubilee of the suspension of its operations; and pray for nothing so much, as its total annihilation. While, on the other hand, good men, men who love tranquility, who desire to abide by the laws, and enjoy their benefits, who would gladly spill their blood in the defense of their country; seeing their property destroyed; their families insulted, and their lives endangered; their persons injured; and seeing nothing in prospect that forebodes a change for the better; become tired of, and disgusted with, a Government that offers them no protection; and are not much averse to a change in which they imagine they have nothing to lose. Thus, then, by the operation of this mobocractic spirit, which all must admit, is now abroad in the land, the strongest bulwark of any Government, and particularly of those constituted like ours, may effectually be broken down and destroyed--I mean the attachment of the People. Whenever this effect shall be produced among us; whenever the vicious portion of population shall be permitted to gather in bands of hundreds and thousands, and burn churches, ravage and rob provision-stores, throw printing presses into rivers, shoot editors, and hang and burn obnoxious persons at pleasure, and with impunity; depend on it, this Government cannot last. By such things, the feelings of the best citizens will become more or less alienated from it; and thus it will be left without friends, or with too few, and those few too weak, to make their friendship effectual. At such a time and under such circumstances, men of sufficient talent and ambition will not be wanting to seize the opportunity, strike the blow, and overturn that fair fabric, which for the last half century, has been the fondest hope, of the lovers of freedom, throughout the world. I know the American People are much attached to their Government;--I know they would suffer much for its sake;--I know they would endure evils long and patiently, before they would ever think of exchanging it for another. Yet, notwithstanding all this, if the laws be continually despised and disregarded, if their rights to be secure in their persons and property, are held by no better tenure than the caprice of a mob, the alienation of their affections from the Government is the natural consequence; and to that, sooner or later, it must come. Here then, is one point at which danger may be expected. The question recurs, "how shall we fortify against it?" The answer is simple. Let every American, every lover of liberty, every well wisher to his posterity, swear by the blood of the Revolution, never to violate in the least particular, the laws of the country; and never to tolerate their violation by others. As the patriots of seventy-six did to the support of the Declaration of Independence, so to the support of the Constitution and Laws, let every American pledge his life, his property, and his sacred honor;--let every man remember that to violate the law, is to trample on the blood of his father, and to tear the character of his own, and his children's liberty. Let reverence for the laws, be breathed by every American mother, to the lisping babe, that prattles on her lap--let it be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges; let it be written in Primers, spelling books, and in Almanacs;--let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice. And, in short, let it become the political religion of the nation; and let the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the grave and the gay, of all sexes and tongues, and colors and conditions, sacrifice unceasingly upon its altars. While ever a state of feeling, such as this, shall universally, or even, very generally prevail throughout the nation, vain will be every effort, and fruitless every attempt, to subvert our national freedom. When I so pressingly urge a strict observance of all the laws, let me not be understood as saying there are no bad laws, nor that grievances may not arise, for the redress of which, no legal provisions have been made.--I mean to say no such thing. But I do mean to say, that, although bad laws, if they exist, should be repealed as soon as possible, still while they continue in force, for the sake of example, they should be religiously observed. So also in unprovided cases. If such arise, let proper legal provisions be made for them with the least possible delay; but, till then, let them, if not too intolerable, be borne with. There is no grievance that is a fit object of redress by mob law. In any case that arises, as for instance, the promulgation of abolitionism, one of two positions is necessarily true; that is, the thing is right within itself, and therefore deserves the protection of all law and all good citizens; or, it is wrong, and therefore proper to be prohibited by legal enactments; and in neither case, is the interposition of mob law, either necessary, justifiable, or excusable. But, it may be asked, why suppose danger to our political institutions? Have we not preserved them for more than fifty years? And why may we not for fifty times as long? We hope there is no sufficient reason. We hope all dangers may be overcome; but to conclude that no danger may ever arise, would itself be extremely dangerous. There are now, and will hereafter be, many causes, dangerous in their tendency, which have not existed heretofore; and which are not too insignificant to merit attention. That our government should have been maintained in its original form from its establishment until now, is not much to be wondered at. It had many props to support it through that period, which now are decayed, and crumbled away. Through that period, it was felt by all, to be an undecided experiment; now, it is understood to be a successful one.--Then, all that sought celebrity and fame, and distinction, expected to find them in the success of that experiment. Their all was staked upon it:-- their destiny was inseparably linked with it. Their ambition aspired to display before an admiring world, a practical demonstration of the truth of a proposition, which had hitherto been considered, at best no better, than problematical; namely, the capability of a people to govern themselves. If they succeeded, they were to be immortalized; their names were to be transferred to counties and cities, and rivers and mountains; and to be revered and sung, and toasted through all time. If they failed, they were to be called knaves and fools, and fanatics for a fleeting hour; then to sink and be forgotten. They succeeded. The experiment is successful; and thousands have won their deathless names in making it so. But the game is caught; and I believe it is true, that with the catching, end the pleasures of the chase. This field of glory is harvested, and the crop is already appropriated. But new reapers will arise, and they, too, will seek a field. It is to deny, what the history of the world tells us is true, to suppose that men of ambition and talents will not continue to spring up amongst us. And, when they do, they will as naturally seek the gratification of their ruling passion, as others have so done before them. The question then, is, can that gratification be found in supporting and maintaining an edifice that has been erected by others? Most certainly it cannot. Many great and good men sufficiently qualified for any task they should undertake, may ever be found, whose ambition would inspire to nothing beyond a seat in Congress, a gubernatorial or a presidential chair; but such belong not to the family of the lion, or the tribe of the eagle. What! think you these places would satisfy an Alexander, a Caesar, or a Napoleon?--Never! Towering genius distains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored.--It sees no distinction in adding story to story, upon the monuments of fame, erected to the memory of others. It denies that it is glory enough to serve under any chief. It scorns to tread in the footsteps of any predecessor, however illustrious. It thirsts and burns for distinction; and, if possible, it will have it, whether at the expense of emancipating slaves, or enslaving freemen. Is it unreasonable then to expect, that some man possessed of the loftiest genius, coupled with ambition sufficient to push it to its utmost stretch, will at some time, spring up among us? And when such a one does, it will require the people to be united with each other, attached to the government and laws, and generally intelligent, to successfully frustrate his designs. Distinction will be his paramount object, and although he would as willingly, perhaps more so, acquire it by doing good as harm; yet, that opportunity being past, and nothing left to be done in the way of building up, he would set boldly to the task of pulling down. Here, then, is a probable case, highly dangerous, and such a one as could not have well existed heretofore. Another reason which once was; but which, to the same extent, is now no more, has done much in maintaining our institutions thus far. I mean the powerful influence which the interesting scenes of the revolution had upon the passions of the people as distinguished from their judgment. By this influence, the jealousy, envy, and avarice, incident to our nature, and so common to a state of peace, prosperity, and conscious strength, were, for the time, in a great measure smothered and rendered inactive; while the deep-rooted principles of hate, and the powerful motive of revenge, instead of being turned against each other, were directed exclusively against the British nation. And thus, from the force of circumstances, the basest principles of our nature, were either made to lie dormant, or to become the active agents in the advancement of the noblest cause--that of establishing and maintaining civil and religious liberty. But this state of feeling must fade, is fading, has faded, with the circumstances that produced it. I do not mean to say, that the scenes of the revolution are now or ever will be entirely forgotten; but that like every thing else, they must fade upon the memory of the world, and grow more and more dim by the lapse of time. In history, we hope, they will be read of, and recounted, so long as the bible shall be read;-- but even granting that they will, their influence cannot be what it heretofore has been. Even then, they cannot be so universally known, nor so vividly felt, as they were by the generation just gone to rest. At the close of that struggle, nearly every adult male had been a participator in some of its scenes. The consequence was, that of those scenes, in the form of a husband, a father, a son or brother, a living history was to be found in every family-- a history bearing the indubitable testimonies of its own authenticity, in the limbs mangled, in the scars of wounds received, in the midst of the very scenes related--a history, too, that could be read and understood alike by all, the wise and the ignorant, the learned and the unlearned.--But those histories are gone. They can be read no more forever. They were a fortress of strength; but, what invading foeman could never do, the silent artillery of time has done; the leveling of its walls. They are gone.--They were a forest of giant oaks; but the all-resistless hurricane has swept over them, and left only, here and there, a lonely trunk, despoiled of its verdure, shorn of its foliage; unshading and unshaded, to murmur in a few gentle breezes, and to combat with its mutilated limbs, a few more ruder storms, then to sink, and be no more. They were the pillars of the temple of liberty; and now, that they have crumbled away, that temple must fall, unless we, their descendants, supply their places with other pillars, hewn from the solid quarry of sober reason. Passion has helped us; but can do so no more. It will in future be our enemy. Reason, cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason, must furnish all the materials for our future support and defence.--Let those materials be moulded into general intelligence, sound morality, and in particular, a reverence for the constitution and laws: and, that we improved to the last; that we remained free to the last; that we revered his name to the last; that, during his long sleep, we permitted no hostile foot to pass over or desecrate his resting place; shall be that which to learn the last trump shall awaken our WASHINGTON. Upon these let the proud fabric of freedom rest, as the rock of its basis; and as truly as has been said of the only greater institution, "the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." Source: Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, edited by Roy P. Basler. Isn't it time we woke up and recognized the path we're on? We know where the path took Lincoln's nation a short 12 years after he made this speech, which propelled him to lead our nation during its most trying time. Can we not learn from history and avoid repeating the same mistakes? Will we let passionate anger and fear outvote our brains in our national debate today, in the same way that we let passionate anger and fear hold sway 170 years ago? Posted on November 19, 2007 at 08:09 AM | Comments (0) I was hoping for at least Community College Reading Level
Posted on November 18, 2007 at 02:23 PM | Comments (0) Government as a Layer CakeYou're born, you take shit. Just as an aside, this is one of those movies you'll want to watch two or three times. I watched it first on DVD and could only make out about half the dialogue, so strong were the Cockney accents. I watched it a second time with the subtitles on - I kid you not! - and finally understood the plot, then immediately watched it again to get the full effect, this time with subtitles off. The movie's loaded with foul language and violence - I think that's what they call realistic in the drug gangster environment - but it introduced me to Daniel Craig, the latest James Bond, and it was a compelling story. It also introduced me to a concept called the Layer Cake, brutally described above. This Gangster Layer Cake involves power over others ("taking shit") and in some senses, the parallel is there when we move through the layers of the Government Layer Cake (note to self - resist comparing politicians to gangsters...) If we use accessibility as the means to compare layers of government, then the farther up the layers you go, the less accessible your government representatives are. Talked to your Congressman, Senator, or President lately? No? But odds are, if you really wanted to and you lived in a town that was small enough, you could get a meeting with your mayor or council member. Yesterday morning, I made some bold proclamations in one of my more strident posts in recent memory (Time to Challenge Some Bad Thinking about the Role of Government). I guess I woke up with an attitude. Here is the bolded list from that post: * Government is not THEY, it is US. Clearly, such general statements are not enough, not by a long shot...they beg questions and responses like - Government exists at a variety of levels (layers in a cake), so before we start talking about the Role of Government in broadband infrastructure, we should at least define which government, which layer we're talking about. There's a different level of interface, a different role to play, and a different strategy for interfacing with each layer. Each layer generally has an executive and a deliberative body.
1. At the bottom, easiest-to-get-to layer is Local Government, mayors and city councils. I guess the first question is "Does Government have a role to play, at any level?" While others may choose a debate on this question, I'll forge ahead and say "Yes, of course." But the challenge that follows is "If so, then what role can Government play, and what role should each layer play?" This analysis will take some time, so I'm going to close this post and revisit this topic soon, to compare the layers of government and investigate such aspects as: Your thoughts? Posted on November 17, 2007 at 09:32 AM | Comments (0) In Assessing Change v. MOTS, Start with Putting Consensus Ahead of CoercionWe live in a world of dynamic tension. (I'm not talking about Charles Atlas' Dynamic Tension, although I could use a little of that!). I'm talking about the dynamic tension that Time gives us, as the forces of change in the universe pull on the present, tugging it into the future. I'm talking about the change and dynamic tension I experienced growing up, as any younger generation does when it challenges the world of its parents. To the young, More of the Same (MOTS) is the Kiss of Death. To the old and established, however, Change can represent a threat to all that they've worked to create. Finding a balance between these two competing forces of nature occupies a large part of our time. When is it right to embrace the Opportunity of Change and let go of the Benefits of the Status Quo? When is it right to say No to Change and hold on to the Good Old Tried and True? While our egos and need for expediency often argue to "Just Do It," using coercive means to either stay where we are or move forward to short-term gains, we should resist our primary urges. Here's why: The Paradox of Change I'll explain my argument, but it'll take a little time. John Zogby, the pollster, wrote a post that put these thoughts in my head. See Is 2008 a 1932 Moment?. Zogby's is the second essay I've read in as many days that ponders whether we're entering a new age of Progressivism similar to what we saw under FDR in the first half of the 20th century (see my post from earlier this week - When Big Government Thinks Big, Big Things Get Built, where I commented on a NYT OpEd Public Works: When 'Big Government' Plays Its Role, which talks about the massive public works projects under FDR and our current crumbling infrastructure today). In a post from a month ago (see Rock of Ages v. Water of Life), I talked about change over Deep Time, from the beginning of the planet onward, showing how the pace of change picks up over the course of time, and as the complexity of the system rises, ever more dramatic change becomes a near constant, and the Internet brings our human complex system together and enables changes that once we could only dream about. Today, I'm focused on the dynamic between Change and holding on to More of the Same - MOTS. It's something we all deal with, every day. We either follow our routines, or we take on a new way of doing things, either actively choosing to do so, or passively reacting to a stimulus, when something from the outside steps in to make us react. In fact, the United States is a nation constructed on a foundation of dynamic tension; when it comes to politics, Dynamic Tension is just another way of saying Balance of Powers. Having successfully broken free from the world's most powerful monarchy, our forefathers understood the need to have checks and balances against unfettered political power, so they built into the Constitution a system of government that had the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches watching and controlling each other. They also designed a system of federalism, whereby individual states maintained significant authority on some matters, and the federal government reigned in other areas where it was more appropriate. Finally, the private and public sectors have been locked in a system of dynamic tension ever since the first regulatory body was formed. This structure has served us relatively well until recently, when it came under a strong challenge by the current occupants of the White House, who've sought to make the executive branch supreme under an argument labeled the Unitary Executive Theory. But as my topic today is the dynamic tension we face from a rapidly changing society, I'll leave discussion of this tangled mess for another day (see Unitary Executive v. Constitution for more on this topic, if you have the stomach for it.) I mention the wisdom of the founding fathers, because the flexible government structure they gave us has served us well, with a few notable exceptions, the Civil War principal among those. The march of time puts all kinds of pressure on society, as the forces of change pull the nation forward, raising challenges to the status quo. But resisting that pull to change, the forces of inertia claim a hold on the present, challenging it to justify how the change would make things better than they are currently. Inevitably, those who have less tend to favor change. While things can always get worse - never forget that one! - those who have little see change as an opportunity, hoping for a better world for their kids. Let's take a quick look at the forces of change. Immigration is driven by this force, as immigrants physically relocate to find better fortune for themselves and their families. When they move into new spaces, they bring change with them and as their numbers grow, they challenge the status quo, transforming work forces and neighborhoods. Entrepreneurialism has a similar impact on the business community, where entrepreneurs, like immigrants, take advantage of holes and gaps to solve problems, make a better world, and with any luck, create new fortunes. When they do what they do, they challenge the status quo in order to find a foothold for their new ideas. Innovation is the lifeblood of technology and business. Evolution involves incremental technology advances, making familiar tools faster, more productive, more efficient. Revolution, on the other hand, changes the name of the game and rocks the playing field. In radical innovation we see the seeds for major change. Complementing these three drivers of change are open societies and open access networks, the infrastructure that complements the open societal component. In his Creative Class series of books, Richard Florida writes about the three Ts (Talent, Technology, and Tolerance) that drive regional economic development, setting these forces for change in a receptive environment. (See also Wi Fi Mesh + the Birds and the Bees = Creative Class Attraction, What's Municipal Wireless Good For? The Whole Enchilada, and Chasing the Key Demographic for a Sustainable Future for more insight on how a hospitable environment can harness these drivers for positive change.) The challenge of this debate between the Progressive forces of Change and the Conservative forces of MOTS is that they see the world in fundamentally different ways. Where Progressives tend to see Opportunities, Conservatives tend to see Threats. The challenge is that they are both right, and the healthiest societies embrace both and find harmony in the middle. I'm an Episcopalian, a member of a global church that trumpets the Middle Way between Catholicism and Protestantism. Contrast if you will the balancing of Consensual Change and Consensual MOTS, a la the Episcopal Church - gradual and inclusive, with a focus on preserving the body while still moving forward - with Coercive Change a la the Bush, Cheney, and their unilateral move to a Unitary Executive and Coercive MOTS a la the actions of incumbent telecoms and cables and the FCC and their unilateral move to gain an Internet society via existing companies. Consensus values the inputs of all parties at the expense of rapid change, while Coercion values the inputs of the few who are powerful, at the expense of the many who lack power AND ironically, at the expense of optimal progress (those who coerce are fine with moderate progress, or even regression, as long as they stay in charge). Those who would coerce Change or MOTS place more value on their own Wins than they do on those of the society or body at large, so coercion by definition provides fewer benefits to society in the long run. I would argue that as we start to talk more openly and often about National Broadband Policy, we'll be forced to adopt a consensus model in order to move forward. It will take time to resolve differences and chart a path that is workable to all stakeholders - how much time will depend on the willingness of stakeholders to be open to others' viewpoints. And it must start by discrediting coercive means that exploit power positions, which are by definition inefficient, as they leave valuable contributers on the sidelines. Any student of sports knows that a winning team must play both Offense and Defense. I learned from coaching Pop Warner football that good offense is about taking advantage of your own strengths, while good Defense is about exploiting an opponent's weaknesses. But you need both to win consistently, and especially, you need a good Defense to win championships. And, you need a team attitude to harness all the resources of the team, to get them to work together. We lack a team attitude in the United States right now, as we see our opponents within, instead of focusing on other regions in the world as our true opponents. If Economic Development is a globally competitive arena (and it is), then shouldn't these sports metaphors hold true? Every region in the world competes with every other for location of jobs, industry, and talent. Some lucky regions have inherent cultural and geographic advantages, while most others don't. In this analysis, then, Broadband Infrastructure becomes an enabler for regional economic development. With the best infrastructure, a region can offer those it seeks to attract something they can't get elsewhere. Logic argues then that regions and stakeholders that fall in the Progressive camp, seeking change and new opportunity, should take a look at the potential of Broadband Infrastructure to advantage them over the competition, the sooner the better, and they should actively and loudly promote Consensus and Initiative. Conversely, regions and stakeholders that fall in the Conservative camp, wishing to preserve what they have and keep the forces of change at bay, have alternatives: 1. They can fight to maintain the status quo, preserving current value equations - which not only has short-term advantages but also long-term consequences. I would argue then that the forces of Conservatism, whether they be the US GOP, or repressive governments worldwide, or repressive religious regimes, are on the wrong side of history. They fight for short-term gain at the expense of their long-term future. Technology energizes the disenfranchised of the world and promotes change like never before. Progressivism is on the rise because there is a need to react to changes and embrace a new world view. And, the forces of Conservatism have enjoyed a long reign in the US. If you believe in cycles, it's worthwhile to note that we've been in this particular cycle since Reagan ascended in 1980, that's 27 years, or a whole generation, if anyone is counting. Sure, we had a brief hiatus under Clinton, with glimpses of progressive change, but the GOP Congress mitigated any progressive ideas they sought to launch - see the Hilary Health Care Plan, for instance, ridiculed for its faults, instead of embraced and improved as a model for change - the problems have only worsened in the ensuing years, however flawed the first model for change was. If we accept that Change is inevitable when it comes to technology in general, and broadband infrastructure in particular, then the Middle Way of Consensus between Progressives and Conservatives will lie in the former accepting slower more moderate change and the latter accepting change as a necessity, making it into a positive instead of a negative (see Option #3 above). Progress in this area will start with each side acknowledging the need to engage in dialogue in pursuit of consensus and the right of the other side to have a seat at the table. That's a first step role tailor-made for governments, by the way, a better way for them to lead than is to engage in what some may see as risky adoption of new technologies and business models. I fully support cities moving when ready to adopt new technology, and some cities are more ready than others to take this next step. But I'm promoting public sector leadership in forging consensus and collaboration, above all else, because all local, regional, state, and federal governments are ready for this role. Such working together will naturally lead to new technology adoption, in time and in ways appropriate for each region. The winds of Progressive change are blowing - how it will unfold remains to be seen, but we'll get a clearer picture with the first Primaries in 2008...When it comes to Broadband, stay tuned to this website and raise your Network IQ, because at some point, if progressive trends continue, they'll start to influence the broadband equation and we'll see more movement in these areas as well. Posted on November 15, 2007 at 11:05 AM | Comments (0) Time to Challenge Some Bad Thinking about the Role of GovernmentFirst law on holes - when you're in one, stop digging.Denis Healy Denis Healy was a smart man, we should abide by his advice. Sometimes I feel that we are a nation sleepwalking into our future. It's almost like one can predict what some politicians will say - regardless of the facts or the reality on the ground. I'm reminded of the dolls that passed for high tech in the 1960s, with a pull string that said one of three not-so-random pre-recorded phrases. Just pull the string and listen, but also understand what they are not saying, but thinking in those little cartoon bubbles above their heads. "Don't Listen to those Tax and Spend Liberals! Elect me and I'll lower your taxes!" (And then let's all sit back and watch as our federal deficit mounts, our national debt soars, and our dollar weakens so that we can't afford to travel abroad or bring in imports. Let's watch as our social services go unfunded, our roads crumble, our bridges collapse, our schools go to hell, and our dollars flow to the very petro-rich authoritarian states that we're warring against - see Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda. And please, be sure to look the other way as your hidden fees go up - license plates, phone bills, electric bills, etc. - fees aren't taxes, after all! I'll leave it to my successors to raise taxes, suckers...) "Big Government is the Problem! Elect me and I'll make government smaller" (Only, I won't. I'll cut social service spending to the bone, not fund children's health care to be sure, and I'll certainly cut budgets in regulatory agencies. But I'll also be sure to add tremendously to our military spending, while not accounting for expenses, not bidding out contracts to get the best price, and turning a blind eye to corruption. I'll also look away as natural disasters cause immense damage that we're ill-prepared for - because, well, because big government is the problem, not the solution!) "Let the Free Market Take Care of Us, Just Get Government Off Our Backs!" (I'll make sure that the free market is there to take care of its shareholders and management first. Got to take care of my friends in the free market, because I'll be heading that way when I'm done with my government "service." But I'll turn a blind eye to areas where the free market is slow to act, if it acts at all. I'm not all that concerned about addressing issues that have a tremendous impact on all of society, like Traffic Congestion, Clean Air, Clean Water, Climate Change, Endangered Species, Oil Spills and other Environmental Damage. Those issues are big headaches, to be sure, so I'll leave those for someone else to deal with - my successors - suckers.) Let me say it in bold - as a society, we should have figured out these truths by now. Deep in our hearts, we know this is true. Our society has evolved to a point where the message that we heeded long ago (cut taxes, reduce government, turn to the free market) maybe had some relevance - long ago. But what worked 20 years ago no longer seems to be working. Things have gone too far. Our cures have become our problems. Down is indeed Up, Up has become Down. It's time to stop, re-evaluate, and correct. We are not robots marching to orders on a treadmill, nor are we inert boxes moving forward on an assembly line, nor are we helpless victims waiting for the next bad thing to happen to us. We are free-will actors, with all the tools and resources we need to turn things around. What we lack is the will to act, the leadership to tell us the truth, and the courage to call a Spade a Spade, to challenge Falsehoods peddled as Truths. We lack the will to Change, but it's not too late. The road to a better tomorrow begins with reclaiming our brains and observing the realities of nature - the signs are all around us that our current solutions are old and tired, no longer effective or appropriate for the new problems that the 21st century throws our way. Let's start by letting go of our old thinking. Go ahead, grieve over the loss, but for Pete's Sake, let go of behaviors that don't work. And let's start by shedding these labels of Liberal and Conservative. I'd prefer Smart and Dumb. Let's accept solutions that make sense. Let's listen to leaders who tell the truth, whether it's hard to hear or not. Let's be as smart as we know we really are, and let's resolve to stop those behaviors that hurt us. Folks, we're in a hole, we should stop digging long enough to figure out how to get out! Posted on November 14, 2007 at 09:53 AM | Comments (0) When Big Government Thinks Big, Big Things Get BuiltInfrastructure is under the microscope, in particular, government's role in infrastructure, in an OpEd piece in today's New York Times. It's about time, is all I can say. In today's society, we so disregard infrastructure, it's as if we assume that infrastructure is like so many mushrooms after a good rain, just popping up all over from out of nowhere. Au contraire. By definition, infrastructure must be planned for, financed, built, and then maintained, if it is to be the effective foundation of an economy that it is intended to be. It's as boring as the day is long, and easily overlooked, but just go ahead and neglect it and see how it gets your attention. The story of the 1930s public works programs is timely again, because much of America is falling apart. The deadly collapse of a Minnesota highway bridge in August shined a light on the poor state of the nation's bridges, many thousands of which are "structurally deficient" by federal standards. Georgia's failure to build enough reservoirs has contributed to a water crisis that could cripple metropolitan Atlanta. We should be thinking today about replicating some of the successes of the Depression-era programs. Public Works: When 'Big Government' Plays Its Role I couldn't agree more. I've been talking about broadband as infrastructure for some time now, and I'm starting to hear some confirmation from other parts that it should be regarded as such. This article led me to reflect, a little. For a few months back in 2005, I did my own little part to promote progress, working with various interested parties (Tropos, Patton Boggs, etc.) to help stem the tide of anti-municipal wireless legislation in state legislatures across the nation. I'd stress the little part out of deference to those who carried much heavier loads, but still, I was involved and in the thick of things. In the face of recent pullbacks in this industry, it almost seems quaint then to reflect that 2.5-3 years ago, large telecom and cable companies actually acted as if they were threatened by a rising tide of municipal wireless projects and pushed for laws to ban municipal ownership of communication infrastructure. It didn't work, for the most part, but the process was revealing in oh, so many ways. The argument against government ownership rested largely in the philosophical proposition that private sector companies, even huge ones with dominate market power, should not have to compete against the same government entities that regulate them, or at least, grant them franchise rights - that would be inherently unfair and un-American. Oh, and also, government projects are by definition inefficient and its workers incompetent, and since telecom is a complex arena, getting the government involved would just muck it up. What's more, when we look at examples of municipal projects, they're messed up and there's a risk of losing big money on them. Finally, we were told that the private sector was already executing on a plan to deploy broadband, so we should all just be patient and calm down. These guys pulled out the stops, using their powerful lobby influence and astroturfing in attempts to wage a war of public opinion. I have rich memories, really, of some of the arguments they waged. Ah, those were the days... The argument in favor of government ownership of these networks decried the slow pace of private sector deployment; the lack of broadband infrastructure and our poor competitive position vis a vis other nations; and the high prices charged in a less than competitive market, with a consequence of leaving so many of our population out of the broadband equation - the fabled Digital Divide. So here we are now, two years later, as these municipal projects continue, if at a little slower pace and with less ambitious goals than before, certainly with less press coverage, less sturm und drang, as it were. Yet the impact of these municipal wireless projects, both small in scope and small in number, remains well, small. As a nation we fall ever further behind when it comes to broadband infrastructure, and the Cable Telecom Broadband Duopoly continues in place. Can't we do, well, more? Granted, there has been a modicum of progress. We have pending federal legislation that will prevent state laws that would ban municipal ownership - progress of sorts, but it's not passed yet. (See Commerce Committee Approves Bill to Make Broadband Access More Affordable - But what about the philosophical question of public sector ownership and participation? In some ways, it remains a question of political persuasion - if you lean left, towards the progressive side, you're probably fine with government getting involved, you may even prefer that approach. If you lean right, however, more in a conservative direction, you probably hate the idea of government "interference," viewing public sector activism in broadband as anathema to the way things ought to be. I hope that at some level, this issue is subject to rational debate. How about this? How about, if we continue to fall behind in broadband infrastructure? What if the Digital Divide continues to widen? What if the situation becomes even more dire? Is there ever a case for government activism when it comes to broadband? Do we adjust our paradigms to not just tolerate it, or outlaw bans against it, but actually embrace it and promote government as a solution? Dare I hope? I don't know ... Would you seek grants in a box? I would not like Big Gov in a box, I do not like government solutions when in a jam, You do not like public sector actions, Sam! Say! I do so like broadband! Apologies to Dr. Seuss and Green Eggs and Ham Whatever philosophical objections anyone may have to government involvement and leadership in broadband, there are just some things that the government does well. Building Roads is one of them. And in my mind's eye, broadband looks more and more like a road system. Why not? Let's start talking about a Big Government Program for Big Broadband...Why Not? Worked for the Interstate System 50 years ago...I guess we need a conservative Republican like Eisenhower to champion it ... any takers out there? Posted on November 13, 2007 at 09:01 PM | Comments (0) Rule of Law v. Rule of Da Man - I vote for Rule of LawI am starting to worry that nobody in charge in Washington, D.C., is looking out for our long-term interests when it comes to being protected from unknown powers using the Internet and all the information out on the Web to spy on us. Have we become the Soviet Union? Have we forgotten what a police state is? Have we become so driven by fear that we are ready to check it all in because of those punks/goons at Al Queda? Can this really be happening? I think the Internet makes this issue of illegal domestic surveillance a much more serious issue, one we will all be focusing on at some point, I hope before it's not too late. If Congress retroactively grants immunity, it will be one more blow against the respect of the rule of law. Not a fatal blow to be sure. Our Constitution and system of government have weathered such storms in the past. But a severe blow nonetheless. Congress will send a signal to the corporations that control the vital services on which we all depend, and to which we must entrust our private information, that they may safely collude with the Executive branch to break the law. Because a compliant Congress and a strong Executive will make it all right later. Yet these are the very companies into which we must most carefully inculcate the respect for the rule of law, because they have access to our most personal information and we have no way of discovering when our rights are violated. Congress will also send a message to us. We will learn that our rights must yield to the interests of the President and the Powerful when they work together in the name of national security. That we must accustom ourselves to such violations in the "post-9/11 world." And while powerful Democrats, brought within the inner circle by the crumbs of information the Administration grudgingly shares, may not go as far as Rep. Lamar Smith in saying we should thank the telephone companies for preferring the illegal demands of the President to the rule of law, we shall be taught to sympathize with them rather than hold them accountable for their choices. And we shall know that, when faced with similar choices in the future, they and every other industry will chose to honor the demands of the Executive rather than honor the demands of the rule of law. Such a message undermines our national security and our way of life far more powerfully than any Al-Qeda attack. When Chris Dodd frames this as a fight to restore the Constitution, that's not overbroad campaign rhetoric. It is the literal truth. For without respect for the rule of law, the Constitution has no meaning or purpose save as a tool for demagogues who revel in its power while ignoring its intent. And when Dodd calls on Democrats to remember that the public elected them to stop these abuses of our rights, to reign in lawbreakers rather than "thank" them, he also tells the truth. I can only hope Harry Reid and his colleagues on both sides of the aisle pay attention. Harold Feld: So Much For All That "We Are A Nation of Laws" Stuff . . . . Harold Feld, an attorney with the Media Access Project, provides the best coverage and argument yet for why we should all be very, very concerned about this telecom immunity issue. He has the background to know: Harold Feld, MAP's Senior Vice President, joined MAP in August 1999 after practicing communications, Internet, and energy law at Covington & Burling. Mr. Feld served as co-chair of the Federal Communications Bar Association's Online Committee, and has written numerous articles on Internet law and communications policy for trade publications and legal journals. Mr. Feld won the 2000 Burton Award for excellence in writing by a nonacademic. Mr. Feld graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University in 1989, and magna cum laude from Boston University Law School in 1993. Mr. Feld clerked for the Hon. John M. Ferren of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. Media Access Project In other coverage of potential Telecom Immunity this week, there was this exchange of Letters to the Editor at the New York Times, worth a look. Posted on November 12, 2007 at 08:34 PM | Comments (0) On Trust and Betrayal, Indicators of a Competitive MarketHere's a more Qualitative Assessment of a Competitive Market, one that the FCC may want to take note of and add to its repertoire of means to assess competition. Let me say before you read on that while I acknowledge upfront that this is very trivial, I'm sharing this with you my readers because it captures so well these issues of trust and betrayal in commercial relationships and how they differ based on the level of competition in the particular market. I had one of those Moments of Truth this morning that sheds light on the nature of market success and failure. It was a little thing, in the Big Picture scheme of things, but after all, it's those little things that can make or break a business in a competitive service industry. I On my many visits, I gathered stamps on a Customer Loyalty program card, you know those "Buy 10, Get the 11th coffee free" cards? I had three working with multiple stamps on each, and they always would consolidate them into a free coffee and a new partially stamped card whenever I managed to remember to bring them in to redeem them. Imagine my surprise when I made the effort to remember to bring the cards this morning, intending to sit for a couple of hours before a downtown lunch appointment, buy a pound of coffee, and enjoy "my" easy chair, when the young clerk told me "Oh, we don't take those anymore." I'd understand discontinuing the program, that's any business owner's prerogative, but I was flabbergasted when I was told that they would not offer me a coffee in exchange for the 17 stamps I had on the three cards...How much can a coffee cost? What's the value of a customer? Those 17 stamps represented between $60 and $80 I had spent on 17 trips, all to that one store. And those stamps represented an implied contract between the owner and me, the regular customer, that I would get a free coffee. It was like a slap in the face...How cavalier to treat a regular customer, to boot! Business must be very good, too good, I'm thinking, if a business manager can take such a stand. I'm so pissed off because I trusted them to honor their commitment, every time I made sure to get that stupid card checked, every time I kept track of it in some desk drawer...I made an investment, albeit a minor one, in this particular coffee shop. They repaid my investment in them as a regular customer by betraying my trust not when they discontinued the program, but when they refused to redeem my cards under the old program. Bad, bad Mojo. I wrote an extended Comment on the official comment card and now I'm repaying the favor by telling the world what a shitty deal the coffee shop gave me...oh, by the way, the cafe in question is Seattle's The money line on the comment card I filled out was that when a business reneges on an oral contract, no matter how small, they're betraying a trust and in effect telling me, "We don't value or even need your business." My only response can be that I no longer value them as a supplier and that I'll take my business elsewhere. Or else I guess I could just shrug my shoulders, pile that one more indignity along with all the others in the back seat, and soldier on. Well, I'm tired of taking it on the chin and smiling. So, I'll take this little opportunity to bitch in public, to take as much business away from them as I can along the way, just to make my point. Maybe this will have little or no effect, but I don't care, it's cathartic just to write this post. They say a positive experience generates far fewer positive referrals than a negative experience generates negative referrals. I'm living proof, I guess. It's been six hours since this negative event, and I'm still pissed. They deserve whatever bad karma can come their way after such a bone-headed customer service move. I don't do this often, by the way. I left Seattle's Best and went happily on to Austin Java, a local shop. I'll continue to explore new haunts and avoid not just that one, but all of their brethren. Seattle's Best has just been moved to the bottom of my list - indeed, this sours me on all chains, at least for the time being. I'm shopping local from now on, at least when it comes to coffee and wi fi - we have many options in this field in Austin. I believe it's a business maxim that Trust is hard to win, but easy to lose. All businesses should treat their regular customers with extra care, because they give them more revenue for less cost than any other. They're the most valuable, if they stop to think about it. Where businesses have to go out of their way and spend to market and sell to bring in new customers, the regulars come without any marketing, and bring in others with their recommendations and as company. All they have to do is respect them and treat them well and they keep on coming in. For that reason, competitive businesses should respect all their customers and treat them as if they really value their business, in hopes that they become regulars. At least, that's how I understand service businesses in particular to work. In retail business, shouldn't repeat business and referrals be a goal to strive for? So it's an indicator of a competitive market when a customer that is treated poorly as I was has an option to react the way I did. In a duopoly market, I'd have far fewer options - I'd be as likely to suck it up, take it, etc...what would I have done were I six months into a 24-month contract with this cafe owner? What would have been my options if this were one of the two franchised coffee shop chains in town? You get the picture... One risk of large chains is just this sort of impersonality. The risk is that individual links in the chain begin to act as if the corporate head were the customer, rather than the person across the counter. They act as if every penny were a line item in a business process flow chart, to be trimmed, so that the next quarter is better than the last. They act as if a market is a big homogeneous blob, instead of a series of individual win or lose business transactions - those Moments of Truth - with real-live flesh-and-blood customers and clients. In short, they forget the "service" in the words "customer service" and act as if they are not in the business of providing a service, but of cutting costs and counting their revenues. When they lose sight as these folks did today, we count on the market to provide a correction, but sometimes it takes a while for such offenders to feel the heat. The good ones react and correct, we'll see what Seattle's Best does...I'm not holding my breath, but I did give them an option to react by filling out the card. In most of the domestic broadband markets today, there's far less competition than there is in coffee shops. Consequently, there's far less potential for the market to exert a correcting force in those markets. In most cases, there's little chance for the market to work as it should, or could, so I'd wonder by what definition do they describe these markets as "competitive." Sighhh. This is disappointing. I'll miss my easy chair, Wi Fi, and coffee. But I have new horizons ahead of me... and I'll focus on that. It's sad, a little like losing a friend. This is Tough Love, I guess. Posted on November 12, 2007 at 03:41 PM | Comments (0) Playing Roulette with Your Broadband FutureMy recurring nightmare ... A busy casino. Lights flashing, slot machines chinking and whirling in the background. A roar goes up from the crowd around the craps table. I stand next to the roulette table, mesmerized by the spinning wheel. It's so pretty. I'm new to Vegas, but my "trusted adviser" knows the ropes and he turns to me. Trusted Adviser: Here, hand me all your chips. The trusted adviser, smiling, takes my stack of chips and places them all on Red. The croupier gives the wheel a good spin. Around and around it goes, where it stops .... I vaguely remember this scene from a not so distant past, but back then the pile of chips were all on Black. Otherwise, the conversation was the same. How does this scenario turn out? I don't know about you, but for all of our sakes, I sure hope the wheel stops on Red. And I hope we can trust our Trusted Adviser, because it still seems like a gamble to me. Whatever, who really knows, right? It's complicated. And besides, what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. And isn't it fun, all those blinking lights? Here, have another cocktail. Don't worry, be happy. Time to place your bets! Hurry up! When we hand over all of our decision making on broadband infrastructure to a few large companies and a federal government with a long history of cozy corporate relations, we're no better than the visitor to Vegas in my nightmare scenario above. We're For good background on these issues, check out the website Teletruth, which will give you lots more detailed information than you can swallow at one sitting. Take my advice, swallow this medicine in small doses. These guys are passionate and persistent, and understandably impatient. They've built up a body of evidence that tells a story. They thoroughly unwrap the complex wrapper that obscures the truth about the companies and government relationships that are currently driving our broadband future. While I'm not altogether convinced at how effective they will be outside the circles of power, I respect their attempt to bring facts and truth to the broadband debate. BROADBAND ROLLOUT FAILURES As we enter the 21st century, the sparkle of our new fiber-optic future suddenly fades to a dull copper tone - the color of the three-quarters of a century old phone network based on copper wiring that is still in use today. Our fiber-optic future was supposed to be here by now. Starting in the 1980s and continuing throughout the 1990s, the Bells convinced state and federal regulators that if they changed laws to give them more money, they would use these funds to replace the aging copper network - with a fabulous fiber-optic network and wondrous new applications. In fact, by the year 2000, more than half of American homes were supposed to have been upgraded to a glassy future - a future with very high-speed broadband. Instead, the Bell companies have been able to keep the money in the form of higher prices for service. We estimate that over $120 billion dollars in excess payments have been collected in the name of Broadband. We also contend that the downward turn of the Tech sector and thus the current financial recession was caused in a large part because the Bells never fulfilled their obligations, as well as the documented harm to competitors. Stunningly Bad Regulations by the FCC The FCC is also seriously to blame for the current situation with the lack of fiber-based broadband in the US. They have consistently created laws to block competition. Most recently, the FCC has created the "Triennial Review" which closes out competitors from using the customer-financed networks and gives private companies, the Bell companies, the exclusive us of fiber-based networks, as well as shutting down 'line-sharing' which allows Internet providers and competitive local phone companies to use even the older copper networks. Teletruth: Broadband and DSL Issues By all means, read this history and listen to these and other arguments with a healthy dose of skepticism. They may appear to be kooks, or they may even be kooks. But the value of listening to an unconventional viewpoint is that it puts one's assumed reality in perspective. Indeed, WE ALL may be even bigger kooks for taking at face value the information offered us by multi-billion dollar corporations and government regulators: corporate individuals with competing priorities, with strong incentives to shade the truth and government regulators who have consistently given those they regulate everything they wanted, despite a history of broken promises. Trusting the untrustworthy, now how much sense does that make? Just who is getting played here? Indeed, who is more kooky, after all? The bottom line for me is as follows. In the Networked Information Age, our broadband information infrastructure has become too vital to be left in the hands of a select few, operating behind closed doors. Broadband has become too vital to place all of our chances for success on a narrow strategy defined and executed by insiders. This sentiment is especially poignant when one considers that there now exists an alternative when it comes to broadband. We need to challenge our old way of thinking about this subject and factor in some of these new perspectives. I argue that we should be giving strong consideration to implementing a Plan B that doesn't involve trusting either the government or big business. We need a contingency plan that will shield us from the consequences of making the wrong bet because we followed conventional wisdom. The challenge we face is that the telecom and broadband story is so complex that most people lack the patience to wade through it. The facts are so mind-numbing as to stagger the imagination. It's hard to believe that this situation continues year on year, yet it does. But the good news is that we have an alternative to the Trusted Adviser scenario above. Cities and neighborhoods, investors, property developers, business leaders - each can now take matters into their our own hands and craft their own broadband future. The concept of the Wisdom of the Crowds poses the curious finding that many well-informed individuals are consistently better at making decisions than are a small group of really smart people. That concept holds when it comes to building a better broadband tomorrow - why don't we look to more local solutions for more creativity and less risk? We know that's true when it comes to investing. Experience has taught us that a well-balanced portfolio of smaller investments produces better results at lower risk than does one big investment. We look for a balance of expected return and acceptable risk. We take control and tailor our risk to meet our needs. As much as we would like to be totally safe regarding the future, nobody has a crystal ball. When it comes to investing, there is no such thing as a Trusted Adviser, although many will claim that title. Look closely at the fine print and you'll see that advice comes at a high price, and even after all those high fees, it's not your adviser that takes the risk, you do. You own it, no matter what. Don't like the idea of putting all your chips on Red and then watching the wheel spin? Want a second opinion? Don't fret, the good news is that now, we can each choose to manage our own chips for ourselves. The beauty of technology is that we've been liberated from a decision-making paradigm that controlled our future. We don't need any large global telecommunications company to build our broadband future for us. That's what the metropolitan broadband movement is all about. But for non-telecom people to take the steps needed to gain control of their broadband destiny, they will need to get educated. They will need to raise their Network IQs. And they need to build up their self confidence, to show themselves that they can do at least as well or even better than the phone company has done when it comes to broadband. We still need time to let this movement grow and show us their results. So keep reading this and other resources. And Happy Risk Taking! The good news about learning about risk is that you tend to make smarter bets the more you lose. You make smarter bets, that is, IF you learn from every loss. So start making some small bets in broadband, just to learn. Track how you do, and compare notes with others. Gain some experience, and as you do, you'll also gain confidence. In the end, becoming aware and taking control of your own destiny is the only way to really live. Playing it "safe" is for wussies, and increasingly, playing it safe has its own risks. Please, avoid being a wussie - take some chances, live life! Remember - Nothing ventured, nothing gained. And when "safety" turns out to be a chimera, when the opportunity cost of the safe route turns out to bear little to no reward, and when your "Trusted Adviser" is deemed not worthy of your trust, then the "safe route" is even worse, it's for saps. So please, don't be a sap either. Get smart, get experienced, get real, get busy on alternatives to Status Quo Broadband. Posted on November 11, 2007 at 06:43 AM | Comments (0) SCAG Wireless: Business Models, Tips and ToolsNetLogix VP Eric DaVersa provided a good review of processes and ideas to go through (this piece was too fast and too much to capture, and I was out of the room so I'll come back and beef this up after I see his PP slide - I'll be posting those when I get them). Next up was Jill Dominguez of the WRJ Group, which is a consultancy that provides research into economic development and wireless / wire line broadband. They did a study entitled WhyFi? - she asked some compelling questions, which should give us all pause... Who Decides Policy? Info is king. Who has most info decides. That means the Telecom giant. They make policy "de facto." With wireless the opportunity is to take that decision in-house. What is the Infrastructure, really? Traditional definition - housing, transportation, water, education Why create an Information and Communication Technology Community Economic Development Study (ICT CEDS) ? Short answer: It creates a high Return on Investment (ROI) potential for communities. Informational - identify all elements of information age infrastructure and create standard/comparative measure for city's technical awareness and needs There's a good chart next, but I'll have to wait for the PP slides. It describes the payback/ROI for a city that invests in wireless. It's an attractive proposition for small businesses deciding where to locate. They look hard at broadband options when deciding where to locate. What is an integrated solution? * Blends wireless and fiber to serve public and private information communication, and entertainment needs Note to self for follow-up - Get and post the Policy Recommendations from the Orange County Report, which fostered the wireless study that MetroNetIQ is now participating in. What is an affordable first step? * Decide to pay now, not later Posted on November 08, 2007 at 04:43 PM | Comments (0) SCAG Wireless: Southern California Edison (SCE) Shares a Love of Wi Fi - Not ReallyWhen you talk Wi Fi Mesh, one of the first questions the pros ask concerns the status of streetlights in the area, because that makes a big difference on the potential of any given project. You have to hand it to SCE - there are 780,000 streetlights in their territory, 615,000 of which they own. Imagine you're SCE, getting phone calls from a variety of parties asking about your street lights - nearly every electric utility in the country is going through this drill, or will be soon, but few with the intensity felt by SCE. This process is instructive. Facing this issue, SCE did a Technical Feasibility Study to gather and analyze the facts. From their standpoint, this is a big issue because they have to make sure that they are able to continue to serve electricity, and that they are fair and equitable to all parties. The result of the study was to confirm that power quality among the Loop-Fed system (don't ask - it has to do with how they draw their power) is substantial and sufficient for Wi Fi devices. They determined that 900 MHz conflicts with their own system, and that all WiFi related radios would have to be tested and approved by SCE before being deployed. In May 2007, SCE took the results of their study and made a Wi Fi Tariff Filing at the California PUC, where they made two key points: 1) Streetlight service takes priority and 2) electric customers must be cost-indifferent. Some cities challenged service-initiation processes and costs, and there was a request for Right of First Refusal. The CPUC approved the tariff on August 23, with some instructions. A subsequent required SCE compliance filing in September was approved in October. The tariff is known as "Wi-Fi-1," and can be found here. This is all pretty arcane, but very important, even vital, if you are in a city inside SCE's service territory. Hire a consultant, do some planning, but figure this one out before you go too far. SCE's point person on Wi Fi, Elsa Ayala, can be reached at 909-307-6773. Step One would be to call her, I'm thinking. Posted on November 08, 2007 at 04:02 PM | Comments (0) SCAG Wireless: California Broadband InitiativeNext up after lunch, Anne Neville, Manager of the California Broadband Initiative at the California Business, Transportation, and Housing Agency, described this statewide initiative to promote broadband. The California Broadband Task Force is comprised of six working groups. I'd go ahead and bookmark this site, these folks are busy! Details on Anne's talk after the jump. First, Anne spoke about coordination in trenching. Seems like an arcane issue, but believe it or not, trenching is very expensive and there's not nearly enough coordination for different parties to USE THE SAME HOLE!! See the Broadband Collaboration Pilot Project for more information on the California approach to this issue. Here's a quote from that section of the website. Modification of Rights-of-Way (ROW) Policies and Practices: * Caltrans has developed a pilot database that enables two-way communication about upcoming infrastructure construction activities in California and encourages collaborative broadband projects among stakeholders. Service providers are able to share construction costs when they wish to build in the same area. See http://www.dot.ca.gov/broadband/. Also, the California Broadband Task Force Preliminary Report is available here. Look for the completed report at the end of November - it will include an accounting of the mapping study, as well as a methodology of mapping (see below). Acc. to Anne, the mapping study results will be a dynamic, iterative data gathering process, where results will be cross-checked with the public, and feedback is expected to make the database ever more accurate. (I'm excited, because this data gathering will be based on street addresses, rolled up, which should paint a compelling picture). Like Connect Kentucky, the state is currently mapping broadband availability, from a WIRELINE standpoint. They will show in tiers broadband availability, in the hope to provide a baseline on both availability (CA is already quite far ahead among big states, but is not doing so well compared to other nation/states), but also with regard to gaps. They assume that both wireline and wireless solutions will address these gaps. With regard to pricing, the Task Force is working on a pricing matrix as well, which will compare prices in CA against the OECD average (about $47/mo for about 13 Mbs). In a parallel effort, the California PUC is mapping by census group or track both the percent availability as well as adoption rates, which should be available by mid-2008. The state is estimated to be at about 55% of households, as far as broadband adoption goes. What's next, after all this data is gathered? We'll see, there appears to be no money for the state government to spend to ameliorate the issues that are identified. So, I guess we'll wait and see. This will be an interesting dance between state efforts, regional initiatives like Orange County's, and local municipal issues like Anaheim's effort with EarthLink and Google's Mountain View project, Google Wi Fi. I this all seems pretty organic, but also innovative and cutting edge, remember.... this is California, after all. I think it's exciting! Posted on November 08, 2007 at 03:17 PM | Comments (0) SCAG Wireless: First Session Packs Application PunchThe next few posts will concern the one-day Municipal Wireless Initiatives Conference, presented by the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG), the Municipal Information Systems Association of California (MISAC), and NetLogix that I'm attending here in Los Angeles today. The first session featured three companies discussing wireless applications - one on Water SCADA - one on Smart Parking Meters - and one on Gunshot Location Sensors - I thought it was a great start! Details after the jump. Maris Janson from Boyle Engineering described a case study of wireless SCADA that supports water utility infrastructure. The value of a wireless network is to enable a SCADA system to deploy sensors where it makes the most sense, to gather data most efficiently and cost-effectively. Jerry Scalpone of Integrated Parking Solutions walked through the revenue potential of putting a parking meter infrastructure on a wireless network. Surprising statistic: parking meters currently only capture a small portion of potential revenue. Of course, the potential to raise more money is balanced by the political risks of getting carried away in this area! Suffice to say that we have a long way to go with using SMART parking meter technology to shape such things as downtown traffic circulation, parking meter revenue potential, and consumer satisfaction. It's not all about writing more parking tickets, it seems. Finally, Ron Stein, of ShotSpotter, gave my favorite presentation. This Silicon Valley startup provides public safety agencies the ability to triangulate on a gunshot and within 10-15 seconds, provide law enforcement officers in squad cars with an accurate location for the shot, leading to dramatic increases in crime prosecution and in providing immediate help for gun shot victims. When combined with wireless video surveillance, this technology provides law enforcement with a very powerful crime fighting tool. My favorite because the gap between the current method (Radio crackles...Dispatcher broadcasts the verbal message. "One Adam 12, One Adam 12, we have a 911 report of a resident calling in describing gun shots heard in the vicinity of 12th and Brazos Blvd..." often 5-10 minutes after the fact) V. Automated data alert to all squad cars to their in-care laptop within 10 seconds of the event, with a point on a map, a description of the number of shots, and a description of what type of gunfire it was...Loads more information with which to make critical management decisions, where life and death may be on the line. Whoaa! That's cool! Posted on November 08, 2007 at 01:30 PM | Comments (0) SCAG Wireless: Wireless Broadband Reigns in Southern CaliforniaI'm posting today from the one-day Municipal Wireless Initiatives Conference, presented by the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG), the Municipal Information Systems Association of California (MISAC), and NetLogix. Eric DaVersa, VP Business Development at NetLogix, encouraged me to come out from Austin and I'm glad he did. The timing is great, so I decided to head out to LA for a short trip. The timing is great first of all because the wildfires have subsided - it's safe in Southern California again... But also, MetroNetIQ was just part of a team win in Southern California! (Under the In This Issue title, click on OCBC Selected to Conduct Regional Analysis on Wireless Technology). On Tuesday, November 7, the Orange County Board of Supervisors made a unanimous award to the Orange County Business Council (OCBC) to conduct a wireless analysis of the county's current and potential use of wireless broadband. OCBC is relying on Viejo Technology Group and MetroNetIQ to execute the contract. Here are some highlights of the project, after the jump - this is a great opportunity for municipalities in the region to take a more strategic approach to metropolitan broadband, starting with this county study. * A full technical assessment of the readiness of each city and special district in Orange County Is it time for your region to take this kind of strategic step? Posted on November 08, 2007 at 11:34 AM | Comments (0) The Three Rs: Risk, Reward, ResourcesI received an email from a friend two days ago, urging me to check out a video via the attached link. The video is a reasoned and compelling argument for paying serious attention to global warming. The structure of the argument made me think about how much I learned about risk and reward in graduate business school, as well as what I learned about the political allocation of resources while studying political science and working in state government. Without a thorough understanding of these three Rs, Risk, Reward, and Resources, I think it must be hard to fully understand the significance of Climate Change. Without that understanding, I think the issue is subject not only to demagoguery, but also to obfuscation, to use not one but two $5 words in one sentence. First, it's helpful for us to remark for a moment on the use of emails like this to stimulate political dialogue. Without the email from my friend, I'd have been unaware of this compelling argument. (I'd draw a distinction between this email and what one might otherwise call spam, perhaps distinctive because the content is compelling?) I found this not only an effective use of technology, but also one more example of the coming ExaFlood. When we use the Internet to get people to watch 10 minute videos, we're consuming more and more bandwidth. Apparently the ExaFlood is coming, right along with the flooding of coastal areas... Please do watch this video, available after the jump, and then reflect on my commentary that follows in a subsequent post.   Posted on November 06, 2007 at 07:46 PM | Comments (0) I Know You Are, But What Am I?[Alvy and Annie are seeing their therapists at the same time on a split screen] "We all look at the world differently." Was there ever a more significant statement? Don't believe me? You must be very, very young, never married, never had children, etc... Although this is such a foundational Truth about the human experience, we still often slide right by it and expect others to see the world as we do. We're surprised when they don't. We're all somewhat egocentric, I think. It's natural. Convinced of our own perspective, we have a tendency to dismiss those with different views ... they're wrong, they're idiots, they're evil. It takes an effort to put oneself in another's shoes. This phenomenon is so universal. We even see it played out in recent events regarding broadband policy. The US Appeals Court recently affirmed an FCC decision from two years ago that placed internet access as an information service, outside traditional telecom regulation. (Dip into the MetroNetIQ archives here). Check out the reporting on this legal decision. MuniWireless - U.S. Appeals Court affirms the broadband duopoly says it all in the title, where their viewpoint is that "It's Nearly All Over But the Crying - the stinking incumbents win .... again." The writer expresses frustration that is based in the lack of political power. These two articles are a little less editorial, but draw similar conclusions. The Register: Appeals court rubber stamps FCC's DSL (de)regulation and Multichannel News: Telcos Don't Have to Share. The latter is a Cable Industry publication, so it carries a certain slant. We have a tremendous problem here in the United States, because such highly entrenched positions on these telecom and internet issues lead many to feel that we lack fair government oversight of a critical industry. The opposing stakeholder groups have dramatically different world views, which leads them to see the same event through a very different set of lenses. Why do they think this? Because there's a consistency in government action that confirms a decided preference for evolving from the status quo. Sure the formal regulatory, legislative, and legal processes provide for input, but the decisions and actions of government describe a pattern, so as to make predicting the next decisions fairly reliable - they rarely diverge from a script that has the incumbent telecom and cable broadband providers enjoying ever more lax oversight and regulation, in the hopes that they will build a 21st century broadband infrastructure. Things are likely to keep going down this path, nothing is imminent to make anyone doubt that. But for those of us on the short end of the stick, it's difficult to look at the results of this policy and see this method producing the desired results. It seems we all have two paths to pursue in the face of such differences - either one or more parties seek to beat out those whose opinions and perspective differ from their own, to prove their point to a government regulator or lawmaker, and so gain a WIN. Or, the parties can choose to find a way to accommodate differences and find a middle path that will work for both sides. But without government leadership, the second path is not chosen. Guess which path we're currently on... Stephen Covey in his Seven Habits of Highly Effective People describes this common scenario, showing how "Seeking a Win/Win Solution," Habit No. 5, is consistently more effective at fostering interdependence than is the much more common Win/Lose approach. In fact, he argues that the unanticipated, but far more common outcome of parties seeking a Win in a Win/Lose scenario is in fact, Lose/Lose. And that's where we find ourselves today when it comes to broadband policy - the whole nation loses because of the acceptance of a Win/Lose paradigm as our foundational condition for the discussion at present. Being stuck in the Win/Lose paradigm fosters conflict and leads us to expend a tremendous amount of resources in supporting hard positions against an opposition. Cooperation matters when it comes to broadband policy because as long as we're all looking at the same situation and drawing dramatically different conclusions, we speak different languages, we don't understand one another, and in the end, we'll have an incredibly hard time finding ways to work together. And as long as we are unable to work together, there will be Winners and Losers chosen by government regulators and lawmakers, often based on criteria other than merit. As long as stakeholders are left out, we'll have slower adoption of new technologies, less experimentation with new business models, slower penetration of broadband infrastructure, less economic development, lower revenues and a lower standard of living. In short, by narrowing our options to fit this evolutionary status quo model, we short-change the nation - in other words, by pursuing Win/Lose, we get Lose/Lose. Keeping a closed mind, my attitude influences my reaction to this US Court of Appeals ruling. It's easy to imagine me asking "How/Why should I work with someone who is either a) completely wrong on nearly every issue; b) an obvious idiot; c) an evil person with suspect motivations?" Better to label those who have a different view as the enemy and attempt to defeat them. There's one small problem: this particular enemy is not easily defeated and they don't go away. That's the challenge we have today - we have to work within the system to get what we need, but those of us who challenge the status quo and seek reform are not currently working from a position of strength sufficient to bring those with power to a different way of looking at things. If you're starting from a position of strength and have a Win/Lose attitude, you craft a strategy to leverage your strengths. You see a battlefield, you anticipate your opposition and you kill it off or buy it up. You insinuate yourself with the rule makers, you control the industry the best you can, and you design it so that it favors your approach. If this is a battle and you are fighting to win, that makes sense. However, by excluding others from the game, these giants are left with an insular point of view, they have less access to the creativity and innovation that these upstarts bring to the table, and they ultimately end up creating a slower economy where there are fewer revenue generating opportunities. On the other hand, if you're starting from a weaker position, you avoid face-to-face battles, you argue for equity and hope for Fair Play to win out. You promote rationality and make reasonable arguments to the "Decider" (dare I use that word?). When this doesn't work, you pull back and focus on niches where you can keep hope alive, waiting for that better day when conditions may change. It's disheartening and many are sorely tempted to give up. "Why bother, what's the use ... it's a rigged game." But since we're in a global market, those countries and societies that are This is the true tragedy in the current situation - not that the incumbents win, or that we are stuck with slow (or no) broadband - the true tragedy is that our future is being kept from us. Without a ubiquitous 21st century broadband infrastructure, our society will not experience the full potential of the Internet and its accompanying technologies, until much later. We may get there, some day, but in the meantime we'll have lost tremendous ground to other countries and societies that are more progressive than we are. Who can begin to calculate the lost opportunity in such a delay? Imagine a middle path, where we enjoy enlightened leadership that steps out and guides us down a policy-making path that fosters inclusion, that harnesses innovation regardless of its source, that seeks a common definition of the problem, that requires an open approach to solutions and provides for a feedback loop so that all learn from experience. When it comes to broadband, as long as we continue with the current paradigm, we're doomed to go slow and be limited by the creativity and efforts of the incumbents. Until we change the way we look at the nature of the broadband problem, we'll not be able to get everyone on the same page, nor will we be able to reach any synergy (Covey's Habit 6, by the way). Again, who knows what we're missing out on by not working together? Understanding these Truths About Interdependence is one of the key issues in finding a way to be effective as a society, as an economy, as a body politic. I'm afraid that for at least right now, we're stuck in an ineffective mode and the results we can expect are fairly predictable. MOTS .. More of the Same. Posted on November 06, 2007 at 01:14 PM | Comments (0) A new way of looking at an old subject - "telephony"What if you were new to the planet and were presented with this problem (in other words, think "NO PRECONCEPTIONS"): "Welcome to Earth, more specifically, the the United States. We'd like your help in finding a way for us to talk to each other and exchange data remotely, regardless of where we or those we communicate with are located. All we have is this Internet network to work with. Can you help us?" I think that after taking a look at the Internet, you would first take measures so that everyone is on broadband, and then you would come up with a software application that runs over the Internet. In other words, something that looks either like this service, FWD or this one, Skype and has a variety of handset options, including something like this Google Phone or this iPhone. The point is, if you're starting fresh, there is little indication that you would recreate the current copper-based network PSTN (aka traditional telecom network) with captive customer service features and handsets limited to voice and tied down to physical locations. We use what we have today because it's already in place and because everyone is used to using it, not because its superior in any way. In this fresh hypothetical, we would instead use a VOIP application running over the Internet, because that's the most efficient way to communicate, and it offers more features and benefits, in short, more value. We would likely have a large variety of application service providers lining up to compete for our VOIP business - it would be a very competitive market. And we would pick which device best suited our needs and it would just work, with little user orientation needed. OK, so back to the alien consultant scenario with which I introduced this post. So, you're the consultant drafted to solve this problem...To frame the issue, wouldn't you ask questions like these? 1) Whom do you need to talk with? Where are they? And then, in answer to your questions, you were told ... Among the many challenges that any new voice telecom company faces, just as with all the companies that have taken on the large telecom companies in the past and mostly, failed, is that people change their habits a lot slower than technology changes. So new competitors trying to take advantage of what technology can provide today have to wait for the market to develop around them, even as they must compete with these 800-lb gorillas with tremendous market advantages. It's a challenge, but I encourage you to get in the habit of looking at old industries with a new eye, because the times they are a changin'...Try to look at telecom services differently. We don't realize how many assumptions we carry inside our heads on a service that has been around with very little changes for as long as we have lived. Think about things like what is the basic service needed? what could be added to make it better? what works in other industries that we could borrow? I think that looking at old things in new ways is a skill we are all going to have to develop, whether we like it or not. Posted on November 05, 2007 at 03:04 PM | Comments (0) Speed Matters (So Does Price)
"Here he comes, driving Small Hopes and Lady Mac." The cry went up from a number of gentlemen .... had been waiting for some time, watching the road cityward, for the appearance of Mr. William H. Vanderbilt, who was momentarily expected....While they were waiting, something was said about the celebrated bay horse, Edwin Forrest, now in Mr. Robert Bonner's barn, and who a little over a year ago was an unknown factor on the trotting turf. This past summer, he got a record of better than 2:16, and it is believed by many that he is the fastest trotter in the country. This is saying a good deal, and may reasonably be doubted, when one comes to remember the fast-going Hopeful, and the equally fast, if not faster, Rarus. In any event, however, either one of the three can trot a mile at a speed equal to over 26 miles an hour, or faster than most railroad trains travel. Speeding the Roadsters, Fast Trotting Above Central Bridge, NY Times, November 17, 1878 One challenge I have with any discussion about broadband is that this technology is all still so relative. Any discussion of speed is certainly dependent on individual experience and what is within the realm of the imagination. Speed has always mattered to man, and those with money have always gone faster than those without. While we're talking today about data network speeds, it wasn't so long ago that the discussion was about how fast a human could go. While visiting Colonial Williamsburg this summer, I had the pleasure of hearing an actor playing the role of Thomas Jefferson to perfection. The scenario, in the garden behind the governor's mansion one sunny afternoon, was that it was 1807 and Pres. TJ had just ridden his horse down from Raleigh, to be with us in the waning days of his presidential administration, to reflect on changes in the 31 years since he had written the Declaration of Independence. He started his talk by observing that democracy had not changed that much, especially when you considered that the privileged few still rode on horseback while others had to walk. He had, he told us, ridden his horse at an average speed of four miles per hour, while people walking could expect to cover on average about two miles per hour. So, he observed, "Here we are 30 years later, and we still live in a three-mile-per-hour world. Perhaps from the view of the man on foot, we haven't come so far after all." That was striking! Two days later, I was at the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC, built at the end of the nineteenth century by George Vanderbilt, grandson of Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, and son of William H. Vanderbilt, the horse-driving speedster in the image above. (Biltmore is an incredible place to visit, by the way). On one of the bedroom walls was the Currier & Ives Print above, with a caption that detailed the 1/4 mile, 1/2 mile, 3/4 mile, and 1 mile split times of the trotters. Again, isn't it fascinating that achieving such speeds was such a big event to be so remarked upon, only 130 years ago? I guess when people of that day compared the speeds they were able to get to what Thomas Jefferson had described, 70 years earlier, then that was some progress. But really, times hadn't even changed that much, from 1807 to 1878... But boy have times changed since then. When I ask someone today "Do you have High-Speed Internet Access?", I'm likely to get a highly variable response, because any two people are likely to hold two different definitions on what "high-speed internet" really means. Just ask someone on dial-up in rural America and someone with access to a fiber network and compare notes. Then ask any American - rural or urban - and any Japanese user, and prepare to be amazed, because the average speed in Japan is dramatically higher (and the price, cheaper). That's just what this website does - The Importance of Universal Internet Access - Speed Matters - compare internet access speeds. It offers an intriguing tool to measure your access speed, both download and upload, then compares it to speeds found elsewhere. It's an eye-opener, check it out. I ran the test on my home network (2638 down, 433 up - aDSL), then ran it again at a client site, where I have access to a faster network (3660 down, 3590 up). See the results below, and compare them with what you get, and get your friends to do the same. How else can we stimulate a dialogue on broadband in this country if we don't base it on some realistic data, like what we are able to achieve in speed? And then, how that compares on a global basis? That is the real test, after all, down to the personal level, what network performance it is that you experience. We should not be assessing how much things have improved, and feeling good about things, if we don't know what people experience, and indeed, how much things could have improved beyond our expectations. When we benchmark, we should set our sights on the best speeds and the best prices possible, then challenge ourselves to do better. When it comes to broadband, I believe we are at once too ignorant and too complacent here in the United States.
Posted on November 05, 2007 at 12:49 PM | Comments (0) King Kong v. Godzilla
or...IT v.Telecom It will be a killer, and a chiller and a thrilla when I get the gorilla In Manila - Muhammad Ali From the Thriller in Manila to the Super Bowl, pitting the champions of the AFC v. the NFC, to the World Series (AL v. NL), from Freddy v. Jason to Alien v. Predator, we all love a Clash of the Titans, especially one that goes outside the boundaries of one category to pit the leaders in two categories against each other. There's something unique and compelling about a one-on-one pitched battle at the top of the mountain, to see who gets to be King of the Hill. When one loses and one wins, there is no doubt as to who is the champion, who is number one (at least for that one moment in time, until the next day when a rematch is demanded!). It settles the score, determines the winner, and along the way, the combatants pit different skills in their battle against each other - will speed and cunning defeat brute strength and experience? So, what about a grudge match between Google and AT&T? New IT monster v. old telecom giant? IT v. Telecom ...?? It's intriguing on several scores, and many think the upcoming FCC 700 MHz spectrum auction in early Feb 2008 may be the kick-off for the IT/Telecom Super Bowl. It's been brewing for a while, as speculation has grown (see this article from early 2006 about Google seeking to patent free Wi Fi, which now seems a little dated - but may yet come to pass.) I do admire the analysis that Martin Geddes of Telco 2.0 brings to these topics, not least because he sits over in the UK, so he looks at things from a different perspective. Also, he comes from inside the telecom industry, and still works to reform it, so that is different as well. In a post from one month ago, Geddes poses an interesting question to telecoms - How's your Google Strategy?. He At the 21C Global Summit a few week's ago former BT Chief Scientist Peter Cochrane - an industry 'guru' who likes to shake things up - presented a number of thought-provoking ideas about telcos competing with Google, including this rather cryptic slide:
This post highlights several trends that spell trouble for telecoms who have grown accustomed to being BMOC (from Wikipedia: "Big Man on Campus", an American colloquialism for a popular high school or college boy involved in some high-profile activity, such as varsity sports or school government.) First, telecoms sell services in a constrained, low-competition market, and they derive high margins from the voice product, and they have had success in doing the same with Internet access... in Geddes words "by selling it by the sachet (via telephony) rather than the bucket, profitability has been maximised through fine-grained price discrimination." In some instances, they may even give away voice services in order to support the continued sales of their high margin access product. But what happens when a Goliath from a neighboring industry sees an opportunity to come in and do the same in order to support their core business? Goliath doesn't much care that King Kong is ruler of the jungle, after all. The way this scenario unfolds, according to the graphic above: Big Telecom is moving to be more like Big IT, because of the Internet. But Google, which makes tremendous margins on its advertising, sees access and telecom services as a complement to its core business. By getting into data access (and voice, ultimately), Google can gain a much larger audience that will then contribute more revenue to its high margin advertising core business. Makes sense, and we see this all over the place - not hard to imagine. - WalMart adds pharmacies and McDonalds to its stores to increase foot traffic and promote more retail sales. The bottom line is that as the Internet continues to mature and extend its reach into every corner of our society, it makes commodities out of more and more digital products. To continue to try to sell a digital commodity at a premium price is a great trick - if you can get away with it, that is. I believe what Geddes is getting at is that the handwriting is on the wall, so to speak, on what is likely to come in the next few years. We're not sure how it will happen, but both voice and access will become commodities, and with a low enough cost and price, some will try to give them away to support other business models. That will be great for consumers, not so great for incumbent providers. Posted on November 04, 2007 at 06:55 AM | Comments (0) Poker with Dick CheneyAmazing what you find reading blogs. I came across this one this morning Five Nominations for the Best Weblog Post Ever!, recommended for sure, but not the main theme of this post...in the Comments section readers added their personal Favorite blog posts, many of them quite hilarious. One of them looked particularly good, but the link would not take me there, nor could I find it through various Google searches. Many of you may already be aware of this website, and I had heard about it, but there is an Internet archive for dead posts - bookmark this one - I found the post I was looking for - amazes me when technology actually works! See the Internet Archive: Way Back Machine. It works! So as a public service, I've resurrected this little gem titled The Poor Man: Poker With Dick Cheney, from way back in June 2004. Enjoy (also copied after the jump). Poker With Dick Cheney Transcript of The Editors' regular Saturday-night poker game with Dick Cheney, 6/19/04. Start tape at 12:32 AM. The Editors: We'll take three cards. Dick Cheney: Give me one. Sounds of cards being placed down, dealt, retrieved, and rearranged in hand. Non-committal noises, puffing of cigars. TE: Fifty bucks. DC: I'm in. Show 'em. TE: Two pair, sevens and fives. DC: Not good enough. TE: What do you have? DC: Better than that, that's for sure. Pay up. TE: Can you show us your cards? DC: Sure. One of them's a six. TE: You need to show all your cards. That's the way the game is played. Colin Powell: Ladies and gentlemen. We have accumulated overwhelming evidence that Mr. Cheney's poker hand is far, far better than two pair. Note this satellite photo, taken three minutes ago when The Editors went to get more chips. In it we clearly see the back sides of five playing cards, arranged in a poker hand. Defector reports have assured us that Mr. Cheney's hand was already well advanced at this stage. Later, Mr. Cheney drew only one card. Why only one card? Would a man without a strong hand choose only one card? We are absolutely convinced that Mr. Cheney has at least a full house. Tim Russert: Wow. Colin Powell really hit a homerun for the Administration right there. A very powerful performance. My dad played a lot of poker in World War 2, and he taught me many things about life. Read my book. TE: He's extremely good at Power Point. But we would like to see the cards, or else we can't really be sure he has anything to beat two pair. We don't think he would lie to us, but ... well, it is a very rich pot. Jonah Goldberg: Liberal critics of Mr. Cheney's poker hand contend that "he doesn't have anything". Oh, really, liberal critics? Cheney has already showed them the six of clubs, and yet these liberals persist in saying he has "nothing". Why do liberals consider the six of clubs to be "nothing"? Is it because the six of clubs is black? Matt Drudge: ****DRUDGE REPORT EXCLUSIVE**** TE: Perhaps if you could just show us a subset of your cards which beat 2 pair? Or tell us exactly what your hand is? DC: We will show you our cards after we have collected the pot. It is important that things be done in this order, otherwise the foundation of our entire poker game will be destroyed. TE: We aren't sure ... DC: Very good. And here are my cards. A straight flush. Judith Miller: Dick Cheney has revealed a straight flush, confirming his pre-collection claims about beating two pair. TE: Those cards are of different suits. It's not a flush. Mark Steyn: When will it end? Now liberal critics complain that Dick Cheney's cards are not all the same suit. Naturally, these are the same liberals who are always whining about a lack of diversity in higher education. It seems like segregation is OK with these liberals, as long as it damages Republicans. MD: ****DRUDGE REPORT EXCLUSIVE**** TE: Wait! It's not even a straight! You've got a eight and ten of hearts, a six of clubs, and the seven and five of diamonds. You have a ten high. That's nothing. Sean Hannity: Well, well, well. In another sign of liberal desperation, liberals now complain that a ten high is "nothing". Does ten equal zero in liberal mathematics? That would explain a lot. Robert Novak: It's a perfectly valid poker hand. Apparently, liberals have never heard of a "skip straight". It's a kind of straight, just with one card missing. But if you skip around the missing nine, it's a straight. Alan Colmes: Mother says I mustn't play poker. TE: There is no such thing as a "skip straight". Brit Hume: It seems like some people are still playing poker like it's September 10th. Back then, you needed to have all your cards in order to claim a straight. But, as we learned on that day, sometimes you won't have perfect knowledge. Sometimes you have to learn to connect the dots, and see the patterns which are not visible to superficial analysis of the type favored by the CIA and the State Department. Dick Cheney's skip straight is a winning poker hand for the post-9/11 world. Rush Limbaugh: Do The Editors have two pairs, or a pair of twos? First they say one thing, then another. What are they hiding? Andrew Sullivan: Dick Cheney never said he had a straight. He was very careful about this. His cards can form many different hands. None of these hands alone can beat a pair of twos; but, taken together, the combination of all possible hands presents a more compelling case for taking the pot than simply screaming "Pair of twos! Pair of twos!" as unprincipled liberal critics of the Vice President so often do. MD: ****DRUDGE REPORT EXCLUSIVE**** Zell Miller: As a lifelong liberal Democrat, I believe Dick Cheney, and I hate liberals and Democrats. William Safire: Why are liberals so obsessed by Dick Cheney's poker hand? The pot has been taken, the deal is done. If liberals are upset that we are no longer playing by the Marquis of Queensbury patty-cake poker rules, they clearly lack the stomach to play poker in the post-September 11th environment. And why do they never complain about Saddam Hussein's poker playing, which was a thousand times worse? Christopher Hitchens: The Left won't be happy until the pot is divided up equally between Yassar Arafat, Osama bin Laden, and Hitler. Orwell would have seen this. Ann Coulter: Why do liberals object so strenuously to the idea of conservatives having a "straight"? Perhaps because it doesn't fit in with the radical homosexual/Islamist agenda they hold so dear? Report of the Bipartisan Commission on Poker Hands: There is no such thing as a "skip straight". DC: I have access to poker rules that the Commission doesn't, and so I know for a fact that the cards in my hand are all intimately connected. George W. Bush: Dick Cheney is telling the truth. I'm a nice man who would drink a beer with you. Vladimir Putin: I dealt Dick Cheney three aces and two kings. DC: My deal. Posted on November 02, 2007 at 08:06 AM | Comments (0) |
METRONET VENDOR DIRECTORYMY OTHER BLOGSMetroNetIQ E-Store - Be sure to visit the MetroNetIQ E-Store and pick up a copy of The ABCs of Community Broadband: How Digital Transitions Will Transform America's Communities, One at a Time. The E-Store will offer special discounts on this valuable guide for community leaders, discounts that won't be available to the general public on Amazon! |
|||
| Powered by Movable Type | ©2006 MetroNetIQ.com | Website Design by zilkoweb | |||
