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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 |
« April 2008 | Weblog | June 2008 » May 2008 ArchiveCable Wireless - No Oxymoron
Wi Fi's new role = "Technology of Last Resort"? Q. When does a company whose ethos and identity are wrapped around a WIRE LINE (CABLE) INFRASTRUCTURE become a company that provides BROADBAND SERVICES? Back in my days at the UT Graduate School of Business, we were taught the maxim, "Don't ever become a Buggy Whip manufacturer!" That is, of course, because those companies no longer exist, because they went away with the horse-drawn buggy, as automobiles became the dominant form of people transport. We also talked about the failure of the Railroad giants to maintain their hegemony when cars came on the scene because they defined themselves in the "railroad" business, rather than the "transportation services" business. They let their infrastructure define them, rather than the services they provided their customers, rather than the market niche they filled so uniquely. GE could have stuck to light bulbs, but they didn't. But it's taken the cables a long time to come around, even just one of them. Only when this particular cable company, the regional Cablevision, had the figurative gun to its head (competition from FIOS on the one hand and WiMAX on the other) did it opt for Wi Fi Mesh as the most viable solution to the strategic box it found itself in. As a network option of last resort, all of sudden the warts of Wi Fi Mesh faded into the woodwork, as Cablevision held its nose and opened its mind - and low and behold, there was a beauty queen of sorts, the perfect bride, the medicine that Cablevision needed to stay competitive, given the changing competitive landscape: a Wi Fi Mesh solution. Cablevision's wi fi strategy has several things going for it. It is relatively cheap to deploy (as compared with winning licenses and building a wireless infrastructure) and can be deployed right away. Indeed, according to DSL Reports, deployment is well under way already. That gets Cablevision subscribers hooked on this form of mobility for their wireless services before Verizon can get its new 4G network up and running. Also, since it is much cheaper, customers won't have to buy a separate expensive wireless package to get what amounts to a "poor mans wireless" in Cablevision's service area. Of course, this sort of wireless fall back will lack many of the features that future VZ wireless/wireline bundle will have - at least in the short term. But for Cablevision, it is an open question whether it will need to provide things like national coverage to compete. But my feeling is that while this limits Cablevision's ability to expand its enterprise market penetration (where high end customers will place great value on a top-notch national mobile network that works seamlessly with a wireline product and is indistinguishable from a present-day DSL connection), it is perfectly adequate for retaining customers in the face of FIOS. Cablevision has so far managed to stave off widespread defections to FIOS. This form of poor man's mobility network is a reasonable antidote to the FIOS speed challenge - giving Cablevision time to upgrade its own capacity on the ground if FIOS gets too far ahead on speed. As noted above, most of the residential subscribers Cablevision wants to keep live on Long Island and work in NYC. WiFi access of this nature will be a real boon to them, even if it doesn't come with roaming. Verizon could respond in kind, but doing so would cannibalize a significant amount of wireless revenue by allowing easy text messaging via wifi and possibly shifting customers to VOIP-enabled devices using wifi rather than using minutes on their wireless plan. Wetmachine: Harold Feld's Tales of the Sausage Factory It will take some time for Wi Fi Mesh to shed the tarnished image that Earthlink et al gave it. Too many still think "Wi Fi" means "Free." Maybe Cablevision is going that way, only their Wi Fi service will only be free if they give it to their customers as a bribe to stay with them. Even then, it may only be a temporary strategy to buy them more time. As they say, any port in a storm, and a temporary strategy is often preferred because it is "good enough for now," and so it avoids the judgment a more permanent strategy would face. If this move buys Cablevision sufficiient time to preserve its revenues, for that is really the goal of a productive network business, to hold onto current customers as long as possible, then it will have served its purpose. I wonder how many customers a Wi Fi Network needs to retain at a $1000/per subscriber multiple in order to be an attractive solution? Harold continues ... Where this potentially falls down is if mobile television becomes a serious technology and a serious competitive hook. But that is a sufficient long shot that it is reasonable to ignore for the moment. So all in all, I think Cablevision has a smart strategy here - provided short-sighted analysts carping about capital investment don't drive down the stock and scare them off. It does not have the potential to become the sort of moneymaker capturing licenses in AWS or 700 MHz might have had, but it will do the job of locking customers in. Now all we have to do is convince Cablevision that to pump up their wifi network to competitive levels, they need to push to open the broadcast white spaces. Meet the new Wi Fi Mesh solution: "I may not be perfect, or even carrier grade, but I am cheap, I do work, and I'm available now." Works for me. It will be interesting to see how many other regional players look into this solution as the competitive pressure builds. Posted on May 29, 2008 at 01:38 PM | Comments (0) The State of Wireless On the GoIn this blog to the NY Times, Connecting to the Internet on the Go, published two weeks ago, you will find a very interesting and revealing discussion with about 90 comments, which shows the current attitude among early adopters who use broadband while traveling, with considerable variety evident in the discussion. Plenty of viewpoints and perspectives, multiple ideas on how things could be better, but not much challenging of the way things are, more attempts to find work-arounds. Consider the time you spend to browse this item an eye-opening stroll through the minds of travelers who adopt various work-arounds to make cellular wireless broadband work for them. The theme of the blog post is the utility of Sprint's new USB antenna, which includes storage and built-in features to provide more convenience. Of course, it's still a relatively high-priced service with various restrictions. And, considering that absent any movement to create the type of city-wide wireless broadband alternatives that we talk about on this site, we will all be left with these alternatives from the major carriers, with slowly ascending capabilities and slowly descending prices, all calculated to maximize shareholder gains for the carriers and maintain dominance in the marketplace, and not so much calculated to fully leverage technology to provide a boon to mankind. For better or worse, that's the way it is when corporations are in control. So it goes. Posted on May 29, 2008 at 10:40 AM | Comments (0) When a Committee is in the Driver's Seat
"Which is more important to driving, the accelerator or the brake?" Clever one that you are, you answer, "That's a stupid question, they're both equally important." No kidding - and don't forget the steering wheel as well. I remember my first snow skiing lesson, where I learned how to turn (steering wheel), and gravity and lack of friction provided the acceleration, but stopping (brakes) wasn't until Lesson 2. It was painful. My dad (6'2") used to get all over my mom (5'0") for her driving habit of resting her left foot on the brake as she drove. Not surprisingly, Dad spent more time and money than he would have liked out in the driveway, replacing worn out brake pads because of Mom's style and reliance on braking while accelerating. In our first attempts to promote metropolitan broadband infrastructure based on new technologies, with goals of wide dissemination, dramatic savings, and improved connectivity options, those of us driving this new industry (if you can even use either of the terms "driving" and "industry" these days) have struggled in a debate similar to that my mom and dad had so long ago over a more literal "driving" topic. It's a matter of style and perspective on which pedal you prefer to dominate as you drive, whether it's a car or an industry under discussion. At any given moment, both brake and accelerator are needed because they work in harmony as part of a system. But when it comes to metropolitan broadband, we currently have multiple drivers sharing one set of pedals, and braking tends to win out over accelerating, at least for now, because conservatism rules after a few well-publicized failures of accelerating into the future heedless of potholes. Until there is a greater sense of urgency, it will remain easier to brake in the face of uncertainty than it is to accelerate, certainly more politically safe. It just makes more sense to go slowly, steer around obstacles, and ride the brakes along the way, IF, that is, one is basically content with the way things are and feels they have time to burn to improve the odds and lower the risks and costs. It's more prudent, the argument goes, to move slowly, especially when the taxpayer's money is at stake. But for those dissatisfied with the Status Quo, moving so slowly leaves them mired in the problems of today, when the possibility of a solution is tantalizingly close. "Without some acceleration into the dark, how will we ever know what lies ahead?" they ask. Which leads us to ... Some Boring, But Essential Truths about Broadband & Infrastructure Can there really be gain without pain? I think not. Growth is about change, and that inevitably means leaving some parts of the past behind when you grow, much like a snake shedding its skin. Growing muscles is all about breaking down muscle cell fibers during the day, damaging the muscle tissue so it can repair itself during the night and the following day, growing incrementally stronger, only to then repeat the process - of course, lactic acid build up from exercising leads to "Muscle Soreness." Taking such dramatic steps to grow is essentially painful, thus the phrase, "Growing Pains." The first of the hard truths we must all face: Growth is Painful. I don't know if there is so much debate out there as to whether the external environment is changing, as there is a continuum of perspectives on which individual civic leaders lie regarding the degrees of change, the need to respond, and the best method of response. On the one side are those progressives who focus on the future and the great possibilities inherent in technological change: "Finally, a chance to shed those old problems that bedevil us!' On the other end are those conservatives who focus on the past and the great threats inherent in technological change: "Not again, yet another call to change what's already working - if it ain't broke, don't fix it!" Either way, the debate is around the nature of the environment in which we operate, and whether and/or how to respond. At the end of the day, the debate must produce some form of consensus on how to react to the environmental change, or you're left with a political stalemate, paralysis, and stagnation. If you choose to move ahead, do it together. If you choose to do nothing, acknowledge it as an explicit strategy and accept the consequences. This leads us to the second of hard truths we must face: Dynamic Times call for an Explicit Response. Thus the battle lines are drawn by those with something to lose by change - the "pragmatists" and those invested in the status quo - and those with something to gain - the "idealists" and the have-nots. The first battle is the argument over whether there is really sufficient environmental pressure to necessitate change. The first gambit of the progressive is to trumpet the pressures that external changes bring on the status quo, and the opportunities to respond in different, more productive ways. Conversely, the conservatives' first gambit is to ignore such changes, then when the ever-more-loud-and-shrill cries of the progressives get to be too much, demanding a response, the conservative makes light of the environmental changes and claims, "Why, even if you are right that something needs to be done, we already have the solution at hand, so we really don't need to change all that much." "In the face of Change, Deny, Delay, Diminish," seems to be the strategy to maintain the status quo. The result is Incrementalism, where small changes are implemented around the edges, in an attempt to demonstrate action but incur as little pain as possible. Which leads to the third hard truth: "Small changes will only get you small results over the short-term." Big problems will only be slightly altered by small solutions. Incrementalism accepts a bigger risk later in exchange for a smaller risk now. These, I believe, are the principal obstacles to dramatic changes that would reshuffle the deck and realize the potential that lies at the heart of new technological advances: Each of these tactics avoids a strategy to fix the problem and move ahead by substituting a strategy addressing the symptom while avoiding the pain of a fix. Pain avoidance is an attractive political concept, but there's a small fly in the ointment: together, these tactics have the impact of allowing small problems to grow larger, and large problems to grow immense. That is where we have gotten to these days when it comes to infrastructure of all kinds, whether it is bridges, roads, schools, or broadband. It is the same with societal problems of all kinds, whether it is energy policy, health care, or climate change. These problems do not in fact go away under this formula, they only disappear temporarily, to come roaring back at a later date (preferably on someone else's watch). Frum writes, "There are things only government can do, and if we conservatives wish to be entrusted with the management of government, we must prove that we care enough about government to manage it well." There's a debate about the validity of the current conservative approach to governing (less government, lower taxes, etc.), with popular feedback expected in November 2008. Of course, results will vary from location to location. Nothing will be settled, and the debate will continue. "The policy ideas in "Comeback" rely on the market more than on the state and are relatively small-bore, such as a government campaign to raise awareness about the dangers of obesity. As with most such books, the diagnosis is more convincing than the cure. The Fall of Conservatism, New Yorker When we accept the politician's message that we can have all that we want without paying for anything, we are allowing ourselves to be deluded with sweet talk, because we know in our heart of hearts that there is no Free Lunch in the real world, we have to pay for what we get. We're deluding ourselves, postponing real-world solutions, and accepting bigger problems down the road. The Bottom Line Infrastructure is an investment by a society in a better tomorrow. Investing to bring future benefits should be judged differently than spending to provide present benefits. Given the greater payback, spending on investments over expenses should be a priority, all things being equal. But at a minimum, investments should be considered equally with expenses. In the absence of funding investments, one is condemned to continually spend on an increasing basis and ultimately, to falling behind those who suck it up and make the investments when they are cheaper to make. A blog on Last Mile Online posted the recent news that the US is stuck at 15th in broadband penetration and asked for comments - mine are below. It's a fairly straightforward equation from where I sit. Currently, the overwhelming majority of broadband in the US is delivered by a cable broadband or DSL (telecom) provider. Who would get it that doesn't already have it? The poor, the ignorant, the isolated, and those who don't want it. Thus, we must see the cause of the plateau in penetration you describe as based on inadequacies in either pricing (costs too much), education (don't appreciate its value) or infrastructure (not available). Only increased competition or government policy mandates will bring access pricing down to stimulate more subscribers - which will come first? And unless things change, infrastructure growth will still come primarily from the large players, who lack any incentive to build out faster than they already are - we are a big country, and they're in no hurry to blanket it with broadband. Sure, at the edges we're likely to see some innovation by 1) the WiMAX consortium; or by niche wired and wireless providers in 2) rural markets, 3) exburban rings around growth cities, or 4) in the "swiss cheese" coverage holes of major providers in suburban and urban areas; or by 5) motivated municipalities, probably smaller towns who otherwise risk being left behind as broadband infrastructure gets built out. In summary, there's a good reason we're stuck where we are; 1) those who have the ability to change things (government and cable and telecom incumbents) lack sufficient motivation; and 2) most broadband users remain ignorant of what is possible, so they're content and satisfied with what they have. We'll move off this square only with 1) governmental leadership that challenges the status quo with a redefinition of broadband upwards of 256 Kbs and new policies to stimulate competition or infrastructure growth; or 2) a growth in availability and appreciation of high bandwidth content and applications, which will expose our current infrastructure and services paradigm as bankrupt, behind the times, and grossly inadequate. The needed pressure will be brought to bear from above (government) or below (market). As the article in the New Yorker commented: "But governing well, in conservative terms, doesn't mean spending more money. It means doing what neither Reagan nor Bush did: mastering details, knowing the options, using caution - that is, taking government seriously." Metropolitan broadband networks need this kind of attention if they are ever to achieve serious consideration as a tool of efficient government operations. Posted on May 28, 2008 at 02:33 PM | Comments (0) New Technologies Beware: Squashed Like a BugFor a stimulating read at no out-of-pocket cost - the book's free! - I recommend this downloadable e-book == Free Culture == by Dr. Lawrence Lessig, the Stanford law professor, founder of the Creative Commons idea that there should be shades of copyright protection, in between the black or white "either copyright protected or not.", as well as a board member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. In it you'll find this gem of a story about the discovery of FM radio and its slow progression to replace or complement AM Radio, the standard of the day. The moral of the story is that technological superiority can, and often does fail when up against the power of a market leader striving to maintain its status quo interests. Sound familiar? Should, that's what happens pretty routinely to many new technologies... And that's what we're experiencing right now with Metropolitan Broadband. It's a long and winding road, but these days, it seems pretty much uphill. Sigh ...la plus ca change... Extended passage quoted after the jump ... On the day after Christmas, 1933, four patents were issued to Armstrong for his most significant invention - FM radio. Until then, consumer radio had been amplitude-modulated (AM) radio. The theorists of the day had said that frequency-modulated (FM) radio could never work. They were right about FM radio in a narrow band of spectrum. But Armstrong discovered that frequency-modulated radio in a wide band of spectrum would deliver an astonishing fidelity of sound, with much less transmitter power and static. On November 5, 1935, he demonstrated the technology at a meeting of the Institute of Radio Engineers at the Empire State Building in New York City. He tuned his radio dial across a range of AM stations, until the radio locked on a broadcast that he had arranged from seventeen miles away. The radio fell totally silent, as if dead, and then with a clarity no one else in that room had ever heard from an electrical device, it produced the sound of an announcer's voice: "This is amateur station W2AG at Yonkers, New York, operating on frequency modulation at two and a half meters." The audience was hearing something no one had thought possible: A glass of water was poured before the microphone in Yonkers; it sounded like a glass of water being poured. . . . A paper was crumpled and torn; it sounded like paper and not like a crackling forest fire. . . . Sousa marches were played from records and a piano solo and guitar number were performed. . . . The music was projected with a liveness rarely if ever heard before from a radio "music box." As our own common sense tells us, Armstrong had discovered a vastly superior radio technology. But at the time of his invention, Armstrong was working for RCA. RCA was the dominant player in the then dominant AM radio market. By 1935, there were a thousand radio stations across the United States, but the stations in large cities were all owned by a handful of networks. RCA's president, David Sarnoff, a friend of Armstrong's, was eager that Armstrong discover a way to remove static from AM radio. So Sarnoff was quite excited when Armstrong told him he had a device that removed static from "radio." But when Armstrong demonstrated his invention, Sarnoff was not pleased. "I thought Armstrong would invent some kind of a filter to remove static from our AM radio. I didn't think he'd start a revolution - start up a whole damn new industry to compete with RCA." Armstrong's invention threatened RCA's AM empire, so the company launched a campaign to smother FM radio. While FM may have been a superior technology, Sarnoff was a superior tactician. As one author described, "The forces for FM, largely engineering, could not overcome the weight of strategy devised by the sales, patent, and legal offices to subdue this threat to corporate position. For FM, if allowed to develop unrestrained, posed . . . a complete reordering of radio power . . . and the eventual overthrow of the carefully restricted AM system on which RCA had grown to power." RCA at first kept the technology in house, insisting that further tests were needed. When, after two years of testing, Armstrong grew impatient, RCA began to use its power with the government to stall FM radio's deployment generally. In 1936, RCA hired the former head of the FCC and assigned him the task of assuring that the FCC assign spectrum in a way that would castrate FM - principally by moving FM radio to a different band of spectrum. At first, these efforts failed. But when Armstrong and the nation were distracted by World War II, RCA's work began to be more successful. Soon after the war ended, the FCC announced a set of policies that would have one clear effect: FM radio would be crippled. As Lawrence Lessing described it, "The series of body blows that FM radio received right after the war, in a series of rulings manipulated through the FCC by the big radio interests, were almost incredible in their force and deviousness." To make room in the spectrum for RCA's latest gamble, television, FM radio users were to be moved to a totally new spectrum band. The power of FM radio stations was also cut, meaning FM could no longer be used to beam programs from one part of the country to another. (This change was strongly supported by AT&T, because the loss of FM relaying stations would mean radio stations would have to buy wired links from AT&T.) The spread of FM radio was thus choked, at least temporarily. Armstrong resisted RCA's efforts. In response, RCA resisted Armstrong's patents. After incorporating FM technology into the emerging standard for television, RCA declared the patents invalid - baselessly, and almost fifteen years after they were issued. It thus refused to pay him royalties. For six years, Armstrong fought an expensive war of litigation to defend the patents. Finally, just as the patents expired, RCA offered a settlement so low that it would not even cover Armstrong's lawyers' fees. Defeated, broken, and now broke, in 1954 Armstrong wrote a short note to his wife and then stepped out of a thirteenth story window to his death. This is how the law sometimes works. Not often this tragically, and rarely with heroic drama, but sometimes, this is how it works. From the beginning, government and government agencies have been subject to capture. They are more likely captured when a powerful interest is threatened by either a legal or technical change. That powerful interest too often exerts its influence within the government to get the government to protect it. The rhetoric of this protection is of course always public spirited; the reality is something different. Ideas that were as solid as rock in one age, but that, left to themselves, would crumble in another, are sustained through this subtle corruption of our political process. RCA had what the Causbys did not: the power to stifle the effect of technological change. The corporation squashed the little guy who threatened their empire with new technology - squashed him like a bug. It's not paranoia or hyperbole when it happens in real life. The moral of this story: "When introducing a new technology, use a strategy for acceptance that is as non-threatening as it can be to the interests of the status quo. Sometimes it's better to come in through the basement window or side door, than it is ringing the bell and walking in through the front door...think like a bug (and hope there is not a can of Raid nearby)." Posted on May 26, 2008 at 07:01 PM | Comments (0) Time to Consider AlternativesI'm beginning to think that the profile of the city that opts to take matters into their own hands when it comes to metropolitan broadband infrastructure, given the bad press and emerging nature of realistic business models, will be a city that has a strong sense of motivation. Either positive motivation as in being early adopters and out on the cutting edge, or negative motivation as in being out of alternatives. It is not easy to buck conventional wisdom and take an independent stand on broadband infrastructure, that's for sure. Those who do are independent and motivated. As we enter a period of prolonged economic difficulty (I'd argue we're in a recession, but there's a general reluctance to use the R-word, it seems), there actually is a strong incentive for cities that are under stress to look again at metropolitan broadband infrastructure. At first this may seem counter-intuitive, but hear me out. This recent article, Vallejo, Calif. files for bankruptcy protection, describes a city in the Bay Area that got upside down in its finances. As it caved to municipal worker demands over time for increased salaries, its underlying tax base and municipal revenues caved in - whether you call it a perfect storm or a perfect mess, the result is the same -when a city gets upside down as Vallejo, CA, did, bankruptcy results, and then its that much harder to claw your way out. Better to avoid that hole in the first place by taking every measure to cut costs and enhance revenues. In contrast, consider the city that invests in a metropolitan broadband network in order to bring efficiencies to its government operations, ideally, before its in tight straits. The government that empowers its employees with the digital tools they need to be more effective with fewer human resources, will be in better shape over the long run than the city that hews to the traditional focus on worker rights and a growing workforce, with attendant conflicts between worker groups and human interest on the one hand, and taxpayers and conservative politics of fiscal restraint on the other. Labor costs are always inflationary - they go up over time. Cities traditionally have few options to raise revenues other than through tax increases, which is often politically infeasible. In tight economic times, revenues retract, but fixed costs can stay high. But technology costs trend down over time, just as capabilities trend upward. The essence of investing capital in technology is to bring more efficiency by enabling new business processes. By doing things differently through technological innovation, city managers bring the focus around to doing more with less. And the added bonus when it comes to Wi Fi Mesh networks in particular, is that a city network provides extra bandwidth after all the municipal application needs have been met. The city can use that surplus bandwidth as an asset to generate additional NON-TAX revenue. This is an equation that features both greater cost control and enhanced revenue opportunities. That is a message that all cities should embrace, but certainly cities under stress. But cities under stress tend to go the other way, don't they? Go figure. Indeed, the conventional approach for cities under stress is fiscal conservatism: clamp down on spending, seek to get more work out of existing staff, using hiring and salary freezes and reductions in force. Does that make sense? Fearful employees may produce more at first, but it seems that over the long haul you would actually get less when you treat employees that way. Its actually a good time to invest in metropolitan broadband, even as the economy would seem to indicate that most cities will pull back. The cost of equipment has come down, while performance levels and capabilities are up. Vendors are highly motivated, and new business models show the way to a low-risk project. And what applies to all cities goes double for a city that is struggling to get by under the conventional business model reliant upon outsourced services and in-house labor, in bad economic times. Adjust the equation with a city network and watch the potential grow. If you want different results, you have to do things differently. Look for interest to develop among cities out on the cutting edge, looking to make a name for themselves. Watch smaller towns and rural towns with few broadband options, who know they will be passed over in the first few rounds by private providers. Third World cities, especially cities and towns with large portions of disadvantaged populations will still be interested in metropolitan broadband. And cities hard-hit by real estate and other macro-economic downturns, like Vallejo, believe it or not, should be interested in a metropolitan broadband network project. For when these networks begin to be viewed tools for business efficiency, as they truly are, then this argument will make more and more sense to those who come to it with an open mind. Posted on May 26, 2008 at 11:30 AM | Comments (0) Top Down v. Bottom Upor, "Elites, Masses and Hierarchies v. People and Networks" The original title of this post was "It's the Networks, Stupid!" - the closing line of Roger Cohen's Op Ed in today's NY Times that inspired me to write this (see The Obama Connection). But I just couldn't go with one more "It's the ____________, Stupid!" title in less than one week (see my previous post on this site, It's the Applications, Stupid!, from last week). I risk confusing the audience with too many of these type titles, I think, not to mention the blow to my creative side ... I can do better than that. The power of networks is a topic near and dear to my heart. Perhaps one of the most compelling books I've read and re-read, and which I'll recommend here is found in the Books section, my own on-line book shelf, where I keep memorable books that drive the thoughts I write about. That book is of course, Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means by Albert-Laszlo Barabasi, a pioneer in the field of network science. Linked describes the incredible impact that networks have on our lives: the simple concept that multiple items can be Nodes connected by Links to form Networks. From biological systems (Ecosystems, your brain), to political (see the NY Times Op/Ed today, and below) to sociological (how cities function, this website's favorite topic), it explains such things as the Power Law Curve (aka the Long Tail) and the impact of Hubs, highly connected Nodes. Cohen focuses on the amazing fund raising of Obama, perhaps the most visible result of his focus on leveraging social networks and new technologies to an unprecedented degree in a presidential campaign. In his Op Ed, he highlights a new book that details the impact of networks on global politics, Network Power: The Social Dynamics of Globalization by David Singh Grewal. Why are these subjects relevant in terms of metropolitan broadband, in terms of today? Because of Obama's rise in prominence, the power of networking is getting a new focus at the popular level. Obama's campaign will be studied and emulated, win or lose. Of course, I've been an early Obama fan, not the least because of his potential to bring badly-needed change to our country and the world, so I am a firm believer that Obama will triumph in November, ushering in a new era of focus on what we can do differently as a society and nation to solve problems. Obama's mandate for change, coupled with his team's sophistication and awareness of how to leverage new technologies and the power of the network, give renewed hope to my vision of a world of Networked Metropolitan Areas, or MetroNets, linked together in a manner akin to the Internet. The lack of broadband infrastructure is one of the problems waiting to be addressed by the new administration. A solution based on new parameters can happen with the kind of focus and awareness an Obama victory will bring. The old way of doing things is highlighted well in this other article, this one from yesterday's NY Times Weekend Edition section. In Class of '08: The Snare of Privilege , the role of Political and Social Elites is dissected. Hard to believe that every president in the past 20 years has graduated from Yale (OK, that's just three presidents, and two from the same family). Enough of a good thing already! But this odd fact certainly makes the case for the enduring, if little understood power of Elites in our society and politics. Just why do the Ivy League colleges endure? Controlling the levers of power and working the controls from the background, Elites sit atop a hierarchy and manipulate the masses through processes like elections, with the purpose of maintaining their exalted position in society - it's far preferable to hand the reins of power over temporarily to another elite than it is to subvert the entire system of Elite control. In America, Elites stick together through things like exclusive access to Ivy League schools and fraternities and sororities, country clubs and cotillions. Such is the essence of Elite political theory. My professor from the UT Graduate School of Government, Dr. John Higley, is one of the authors of this theory, claiming that Elites have always ruled society, and presumably, always will. He certainly made an impression on me twenty years ago with his ideas. I ran into Dr. Higley at the health club two days ago and he clued me into the upcoming NY Times article. My question to ponder here is whether networks will be able to change this truism of the hegemony of Elites. It could be that technology and a growing awareness of the power of Social Networking may yet bring that about. Gorenberg, a partner in the San Francisco venture-capital firm of Hummer Winblad, was representative of a certain kind of prosperous Northern California Democrat whom the war and the general climate of Bush-administration malfeasance had pushed from casual supporter to committed activist. And he was representative of Silicon Valley, in that he thought in terms of networks. Partly, this was his job: a venture capitalist looking to invest in the next big thing must know everything that is happening and everyone who is making it happen. But everyone else was thinking about networks, too. The Valley was still emerging from the crash of 2001, yet it was already clear that the next boom would be in social-networking entities like MySpace and Facebook, which created vast, interconnected communities on the Web. The Amazing Money Machine by Joshua Green in the June issue of The Atlantic This is indeed an excellent article - you should pause and check it out - because it lays out how truly revolutionary the campaign organizing of Obama has been. Let's face it, did any of us imagine a year ago that we'd be watching Hillary's juggernaut stalling at this point? Certainly, Hillary, the DNC, and her legion of supporters didn't. We're witnessing the changing of the guard between 20th and 21st century politics, as Hillary's candidacy slowly grinds to a halt and struggles to find a way to accept defeat. It's awesome and painful to watch. I asked Roos, the personification of a buttoned-down corporate attorney, if there had been concerns about Obama's limited CV, and for a moment he looked as if he might burst out laughing. "No one in Silicon Valley sits here and thinks, 'You need massive inside-the-Beltway experience,'" he explained, after a diplomatic pause. "Sergey and Larry were in their early 20s when they started Google. The YouTube guys were also in their 20s. So were the guys who started Facebook. And I'll tell you, we recognize what great companies have been built on, and that's ideas, talent, and inspirational leadership." "Ideas, talent, and inspirational leadership" are also the hallmarks of change agents. We need more of those in the metropolitan broadband industry right now. It may or may not happen that this election will see Obama rise to the presidency. But his campaign promises to leverage technology and raise to prominence the power of social networks and the internet. Folks, the toothpaste is officially out of the tube. There will be no putting it back in after this election cycle. Social networks are here to stay, and we have only begun to investigate their power to promote Progressive Politics and harness the power of the people. If I were a Political Elite, I'd be sweating right now. I think they are. In the absence of an evolution of power, which has never seem to come, I'm hoping for a gentle revolution with Obama, one focused more on Bottom Up change and The Wisdom of the Crowds. Posted on May 26, 2008 at 07:25 AM | Comments (0) It's the Applications, Stupid!"It's the economy, stupid," was a phrase in American politics widely used during Bill Clinton's successful 1992 presidential campaign against George H.W. Bush. For a time, Bush was considered unbeatable because of foreign policy developments such as the end of the Cold War and the Persian Gulf War. The phrase, coined by Clinton campaign strategist James Carville, refers to the notion that Clinton was a better choice because Bush had not adequately addressed the economy, which had recently undergone a recession. In order to keep the campaign on message, Carville hung a sign in Bill Clinton's Little Rock campaign headquarters with the following three points[citation needed]: 1. Change vs. more of the same
Here's the sign I'd like to see hung on the wall of every marketing department in any company involved with the Metropolitan Broadband Industry: 1. Change v. more of the same In it's first iteration, this industry got caught up in selling the network, when in fact it's the applications that the city government folks want. So, if that's what they want, I say give them applications. I recommend that the discussion shift to the Digital Transition that all city departments must go through, of which the wireless broadband network is merely the enabler. In this analysis, we put the cart before the horse by building a Field of Dreams. "Build it, and they will come." Imagine if we had been focused on the game of baseball (Digital Transition), with its attendant baseball gloves, bats & balls (wireless applications and end use devices), and forming teams and a league (business and change processes). Get the league started, and the fields will be built as a matter of course, because if you want to play baseball, you need somewhere to play the game. You need a baseball diamond (wireless broadband network). We've had baseball as our "national sport" for over 100 years, it's in people's genes...so, perhaps, a baseball diamond in a corn field could be imagined to be so attractive as to be a good business plan. But broadband is far, far newer. it is not yet embedded in the nation's psyche. It will be, but not yet. We should not assume that people will value broadband as baseball fans do baseball. But people everywhere have a job to do, and they understand doing it better for less inputs - efficiency is a broadly understood and appreciated concept. Wireless applications are all about efficiency, doing more for less. People get that, where they don't yet get the concept of ubiquitous broadband. In the early days of electricity, people may not have fully understood the future transformation of society that electricity would bring, but they came to the lights like moths to a flame. Attendees flocked to the World's Columbian Exposition held in 1893 (aka the Chicago World's Fair). Drawn by the bright lights, farmers formed long lines to marvel at the brightness. The inner Court of Honor area, which came to be called The White City, was painted in white and illuminated by streetlights powered by the new alternating current of Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse, who had beat out Thomas Edison's General Electric bid. To the tenement dwellers and farmers attending at night, it must have seemed as if heaven had come down to earth! I highly recommend two books by Erik Larson - the first describes the background drama behind the Columbian Exposition and the changes and tensions at the Fin de Siecle: The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America. If you haven't read Larson, he does a great job at tying together history with the drama of the time. See also the story of the invention of wireless, as told in Thunderstruck, where the reader gets two stories in one: as Marconi's slow progress in unlocking the mysteries of wireless radio unfold, so do the sordid facts behind the murder of the century. A thoroughly enjoyable read for me, and revealing for all I learned about wireless radio's origins. But, back to the Wikipedia article on the World's Columbian Exposition, which showcased the marvels that would transform the twentieth century, principally the new electricity technology and electric light, it's most compelling application. The International Exposition was held in a building which for the first time was devoted to electrical exhibits. General Electric Company (backed by Edison and J.P. Morgan) had proposed to power the electric exhibits with direct current at the cost of one million dollars. However, Westinghouse, armed with Tesla's alternating current system, proposed to illuminate the Columbian Exposition in Chicago for half that price, and Westinghouse won the bid. It was a historical moment and the beginning of a revolution, as Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse introduced the public to electrical power by providing alternating current to illuminate the Exposition. All the exhibits were from commercial enterprises. Thomas Edison, Brush, Western Electric, and Westinghouse had exhibits, and the general public observed firsthand the qualities and abilities of alternating current power. Tesla's high-frequency high-voltage lighting produced more efficient light with quantitatively less heat. A two-phase induction motor was driven by current from the main generators to power the system. Edison tried to prevent the use of his light bulbs in Tesla's works. Westinghouse's proposal was chosen over the less efficient direct-current system to power the fair. General Electric banned the use of Edison's lamps in Westinghouse's plan, in retaliation for losing the bid. Westinghouse's company quickly designed a double-stopper lightbulb (sidestepping Edison's patents) and was able to light the fair. The Westinghouse Company displayed several polyphase systems. The exhibits included a switchboard, polyphase generators, step-up transformers, transmission line, step-down transformers, commercial size induction motors and synchronous motors, and rotary direct current converters (including an operational railway motor). The working scaled system allowed the public a view of a system of polyphase power which could be transmitted over long distances, and be utilized, including the supply of direct current. Meters and other auxiliary devices were also present. Tesla displayed his phosphorescent lighting, powered without wires by high-frequency fields. Tesla displayed the first practical phosphorescent lamps (a precursor to fluorescent lamps). Tesla's lighting inventions exposed to high-frequency currents would bring the gases to incandescence. Tesla also displayed the first neon lights. His innovations in this type of light emission were not regularly patented. Also among the exhibits was Tesla's demonstration, most notably the "Egg of Columbus". This device explains the principles of the rotating magnetic field and his induction motor. The Egg of Columbus consisted of a polyphase field coil underneath a plate with a copper egg positioned over the top. When the sequence of coils were energized, the magnetic field arrangement inductively created a rotation on the egg and made it stand up on end (appearing to resist gravity). On August 25, Elisha Gray introduced Tesla for a delivery of a lecture on mechanical and electrical oscillators. Tesla explained his work for efficiently increasing the work at high frequency of reciprocation. As Electrical Congress members listened, Tesla delineated mechanisms which could produce oscillations of constant periods irrespective of the pressure applied and irrespective of frictional losses and loads. He continued to explain the working mean of the production of constant period electric currents (not resorting to spark gaps or breaks), and how to produce these with mechanisms which are reliable. The successful demonstration of alternating current lighting at the Exposition dispelled doubts about the usefulness of the polyphase alternating current system developed by Westinghouse and Tesla. UPDATE: Two hours after publishing this item, this is what I hear on NPR, as I drove my kids to school ... I kid you not ... check out the podcast ... Hunt for World's Fair Artifacts Turns Up Junk Archaeologists are digging in a Chicago park that was the scene of the Chicago World's Fair in 1893. Experts want to find traces of that grand exposition, attended by millions. So far they've mainly found 20th century beer cans. Morning Edition, May 19, 2008 Posted on May 19, 2008 at 05:36 AM | Comments (0) Ctrl-Alt-Del: Time for a Reality Reset
We all know the routine, the crushing feeling when your computer locks up, the "Blue Screen of Death", those automatic messages ... You give it the "Three-Finger Salute," hold your breathe, and hope for the best..."did I hit Save any time recently?" You rapidly go through all Kubler-Ross's Five Stages of Grief...Denial ("this is nothing"); Anger ("F%^&ing Microsoft"); Bargaining ("Oh, just let my documents come back...oh, forget the documents, save my PC"); Depression ("I can't believe this is happening again...we are so screwed ... I don't know what else I could have done"); Acceptance (" You know, I could use a new laptop ... I didn't like this one so much anymore.") Most of the time, you get back on track after a minor hick up, maybe you have to go through the System Restore routine, maybe you hurriedly do the back-up that was three weeks overdue, breathe a sigh of relief, and move on. Some of the time, you take your lumps, pull up a previous version of the document, and try to remember what you had typed over the last thirty minutes - "quick, before I forget it." You may even tell yourself that what you typed a second time is actually better! That's where we are with wireless broadband - I can't actually bring myself to use the term Muni Wi Fi or Muni Wireless anymore, it catches in my throat, my fingers hurt to type it. There's no use denying it, this has been painful to watch the slow collapse of the dream fostered by early companies like Kite Networks, EarthLink, and MetroFi. Now, it's all over but the crying, basically. The sooner we all move through the Five Stages and get on with it, the better. Acceptance means a Reality Reset, where we shake our heads, splash cold water in our faces, and accept that we will not be able to have the fantasy that was the vision of Municipal Wireless - a private company will come in and build a network and everyone will get "Free Wi Fi," including the city government. I'm afraid that we will have city governments stuck in various stages of grief for a while, until Reality starts to look more attractive than the Righteous Indignation of the Victimized Public Official. Reality Reset 1. There is no such thing as a Free Lunch. This is one of the hardest things for adults to accept. Indeed, it is childish to hold on to the belief that you can get things for free. We learn through dating that there are expectations set when a very, very nice "gift" is accepted. We learn through buying and selling, gaining experience in the marketplace, learning that giving time to a vendor at the door or a salesperson on the phone is an actual commercial exchange - it rarely results in the promises that first come across the threshold, but it's worth the time if you learn something. We learn that the free pens we accept have about a gram of ink in them and are so cheap they're likely to explode and drip ink on our pants, shirt, or hands. "Free" is always subsidized by someone, somewhere, so there is someone picking up the tab out there, carrying an expectation of a payoff. There's an implied debt when a gift is accepted - I learned that when I told my parents "No Thanks" to their offer of tuition money and went out on my own at the age of 19 - their gift came with strings attached: I had to listen to them and take their "advice." It was a painful transition, but we got along much better when I became independent. There is always a sacrifice of quality when free is accepted. Paying for something should always be acceptable, IF there is a fair exchange of value - that is the definition of commerce. "You can't get something for nothing" is a primary lesson of adulthood that we all must accept and keep in mind, because we're constantly told the opposite by people who want something from us. Growing up means accepting reality, and one of the toughest lessons to learn and relearn is that "free" is not, in fact, "free." 2. Low Bid is Not Always Best Bid. If we can't have it for free, we often shouldn't even want it for cheap! Sorry folks. The Project Triangle, known by many other names, provides a basic pearl of wisdom, a lesson of reality that can be gained only through experience, because most of us don't want to believe it. But it is indeed a pearl. The Project Triangle says that there are three elements to any project: Time, Quality, and Price - you can focus on two out of three, but there is always a sacrifice involved to get those two. I wrote a good blog post about this on November 22, 2006. The Business Golden Triangle Maxim says, "Only two of these three are available to any consumer." To recognize its truth, just try to imagine getting just what you want that is very high quality, immediately, for very little money - that's a fantasy world. Or the polar opposite, getting something of very low quality over a long period, with project delays, while spending a lot - that's getting taken to the cleaners. So, the rational choices in a procurement or business decision are to pick two factors that are most important and relax the third constraint: 1) Fast and less expensive, but lower quality. Strategy: 1) Lower your standards (accept less quality or fewer options, usually achieved through extensive planning and negotiation between stakeholders to determine the must-have items and the nice-to-have items and then setting priorities). 2) High quality and less expensive, but takes more time. Strategy: Start the project earlier (to be a responsible steward of time as a resource, a city would start a low-grade project immediately to get a jump on things and move at their own pace, to allow adequate time to find savings and develop creative approaches that leverage existing assets or competitive advantages). 3) Fast and high quality, but costs more. Strategy: Pay more (budget more to accommodate a higher expense, create a strong business case to justify a financial strategy, identify alternate grant or funding sources, etc.). MetroNetIQ Archives: Learning to Live within Boundaries The Triangle is the essence of Project Management, because it's firmly based in the world of Reality, ruled by the Facts of Life. Accepting these rules up front is a key to happiness on the back end. 3. A changing environment demands adaptation; doing nothing is a choice too. The essence of denial is that if I don't recognize something, if I avoid facing it, then it doesn't exist. Living in denial is alternately seen as childish, immature, or unhealthy behavior. It's often called various things in shorthand: "Burying your head in the sand." "Running away from your problems." "Delaying the inevitable." Mature, healthy people recognize that living life with your eyes wide open is always preferable to the alternative. But often the truth can be so painful that we construct elaborate denial mechanisms that rationalize our courses of action as appropriate. One of the key things we hold on to is the fantasy that time is not in fact moving forward, that somehow things can stay the same. I have three coffee mugs that remind me of this fact every morning, after I have the coffee started, when I select a mug. There amid my wife's flower mugs and the souvenir mugs and the gimme mugs from the Blood Bank, are my three favorites, with pictures of my kids, my wife and kids, and me and the kids. The mugs in question are about 10 years old, 5 years old, and 2 years old, so the kid pictures are at various stages of cute (my son and daughter are 12 and 13 years old now). I cherish the memories of each stage, but am reminded each morning as well that they're rapidly moving through time, and there is not a damn thing I can do about it, but accept it and enjoy it. Similarly, the environment we live in is dynamic, and you cannot freeze things or keep at bay the forces of change. People move in and out of a community. Traffic increases or economic activity dwindles. Without a clear strategy to monitor a changing world and adapt a city or organization's strategy to manage it's position in that world, it become inevitable that one's position will decline. Any system faces decline without new energy being fed into it. The concept of Entropy is a physical reality, not readily understood, and even less readily accepted by the psyche - it says that left alone, all things will decay over time, from a state of order to a state of disorder. Quit investing in the future, and watch the world around you slip into decay. If the world is constantly changing, then one must constantly spend energy (time, money, etc.) to adapt in order to stay even, and spend even more energy (time, money, etc.) in order to move ahead and do better than the rest. Doing nothing is a choice, but in a highly dynamic environment, it becomes a choice to fall behind. 4. The world is now digital, demanding a strategy to coexist, to balance the ancient human elements of life with the efficiencies of a newly digital world. My last blog post was about a wireless toy that played around with an analog radio modulator tool - Mr. Microphone. It is a relic of our past, when High Tech was not digital. Gone too are the days when digital High Tech was a novelty, or even an option. Digital Integration is now an essential element of life. No longer is it the case where you could pretend that high tech did not matter - to pretend otherwise, to cling to old analog tools and processes, is to accept less efficiency and more cost. Not all things digital are good, necessary or even effective; to discern the mix between old and new requires an investment of time and attention, to gain the understanding and experience to tell the difference. The silicon chip is now pervasive, and increasingly, connectivity over an IP network is becoming just as pervasive. To deny the need for broadband is to deny reality. To deny the need for mobile broadband is equally evasive, because as new tools become available, they offer an adaptability challenge that we either accept or deny. Going through a digital transition is a matter of When, not If. 5. Life is a Series of Choices and Consequences. Individually and collectively, we each choose to be In the Game or On the Sidelines. There are costs and benefits to either choice, but the reality is that we do not get a third choice. The Reality of Freedom means that there are Choices and there are Consequences. Having to choose is indeed a burden, just as not having an ability to choose is a burden. Life is a burden, that's reality. Freedom of choice places a premium on education and learning to make good choices, profitable choices, beneficial choices, healthy choices, just choices. Refusing to make a choice is in itself a different kind of choice, with its own set of consequences, including the lack of experience that comes with being engaged in a project. Delaying a choice opportunity is a strategy that can be appropriate or inappropriate, given the circumstances at hand. Denying a choice opportunity, at least as an adult in a free society, is an aversion to accepting reality. Sometimes reality can present a series of "bad" choices, that can seem like the same as no choice at all. But in that case, we are forced to weigh the outcomes and choose the least bad option - that is reality - to say that there is no choice is to play the victim, to deny that you are in control. On this topic, I'm obliged to share a statement actually made by the CEO of a major corporation where I worked - I was only a week or two into the new job, when I took my first trip to corporate headquarters to attend an annual all-hands conference. The CEO gave a headliner speech, where he described the bleak business environment in our industry at the time and shared this pearl. "Folks, when you have to eat a shit sandwich, you're better off to take big bites." That was in 1995 - five years later, the 70 year old company was acquired. The CEO was right, but he also steered the company into a safe harbor as his final duty. At the time, I was shocked to hear those words in a public speech, but they stuck with me, 15 years later. The essence of good leadership in bad times is to make hard decisions that offer the best outcome over the long run, with the least pain in the short term. Reality in life is about accepting life as it comes at you and doing the best you can with what you have to work with at the time. The Bottom Line: God Bless Reality 1. There's No Such Thing as a Free Lunch It's not all that hard to analyze what went wrong and what we now face in regards to metropolitan broadband when you accept reality and review the recent past through the lens of reality. The reality we face is that all cities, all organizations, all communities will have to go through a Digital Transition sooner or later. I'd suggest a Digital Transformation, making the most of a necessary evil, along the lines of the Shit Sandwich analogy. The sooner we all adopt this mindset that Reality is just fine and put our energies into understanding what Reality means, letting go of the Fantasy that masqueraded for Reality a few years ago, the better off we all will be. It's up to the leaders among us to be the first to proclaim out loud the following Truths: 1. The Emperor Has No Clothes. Having accepted Reality as what it is, we can start having the adult conversation about what a future based on digital tools connected with ubiquitous broadband would look like, and how we can get from here to there. I'm ready to start talking about Digital Transformation if you are.
Posted on May 18, 2008 at 05:59 AM | Comments (0) Look How Far We've Come, Baby!From back in the archives of the very early days of Wireless ... we bring you (drum-roll) ... MR. MICROPHONE!!! Sometimes - especially in these dark times as ISPs crumble around us and withdraw from the market - we forget how far we've really come ... so much seriousness just begs for a little perspective .... Thirty years ago, pitchman Ron Popeil took some basic radio technology and produced the Mr. Microphone, only $14.88, just in time for Christmas! Mr. Pop History - Sometime around late 1978, but the TV airwaves came alive with Ronco's Mr. Microphone in 1979. Who could forget that 70's guy exclaiming "Hey good looking, we'll be back to pick you up later." Mr. Microphone was actually a low-power FM modulator, but through the magic of Ronco advertising, the device was turned into a hip tool to pick-up girls. The only problem with this commercial: you had to know what station the receiving FM radio was tuned to, so you could infiltrate their radio. Getting the frequency just right would have taken much insight and tuning time. Oh well, it's only TV. It's one of the classic commercials of the 1970's. Ask Mr. Pop History Posted on May 17, 2008 at 09:10 PM | Comments (0) A Good Strong Wind
I just heard the news about MetroFi selling its existing networks, and perhaps, the company itself (amply covered here, here, and here). I urge you to check out that good analysis - I guess the pain finally got too great, and the money ran out. I have to say, the image of a strong wind blowing away all the dead wood came to mind, no offense intended at all to MetroFi (or to EarthLink, or to Kite/Gobility). It's just that when the bloom goes off the rose, it really starts to stink pretty fast, doesn't it? This slow motion dying is driving me crazy!! I admire what these companies did, regret their lack of success, but can we move on already?? More after the jump. If I haven't mentioned it before, the project that keeps me sane these days is building a small (200 sq. ft.) outbuilding at my ranch(ette) in Dripping Springs. Since 1992 I've owned 20 acres of beautiful Texas Hill Country, what some would call "raw land," though I choose to call it a "ranch," being in Texas and all. The area is rapidly moving from rural to exurban, located about 25 miles/35 minutes from my house, and I've finally started on building something out there this spring. I'm using reclaimed cedar deck timber for the frame, and reclaimed cedar fencing for the exterior, and building a covered front porch and a narrow back deck hanging out over the gently downward-sloping hill. It will have a small loft and a gambrel (barn) roof when I'm finished - I'm going to need some help at some point. Because of the weathered fencing for siding, the cedar plank doors and shutters, and the tin roof, it'll look like it's been sitting out there about 100 years when I'm done. That's the plan anyway. I'm calling it my "eco-barn." It will have a wood shop down below and a small sleeping loft above. I've finished with a lot of the fun work, and I'm now facing an ugly task - clearing out all the dead wood that hangs around the construction site, because I've had to chain saw away dense cedar undergrowth and some pretty tall old cedar to make way for the barn and clear out the view of the scenic hills to the West. If you've never dealt with clearing mountain juniper, what we call cedar-chopping here in Texas, it's an ugly affair, with stickers everywhere and sharp sticks waiting to poke you in the eye. But until the dead wood is cleared away, it's hard to work on the new building - and therein lies the analogy for what I just read about MetroFi. I'm dreaming of a good strong wind to come along and blow all this dead wood away, so we can finally take stock, start afresh with new business models, and get on with it! But I'm afraid it will have to be more of a manual clearing effort, with painful labor that will take some time. At least that's what it looks like so far. But the sooner we can put Muni Wireless 1.0 behind us, and that means picking through the pieces and gleaning lessons, the sooner we can move on to Muni Wireless 2.0, no? Check out my previous post for more discussion on where we can go in the future, as soon as we're able to let go of this past. Posted on May 16, 2008 at 12:38 PM | Comments (0) Time for Free(mium) Wi Fi?Recently, too many people have been too quick to point out the misfires of early experiments with new wireless technologies as failures, challenging what went wrong and finding moral shortcomings among those who took risks to push out the envelope on how we all might get connected to the internet. For every article that documents lessons learned, it seems, there have been twenty or thirty that describe the failures and criticize the players as naive, deluded, hyped, ignorant, willfully blind, or corrupt. Civitium and other early industry promoters have taken a healthy dose of this criticism on the chin. As the consulting firm that advised many of the cities that sought to challenge the status quo with a new business model that gave city governments a seat at the table, Civitium is in for its fair share of critique. To be fair, they benefited from all the activity over the past few years, so maybe there's some balance there. But I don't think it's fair to place too much blame at the feet of pioneers like Greg Richardson and his partners - as consultants, in my view, they have their sleeves rolled up and they're trying out new things to see what will work on behalf of their clients. Consultants are change agents, but they work within heavy constraints - they take what they're given, by their clients and the market, and make the best of it. Civitium didn't tell EarthLink what to do, after all, but they did coach cities on how best to take advantage of what EarthLink and other motivated private sector providers offered. Greg and I have enjoyed comparing notes over the past four years as we've rambled along in this new industry, so I enjoyed our conversation when we spoke two days ago. Greg urged me to look at his blog post (see On the Issue of Free) from last weekend, where he mulled over recent events and what went wrong, how things could be looked at differently, and pondered the nature of the Free v. Pay arguments. I urge you to take some time and read it, because there are few who have seen what these guys have, so their insights have value. I've been doing my own fair share of pondering lately. Publicly, the metropolitan broadband story over the past week has been about the marriage of Clearwire and Sprint, about Cablevision getting Wi Fi religion, and about the sad final parting of the ways between EarthLink and the City of Philadelphia. And I've written a lot about all of this over the past week. It's inevitable that I see these latest public events through the lens of my own private experience. How can we do anything but that, after all? I've been consulting with city governments for two years. Like Greg, I'm privy to the human element of the struggles inside an organization that pains itself to work through these issues, and I understand better than most the constraints and dilemmas that must be worked around and balanced in order for progress to emerge as the finished product of a network project. Compare that perspective to the very public experience of journalists and commentators who merely skim the waves from the outside looking in, who pronounce judgment on innovative experiments conducted by highly dedicated individuals and groups, often based on regurgitated conventional wisdom about the way things should be - Monday morning quarterbacking, in many cases. "Where would we be if these same rigorous, unforgiving standards had been applied to some of the big breakthroughs that were achieved in our past?" I wondered this morning over my coffee. "In fact," I realized on further reflection, "all early pioneers were challenged by the same mindsets, that's just the nature of Progress, the eternal struggle between Change and the Status Quo. But those pioneers soldiered on, driven by some internal source, motivated to prove the doubters wrong, or to make a buck, it doesn't matter; in the end, the pioneers succeeded where everyone before them had failed, made a name for themselves, and we're all better off for their efforts." Human beings are a strange lot, no doubt. Despite the abundance of experience and wealth and good things we've created to progress out of the muck and sheer desperation that life has been about for most of our existence, most of us continue to look into the dark void that is the future and come away frightened of what awaits us - even those of us, especially those of us who have so much going for us already. Maybe we're afraid because we feel we have so much to lose? I'm afraid that too often we overestimate the downside, and underestimate the upside. Sure, we all have doubts about the future, but too many allow fear to rule their lives, taking the "safe" (conventional) course when presented with alternatives. "Better the Devil I know, than the one I don't," they too often say. The key problem with that course is that one gets stuck with the Devil...that mindset presupposes that any alternative will be equal to or worse than the status quo (perhaps because the status quo is already so damned good?). But why devalue the chance of success and dramatic improvement so readily? Such is the power of fear: "Better Not to Have Loved and thereby Avoid the Loss," they seem to say. Greg's blog reflected long on the experience that Netscape ran into when they sought to be paid for their efforts to develop the first internet browser software - imagine that, productizing their successful research in order to recover costs and make a buck! The nerve! But what Netscape discovered as the new market unfolded was that their potential customers didn't yet fully value what they had brought to the table. So they learned by experience that they were better off giving it away. Such is life as an Internet pioneer, I guess. While Netscape ultimately faded away, their impact didn't. To the contrary, I'm using their browser to post this blog - Mozilla Firefox is the descendant of their early work. That new form of economics has been one of the most astounding things about the bizarre world of the internet. And it sounds to me, like it did to Greg, a lot like access to outdoor Wi Fi in public spaces. But when innovators in wireless access sought to apply these new internet market rules to Wi Fi access, they were criticized as idealists, because conventional wisdom says that internet access is a service that should be paid for - that's what the cable and telecom ISPs do, after all. And capital and operating costs must be recovered for a model to be sustained - not arguing at all with that, I just don't think we were creative enough the first time around. Of course there are multiple nuances to consider as we analyze what happened - and EarthLink's own corporate motivations clouded these experiments in municipal wireless, after all - but one key take away is that you can't sell something to a market that is not yet ready to buy and that has ready substitutes at an affordable price. To get people to try something new, sometimes you have to give it away, removing that barrier to experimentation. Think of the sample tables at grocery stores...Sometimes, you even have to pay them to take it. It's just not easy breaking in a new product in a new market. Most internet users don't yet understand why they would even need to access broadband when they're not sitting down in front of a computer. Mobile broadband is still too new, but then, not too long ago, cellular phones were for rich businesspeople, I had a pager that worked just fine, thank you very much. Consider these points then, as an adjunct to Greg's thoughts on the nature of Free in regards to Wi Fi. 1. Not Free, Subsidized. I grew up in the 1960s, watching Free TV - sure, it was only 2-3 channels of content, depending on the market, and we usually got a Native American "Big Chief" test pattern at midnight when TV programming went off for the night, but it was still a relatively new medium - we forget how new Wi Fi still is, much newer than even TV was in 1965. The business model back then was broadcasting advertising-subsidized content to end devices that the consumer bought and owned. The network operator ran the national network, with local franchisees running local operations and buying content from national networks who procured the content from creative talent in NY and LA. Big advertisers paid for the privilege of gaining access to the viewing public through the network. Local advertisers dealt directly with local franchisees. The network operator and the local franchisee made buckets of cash by selling advertising, not unlike the business model for commercial broadcast radio, on which the TV model was based. We still enjoy "Free" radio broadcasts, in fact, still available in your car or on a nightstand near you. But now you have an option to avoid the commercials by subscribing to satellite radio for a nominal monthly fee, which is gaining traction and growing subscribers, in part by avoiding the commercials, but also by providing more value than you can get with free radio. For that matter, newspapers and magazine publishers played a variation of this game as well, receiving similar support from advertising revenue, although readers paid a nominal fee for the content, thereby subsidizing the cost of production and distribution. The key point: Free was never really ever Free, so much as it was Subsidized - we paid for the right to see entertainment content not with dollars and cents, but with our time and attention to commercial content - we had to watch commercials! But it was perceived and marketed as Free, and that's the same way it could be with Wi Fi - subsidized, but perceived as Free. 2. Freemium. The Freemium model on the internet is a Web 2.0 phenomenon where a start up first gives away its product / software / service in order to generate interest and create a user base, then offers a premium version with more features, better quality, etc. for a small fee. From Wikipedia: "Give your service away for free, possibly ad supported but maybe not, acquire a lot of customers very efficiently through word of mouth, referral networks, organic search marketing, etc, then offer premium priced value added services or an enhanced version of your service to your customer base." This is a modern variation on the Free (ad-subsidized) broadcast TV model above, in so much as its intent is to generate interest and attract a broad user base. It's correlated with the Long Tail analysis by Chris Anderson of Wired magazine. Accepting that search costs on the Internet are near zero and that users can and will find you if you have what they need, it suggests that the logical thing to do is to encourage people to find you by putting out bait. The nature of the new economics is that one can make decent money with a relatively small user base and at a relatively low price, if the payments are repeated monthly, and costs are kept ridiculously low - in essence, that's the Web 2.0 storyline. 3. Commodity Services. Based on costs, IP has turned internet access and VOIP telephony service into a commodity business, but service fees have been kept artificially high for the time being by keeping the number of providers artificially low. This artificial scarcity is consciously engineered by the incumbent service providers with the intent of preserving a very lucrative revenue source - and I frankly can't blame them, I'd no doubt do the same if I were them. When you're on top of the mountain, your job is to kick off others who try to displace you. That's called rational corporate self-interest (which is not, by the way, always the same thing as good public policy). But Municipal Wi Fi came along and offered an alternative that challenged that old "captive customer" business model, which depends on a limited number of options for consumers. The challenge Wi Fi Mesh-based service faced was that consumers were not yet used to getting mobile broadband anywhere they went, and didn't yet value it enough to pay for it - they didn't and still don't know why they should pay for it, so few of them actually do - I'm not surprised, are you? And marketing Wi Fi as a substitute for fixed wire line access was a BIG mistake, because quality of service is not what they said it would be, certainly not comparable to cable or DSL broadband in many cases, and the inevitably strong market competition that early entrants went up against was deadly. A key lesson of early experiments (Google in Mountain View, etc.) was that far more users would come try the service if it were free than if there was a fee attached, and many would grow used to the service over time - and free service had the added benefit of having much lower operating costs by avoiding the billing and high levels of customer service that for-fee service would require. Hmmm. that looks a lot like the Freemium model above to me. Give it away at first, then once consumers value it, start charging a small fee, or series of small fees, or make money off the network traffic it generates. If one understands that one has to create a user base with a new product before charging for it - no value, no revenue - then that's where early models went wrong (among other things!) - they were compelled by investors to monetize private sector investment with aggressive subscriber acquisition models whose subscriber revenues would pay off the network capital AND operating costs in an acceptably short time period. Not. Gonna. Happen. 4. Public Subsidization. And if one accepts that the Freemium model makes sense, then, "How the hell," one may ask, "are you going to pay for the damn network? With Pixie Dust?" So goes the frustration of those who pride themselves on having their feet placed firmly on the ground. The problem is that this Freemium model is an operating model, it still requires some cash to launch a network, and it leaves nobody there to pay for the initial capital costs - after all, it arose as a Web 2.0 model, where a Network exists to start with, and that's not the case when it comes to outdoor Wi Fi. That's where municipalities come in as a natural fit, because they have an opportunity to save budget spending by implementing mobile IP applications, but they need a network on which to run those budget saving applications. With sufficient business planning, they will see that they can either own these networks themselves or act as anchor tenants for a private provider, with acceptable risk. Either model will work, but the city has to do the heavy lifting in order to see the light. No avoiding the sit-ups, I'm afraid. When a city acts as a catalyst to bring a network in, they make a Freemium business model possible as well. 5. Private Subsidization. There's yet another alternative. A smart cable (Cablevision) has caught on to all of this and has realized that they can add a 4th leg to their triple play with mobile broadband via Wi Fi Mesh, giving it away to their own customer base as a means of locking in customers. That move changes the customers' value perception on cable service ("now you can take it with you when you leave the house!") and hopefully lowers or mitigates churn, the bane of network subscriber operations. Going on the offensive this way by changing the value proposition for their service is smart. What else is a small cable to do to stay competitive? Here then is an open door, if companies will just walk through it. It will be hard to do at first, I admit. But if the telecom and cable incumbents in any of these markets where there is a municipal wireless network would just seek to buy access and then give it away as a reward for their customers, as Cablevision plans to do, they'd find that it's a relatively low marketing cost. It's especially low when compared to some other ways that providers currently spend their money (lobbying for protection from market forces, for instance?). When compared to the cost of losing an existing customer, the real threat that incumbent providers face, giving away Wi Fi access is pretty cheap insurance. There are legs with this strategy, we'll see more of it, but it requires a motivated ISP to go there. This would put incumbents in the position of stimulating more broadband usage in a local area, which is commensurate with their grand strategy, after all. The Bottom Line We are all to some extent still trapped in conventional paradigms of internet access as a service that we buy, just like telephone or cable service. We have a ways to go to reach the point where the market accepts that internet access can be a gateway service that opens up the consumer to an array of other services that they can buy over the internet. It's a two-tier problem, in fact: 1) we need a last mile wireless broadband infrastructure and a way to pay for it; and 2) we need a new user paradigm and business model that is more expansive than our current way of using the internet and doing business. When all that happens, Free(mium) Wi Fi should gain traction. And, the aggressive provider that chooses to be bold, to give away both Internet Access and VOIP in exchange for long-term lock in on some other type service? My bet is that they will kill the competition over time. But I think we still have a long way to go before we see that, as there are too many players right now who see free access or free VOIP as anathema, a non-starter, like preaching "socialist" health care to a conservative. They won't listen. If the choice is between cannibalizing their existing revenues and staying with the status quo, after all, they have a point. The elephant in the room is that current providers haven't figured out a new way of providing value, competing, and making money - their current model is still way too lucrative, after all, for them to be all that creative. And cities are not yet truly pressed to be really innovative, not that many of them. They are waiting on a few to go forward and succeed, then the rest will follow. "The line forms at the right - the timid need not apply....Next!" I wish there were better news, but it looks to me like this will all just take time to sort out...Sigh...
Posted on May 16, 2008 at 10:16 AM | Comments (0) Happy Birthday, MetroNetIQ! Three Years Young!
How's this for some food for thought - Birthday Cake! MetroNetIQ as a blog is 3 years old today. I published my first blogs on the website UnwireMyCity.com. on May 16, 2005. 8 months later, I redesigned the site, renamed it MetroNetIQ, and since then, collectively I've published close to 700 articles...of course, my writings tend to run a little longer than most blog posts... This is a project that has always been somewhat selfish: it's a way for me to gather my thoughts as I consult with clients and converse with friends in this very small industry, not much more than that. It's a little strange to blog, pulling thoughts from my head and sending them out onto the Internet for all to read, but I've grown quite used to it, come to enjoy it. You are my (mostly) anonymous readers and I appreciate your reading and paying attention to the blog. I get a moderate, growing amount of traffic on this site - nothing to blow the trumpets about, but I'm gratified to see the upward slope of the curve when I graph the results. MetroNetIQ is at about 4,000 unique visitors / 35,000 page views a month. By major Internet traffic'd sites, that's not much, but it represents a community of sorts, and to that extent, I'm gratified, because community development is a core driver and passion for me. Still, it never ceases to amaze me how the readership has steadily grown since my launch, with absolutely no promotion, just word of mouth. That indicates to me that interest in this topic is growing, and that readers like my writing enough to come back. I've never felt compelled to drive traffic to my site, I guess I've always been too busy to bother. I'm more interested to spend my time writing and speaking out. After all, I make my money by consulting, I only gather my thoughts here. I count on you all to spread the word, link to my site, and tell others if you read something you think is worth sharing. For a look back at where this journey began, check out these original blogs posted in the May 2005 archive. I feel like we've come a long way on this site in three short years. Back then, I began by clearing out my laptop of files I had saved when I posted those first posts...but I soon warmed to the whole idea of blogging and taking public stands on issues. It's been a fun ride for me so far, hope it has been the same for you, and that you'll keep coming back and spreading the word on the benefits of getting our society connected and mobilized. Posted on May 16, 2008 at 06:43 AM | Comments (0) Rumors of Death Greatly ExaggeratedIt seems appropriate to publish this good study that looks at what comes after we say prayers over the dead husk of Municipal Wi Fi 1.0 - aka the Big City Free model... I urge you to check out this report from a few weeks back, for one of the most comprehensive reviews of the current state of municipal wireless in the US. (See Municipal Wi-Fi 2.0: As large-scale, for-profit projects falter, innovative new models emerge. The bottom line conclusion - Municipal Wi Fi 2.0 is seen in projects based on municipal applications and other areas of innovation ... but no more Free Wi Fi, or Field of Dreams build-it-and-they-will-come ... they did (build it), and they didn't (come) Posted on May 15, 2008 at 08:01 PM | Comments (0) I Can See CLEARly Now - Part II"I can see clearly now that the rain has gone, I can see all the obstacles in my way..." Ray Charles There's something deep about a blind guy seeing clearly ... deep. I finally saw Ray on DVD the other night, man, Jamie Fox earned that Best Actor Oscar, baby! (Special Thanks to Bobby Mack at Momentum Online Internet and ERF Wireless Solutions for reminding me about the Ray Charles version of these Johnny Nash lyrics found on the The Harder They Come soundtrack). Part I of this post (here) lays the groundwork for the analysis of this post, so I recommend you take the 10 minutes (5 for you speed readers) to read that post first. Conclusions and Impact on the Clearwire/Sprint Merger follow. I'm back to The 747 and Helicopter analysis, again and again. Inevitably, Broadband is about both Capacity and Mobility, so this analysis looks at the impact of the WiMAX strategy from both those perspectives. Clearwire has adopted a strategy that attempts to merge the massive bandwidth of capacity with the ubiquity and flexibility of mobility through the technology of mobile WiMAX (IEEE 802.16e), so the impact of this move will be felt on both the wireline players and the wireless players. Conclusions and Impacts 1. The rules of physics and RF mean that WiMAX is more limited than FTTH when it comes to capacity, less so when compared to Cable and DSL Broadband. Conclusion: WiMAX will bring more competitive pressure to bear on strategies that would seek to squeeze the last bit of value out of Cable and DSL broadband infrastructure, spurring on the drive to deploy FTTH. WiMAX, Fiber, and Cable/DSL Broadband A national WiMAX network will force the hand of Big Telco and Big Cable to invest further in 21st Century infrastructure (aka FTTH) if they are to hold on to customers and retain the subscriber revenue they depend on - see already how Comcast and Time Warner have joined the new Clearwire team (my guess is that this is only a part of their solution, with upgrades to their physical plant completing the strategy). Smaller Cablevision in the NE has opted to pursue Wi Fi Mesh in its service territory. Verizon has a headstart on deploying a FTTH infrastructure, so their strategy has been vindicated somewhat by this latest move by Clearwire - I'm guessing that ATT is burning the midnight oil to re-evaluate its plans and develop new strategies to adapt to this new entry - many feel they have invested too little to date in fiber investments and I'm concluding that they will be more impacted by this new market entry than their rival Verizon. The battle of these giants will take place first in the larger markets, the big cities and densely populated areas of the country. The entry of a larger, more robust Clearwire/Sprint will drive more competition in these markets sooner than we would otherwise see, which can be expected to spur on commercial adoption of mobile broadband applications and cultural acceptance and demand for access to high bandwidth mobile applications like video (why do you think the cable players and Brighthouse are in the mix?). After all, recent history has shown that in most cases, we tend to prefer pictures and sound over words, whether spoken or written - certainly, we value our video when it makes sense. Those of us outside the major markets may have more time to adapt on a wire line basis, but will ultimately be impacted as well. WiMAX offers an alternative to DSL, Cable and FTTH, but there will be trade-offs - namely, fiber has a capacity advantage and WiMAX has a cost advantage. Fiber has virtually infinite capacity, while WiMAX is limited by both RF physics and the ability to allocate spectrum - this capacity advantage for FTTH won't go away over time. But FTTH costs far more to deploy. While the costs to block traffic, dig trenches, lay fiber duct, and pull fiber won't be going down, WiMAX equipment can be expected to improve in performance and drop in price, making it cheaper to deploy over time, extending the cost advantage of WiMAX. 2. WiMAX has advantages over Wi Fi Mesh and LTE when it comes to mobility, but those are balanced by certain disadvantages. Conclusion: WiMAX will not replace LTE or Wi Fi Mesh, but will lead to adaptations by the cellular wireless and wireless broadband industries to accommodate a larger, more lively playing field of options. WiMAX and LTE The very name says it all, doesn't it? Long-Term Evolution or LTE, is the cellular industry's plan to transition to an all IP network, someday. I mean, it practically screams for a competitor to come in and disrupt, doesn't it? And therein lies McCaw's advantage - plans for 3G and 4G have seemed to unfold at a glacial pace within the cellular industry. Granted, that's only when viewed from the outside, as the investment and complexity of making the shift from one generation of wireless communication technology to the next is not as simple as throwing a switch. Transition of both infrastructure and markets takes time and must be evolutionary. But that is the opening that McCaw will use, as he enjoys the ability to move faster to gain an advantage on the leaders - Verizon Wireless, ATT Wireless, and their counterparts around the globe - by putting his money where his mouth is and starting his company early. This merger with Sprint, the increasingly frustrated and hapless third-place company in the US cellular industry, confirms the strength and validity of the threat Clearwire poses to LTE (4G). If WiMAX establishes a strong beachhead before 4G even launches, then the prize for 4G will be much less than expected, and the strategy of the cellular players will have to adapt. But so big and powerful is the cellular economy, I wouldn't bet for a minute that WiMAX will be able to replace LTE. Still, we can expect significant influence, whether to accelerate expected bandwidth speeds, make the service more customer-friendly, or make service cheaper to consumers - in the end, more competition means that consumers will win. WiMAX and Wi Fi Mesh By now, I have to give a hand to all the Wi Fi lovers in the reading audience...for I've saved this part for last...thanks for your patience! The good news is that Wi Fi Mesh remains a valid technology for the markets and geographies and consumers that it was before this announcement. WiMAX is different from Wi Fi Mesh, and it makes sense to take a little time to examine those differences. On the one hand, WiMAX has built on the IEEE success that Wi Fi enjoyed, going beyond the industry standardization of all the technical elements down to the branding level. Thank Intel and others for that. I thank Tropos Networks co-founder Narasimha Chari for this great analogy. "WiMAX is like a really bright light mounted on the highest point in the city." It shines down on the whole city, but there are pockets of shadow, where the light doesn't reach. And the users are a long way away from the access point, way up there on top of the skyscraper or water tower. It is simpler to deploy, has greater carrying capacity per node, and costs less for a system than does Wi Fi Mesh. But it brings a different value proposition to a city than does Wi Fi Mesh. The choice between these two technologies, if there is one, depends on the rationale for a wireless network, the project economics, and the business plan. "Wi Fi Mesh, on the other hand, is like the streetlights on which its equipment is mounted." They cover the city with lights that are not as bright as a mega-bright light in the center of town, but their multiple points give the streetlight system more flexibility to direct light where it's needed most.
As an aside, in Austin, we had a system of "artificial moonlight" towers at the turn of the century, which was replaced by the more modern streetlight system over time. The original moonlight towers are now preserved as historical landmarks, odd anomalies that dot the downtown area. Access Points. Wi Fi Mesh thus puts the access points much closer to each client device that they serve. The nature of RF is that the signal strength is stronger the closer the receiving device is to the access point, and less signal strength is required to transmit a message back to the access point if it is closer to the client device. There are fewer access points per system with WiMAX - advantage WiMAX. Wi Fi Mesh access points are easier to communicate with going up - advantage Wi Fi Mesh. Coverage Area. One way to look at WiMAX and Wi Fi Mesh is as two clouds that hover over an area, one a High Cloud (WiMAX) and one a Low Cloud (Wi Fi Mesh) - you can have both, or one, or the other. The nature of each technology is that the height at which a WiMAX access point is mounted will drive its coverage area, while Wi Fi Mesh access points need to mounted pretty uniformly at about 20 feet off the ground, and the number and dispersion rate of the access points will drive the coverage area. Spectrum. WiMAX operates on licensed bands of spectrum, making it the preferred technology for carriers (and Clearwire is a carrier in every sense of the word). The advantage of licensed spectrum is that you know the resource will be there when you seek to use it. You can sue people if they interfere with your use of "your" spectrum license. But it costs money, man does it cost money. Wi Fi, on the other hand, has taken off in widespread consumer adoption, in large part, because it's cheap - first, it doesn't require a spectrum license. The advantage of unlicensed spectrum is that it is dirt cheap - low barrier to entry - at least in terms of getting started. The disadvantage is that once underway, you have higher operating costs, if you run into interference problems. You have to have a strategy for sharing use of the spectrum with others. If you can work around the issues, it's golden. If you can't, it can be a pain in the ass. But it's a pain that many feel is more than offset by avoiding the need to buy a spectrum license. With 4.9 GHz Public Safety Wi Fi, you have the advantage of a licensed frequency that is available at no cost, but its use is limited to public safety. But that gives municipalities a strong reason to look hard and long at Wi Fi v. WiMAX. Client side chipsets. WiMAX, because it is much newer, is way behind the curve in terms of consumer adoption. Any radio network system has both transmission and reception functions, and a two-way radio system like both WiMAX and Wi Fi Mesh incorporates that duality in both the network components (the access points) and the client devices. But the client devices in both technologies tend to have much less power than the access points, and that's where proximity comes in, which confers an advantage on Wi Fi: Wi Fi can upload data from client devices to the nearby access points more efficiently. A second advantage, perhaps the killer advantage, is that Wi Fi chipsets have reached a level of maturity and production levels have driven costs down to the point where it makes sense to embed Wi Fi technology in a variety of mobile devices, ranging from laptops, to cell phones, to music players, to game players, to digital cameras, to fixed video surveillance cameras, to police car light bars, to police car automated license plate readers - the list goes on and on. And that proliferation of Wi Fi Chips is a sustaining advantage that WiMAX will be up against, for the next decade or so, until such time as the cost of WiMAX client side chipsets comes down with widespread adoption and production increases. It will take a long time for WiMAX to catch up, perhaps Wi Fi will be around for decades. It's hard to say, because the marketplace is at work now. Who knows how low the Wi Fi chip price will go and where they will wind up? I'm reminded of that first Casio Watch I saw in the early 1980s, with an LCD display, so long ago. They were expensive when they first came out, but soon, I was seeing clocks imbedded in giveaway pens at trade shows. And now, twenty-five years later, we have LCD HD TVs. Awesome. It took time, but the declining costs on LCD chips made this inevitable.
A similar pattern is progressing with LED lights, now showing up everywhere as production costs have dropped. From Christmas Lighting to hand-cranked survival flashlights (no batteries or light bulbs!), the future of lighting is more and more about LED and less about the revolutionary incandescent light bulb that Edison pioneered, which you have to admit, has had a helluva run. So, back to reality, after that diversion on the cost digression of Wi Fi chips...my bottom line conclusions on the impact of a national WiMAX network follow. Nothing but good, bring it on! 1. The advantages of WiMAX will drive it into the broadband conversation, both at the fixed and wireless levels. 2. The spending by Clearwire on infrastructure will not only force all players to adapt by moving more rapidly down the adoption curve and upgrading infrastructure, it will also stimulate the market to adopt wireless broadband applications faster. 3. WiMAX has a place in an integrated metropolitan area network (MAN), alongside FTTH, LTE, and Wi Fi Mesh (not to mention all the other flavors of wireless not covered in this analysis). The Bottom Line I believe that all four of these technologies will comprise an integrated broadband ecosystem when all is said and done, just as we now enjoy a highly integrated transportation infrastructure that readily accommodates a variety of technologies and infrastructures, interwoven to meet the different needs of the marketplace. Society and the marketplace create forcing mechanisms that make the best new items mesh with the best of the old. Powerful interests can either delay the inevitable, buying time for an old technology as current cable and telecom incumbents have, or shoe-horning in new technologies, as Clearwire will attempt to do. They will battle it out, but the end result is a matter of when, not if. All technologies tend to be produced and introduced faster than society can adapt, so there is a lag between introduction and widespread adoption. Having the momentum of billions of investor dollars driving deployment of infrastructure and adoption of new technology is an accelerator of a natural trend, beyond being a catalyst to stimulate the process. The Bottom, Bottom Line WiMAX is at the very front end of the adoption curve, but it will find its role in time. That said, it will take longer than Clearwire thinks to accomplish Craig McCaw's dynamic vision of a national WiMAX network driving a mobile broadband society - I recommend that you take whatever time frame they give for ultimate deployment and double or triple it. But my hat's off to McCaw and the whole Clearwire team for trying, and I think we all will be the better for it. Now its time to get back to work! Here are a couple of other viewpoints on Clearwire/Sprint: Agility Ventures and Light Reading. I agree. What they said. Posted on May 15, 2008 at 12:21 PM | Comments (0) I Can See CLEARly Now - Part I"Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind, it's gonna be a bright, bright, bright, bright sunshiney day" Jimmy Cliff "Change occurs because there is a gap between what is and what should be." Craig McCaw Since it was announced last week, I've been chewing on the impact of the Clearwire/Sprint merger (see Unstrung's analysis from Monday). So here's my preliminary stab at an assessment, no doubt to be followed by refinement over the coming weeks and months. It seems fitting, that there was a tornado warning here in Central Texas last night, as major storms moved through the area, finally dumping massive amounts of rain about midnight last night. Now, the sky has that special clarity that only comes after a thorough cleansing, and the birds are chirping and its sunny all about this morning - and cool too, an amazing thing for May 15 in Central Texas. The after effects remind me of this Jimmy Cliff hit from long ago. From its early beginnings back in October 2003, telecom icon Craig McCaw's Clearwire venture has been channeling Jimmy Cliff, at least in its public pronouncements. It's been all about leveraging McCaw's own clear vision on the potential of the convergence of broadband and wireless, as only he can see, as only he can do. His past successes as a pioneer in cellular give credence to his still sketchy plan - all seem loathe to disbelieve the vision for a national WiMAX network, grandiose as it is and skeptical though they may be, given what he's accomplished already. It's the Halo Effect at work - quite a sight to behold. No doubt, McCaw understands the Halo Effect well and views it as but one more arrow in his quiver that he can use to accomplish his goals. He seems to be playing three-dimensional chess while the rest of us play checkers. More after the jump. Still, after all its many well-advertised growth stages, Clearwire remains more about potential than actual accomplishment. But few can argue with that potential, certainly not me. And that's what gets me excited - with Clearwire, we have a well-funded disruptive force that has - so far - very deftly maneuvered around the weaknesses of the entrenched incumbents. It's like McCaw plays corporate jujutsu, playing his opponents' strengths and energies against them, rather than countering them directly, and in so doing, turning those very strengths into weaknesses - very deft indeed. It's not unlike the excitement we feel about Google or Apple, two companies that stand out as willing to take bold moves to force change to happen according to their own visions. The very act of being bold and being first confers an advantage, when the rest of the competition has been lulled into inaction, playing it safe to protect their lead. So, the potential for significant change becomes all the more real, all the more exciting when big players and innovators start to draw together, as happened this past week with the announcement of this string of companies working together - Clearwire, Sprint, Intel Capital, Google, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Bright House Networks. It's not unlike what happened when Steve Jobs convinced the recording industry to play along and the iTunes/iPod revolution was launched, transforming music as we know it. Like many of us, McCaw knows that the current broadband situation needs to change if we are to move forward and take advantage of the promise of technology - the difference is that McCaw not only has the vision, but also the ability to take action on that vision, aligning market forces to drive the needed change over the opposition of those who prefer the status quo. Where we have managed only to nip around the edges so far and innovate within our smaller spheres of influence, McCaw acts in a far larger sphere, indeed, the largest sphere of influence, actually bringing different industries together to drive the change that he envisions. The big questions in our little niche industry of metropolitan broadband are "What are the odds of success for a nationwide WiMAX network? and what will be the consequences of a nationwide WiMAX network? and how will this vision impact our vision and plans?" For my own analysis, I'm drawn again to history, to what we saw with the extension of transportation networks...from the early days of the Roman Empire, the technology of the roads they built were the foundation of connecting the disparate pieces of their own network of territories. When our forefathers realized what they had with this sprawling new nation, only gradually made clear as explorers brought back news from the west, the keys to pioneering the vast landscape were the networks they built, from the early canals in the east, largely made obsolete by the drive to build the railroad network later in the 19th Century. Midway through the 20th Century, Pres. Eisenhower promoted the construction of a national interstate highway system to connect the states, ostensibly for national defense reasons, much like the roads that connected the Roman Empire. The introduction of air travel at the start of the 20th Century may have freed us from the limits of gravity and collapsed the notion of distance and time as an essential element of travel - and that proved over time to be game-changing - but innovations in air transportation did not eliminate the need for ground transportation. To the contrary, they only expanded the universe of options for moving goods and people across both long and short distances and increased travel put more pressure on the ground infrastructure over time. We still don't have the personal hovercraft or helicopters I daydreamed about in my youth, as I paged through my dad's Popular Science magazines in the 1960s, because they proved to be impractical options in the face of more economic and reliable ground transportation options. At some point, vision meets reality and accommodations are made - the Possible must always yield in time to the Practical. And what did we see as air travel unfolded in the 20th Century? A variety of technological innovations steadily improved the tools of air transport, and the infrastructure adapted to accommodate the new technologies. Airports connect with highway and rail transport networks to move people and goods. Rental car agencies, shuttle services and taxi cab lines provide ground transportation options once travelers disembark from their airplanes. And different types of air transport co-exist for different purposes, in an ecosystem that accommodates the needs of the marketplace (see The 747 and the Helicopter). It will be this way with broadband as the technology progresses and the infrastructure is built to adapt to market needs and technology options. The conclusion I make from this little diversion through ground and air transportation history is that future networks tend to build on past networks, occasionally replacing them entirely over time (taken a trip on a canal lately?), but more often, improving on them with new technology and gradually making them obsolete and less valued, or giving them new value as a secondary solution, depending on the differential between the old and new solutions. Rail travel still thrives in Europe, and along the dense corridors of the NE US, and in dense cities where mass transit makes sense, but it has been almost wiped out in many parts of the US by our love of the automobile. My guess is rail may be on the upswing in the coming years, as some of the allure of personal freedom is offset by the high cost of energy, and efficiency becomes more attractive than convenience. So, one thing we can conclude from the Clearwire vision is that the new national WiMAX network will not wipe out the existing networks - no need for panic or to wait in the hope that WiMAX will solve all your problems - the task to build a national network to match McCaw's vision will be so great, it will take several years for any significant impact to become evident. But the mere threat of impact is already being incorporated into strategic planning and will provide slow movers the incentive they need to act faster than they otherwise would. This, my friends, is what a Catalyst looks like. It's a kick in the ass for all those who thought they had all the time in the world to bring about change, and told the rest of us just to be patient and we would see all good things come in time. We don't want to wait, and Craig McCaw knows that more than most. My conclusions and impact analysis in the next post - sorry - this is taking too long! Posted on May 15, 2008 at 08:43 AM | Comments (0) Thinking Outside the Box - the "Netbook"
What could you do with a new device that was designed from the ground up to connect to the Internet while mobile? What if your immediate environment was swimming with radio waves that provided low-cost broadband connectivity? What would that be like? That's the whole idea behind the "netbook" - a new class of low-cost, low-weight, high-performance long-lasting-battery-equipped mobile PCs that start off with a different premise than the notebook PC, or laptop, which was a essentially a slimmed down version of the desktop PC when it came out (back when the Internet was mostly an idea), limited by technology to short battery life and a heavy package. The premise back when the notebook was first introduced was that business travelers, needed to take the desktop along when mobile, so the laptop sacrificed some speed and storage, but gave the user the essential - portability. Then connectivity was added as a feature, first with dial up, then with wireless broadband. Now, we've come full circle. The NEW PREMISE is that internet connectivity, not portability, is primary. Portability is expected, but is no longer the primary feature. Desktop applications are expected as well, but secondary. Consumer twists like an embedded camera and pre-loaded Skype, which turns the device into a telephone, are added bonuses. The netbook can do so much more, and costs so much less. This should be a huge trend, but adoption will take time. (See also my post on the Eee PC from January 14, four months ago.) I can remember the videos of the Apple Newton that came with the product (on VHS) when I got one in 1994 - 14 years ago. I was captain of a graduate student team on an internship at the Apple Customer Service Center here in Austin, in my last semester in Graduate School of Business at UT. Each member of the student team got a Newton (the smart ones sold theirs right away). I kept mine, so now its a museum piece.
Apple had the vision, but didn't have the technology at the time to back it up. They were a full decade and a half ahead of their time. That time has come now, and the new product is the netbook. The vision of the Newton for always on, anywhere connectivity and computing is realized when the netbook is used in a metropolitan broadband environment. Posted on May 14, 2008 at 08:02 AM | Comments (0) D-I-V-O-R-C-EWell, that's it, they're splitting the sheets, the clothes are flying out the apartment window as we speak. Earthlink has called it quits and is pulling its equipment down off the streetlights of Philadelphia. Like me, you no doubt have friends who have gone through a divorce. Or perhaps you have yourself. It's a terribly awkward and painful time. Many outside the relationship see the split coming way before the actual event itself. So gut-wrenching is the process itself that there's a long sigh and a painful denouement when the divorce is actually final. Then, there comes a long period of adjustment to a new paradigm, where the parties recover. But, it's not just the parties themselves to the divorce who must adjust - the need to realign falls on all of us who count ourselves within the sphere of the divorced parties. I've lost good friends to divorce, despite my best efforts - even though I vowed to stay friends with both the man and woman in the divorce - we were close friends as couples, after all - but it most often has proven to be well nigh on impossible and one or both friendships fade slowly away. There's a new dynamic at work in the social fabric. We've lost several families from our church membership in the same manner. But life goes on.
So, with the news yesterday that the split between Earthlink and the City of Philadelphia has been finalized - finally - it feels like a divorce to me. What does it mean for all of us in the sphere of this highly-watched marriage? This first big municipal wireless deal was held up as a model of things to come, after all. We scrutinized this union as it unfolded .. analyzing it step by step. I'm reminded of the Fairytale Wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Di, back on July 29, 1981. It was so beautiful when they came together as Prince and Princess, but so ugly when they split... This feels to me like the second shoe finally hitting the floor. It's time to move beyond this crash and burn of Muni Wi Fi 1.0. The business model failed, but the potential of the technology lives on. It's important that we don't throw out the baby with the bathwater, which many have already done, so eager are they to put the final nails in the coffin. (Let's see how many metaphors I can string together)... Personally, I've already moved on, having processed Earthlink's withdrawal from the industry in a series of posts last year, in August and these two posts in September (see Reader's Digest Condensed Version and Big City MuniFi and Sand Castles - Fun While They Lasted). I urge you to check those posts out for a thorough discussion on what happened and what's in store. What's more appealing to me is to focus on what comes next, because the problems that the Earthlink model sought to address sure haven't gone away, just because this first solution proved itself to be a turkey. I think there are three trends to watch... 1. Public Ownership of a Wireless Network based on Municipal Cost Savings - see my recent white paper, Lowest Risk, Publicly-Owned Networks and the upcoming announcement on San Marcos, TX's plans for wireless broadband (MetroNetIQ is completing an engagement with San Marcos). There's lots and lots more to come on mobile broadband - short and sweet, Earthlink was an experiment that failed, with high visibility and emotion (NOT the end of an era, as many will make it out to be). In the meantime, sit back and enjoy the show, because it will be one hell of a ride.
Posted on May 13, 2008 at 06:58 PM | Comments (0) Wireless has a Place at the Table(I think in this particular analogy, wireless is a napkin at the table - for more scintillating analogies, see also The 747 and the Helicopter). After much ado about FTTH, there was indeed some discussion of wireless topics at the Broadband Properties Summit 08 - it wasn't all about fiber, though nearly so. One panel in the MDU track (Multi-Dwelling Unit - that's apartments and condos) was interesting, titled "Wi Fi: Real-World Lessons and Functions." The Moderator was Henry Pye, AVP, Resident Services and Technology, JPI Partners, LLC. On the panel were: The Bottom Line (for those in a hurry) Wireless has a place ... as ... More after the jump (for those who really want all the details ... ) John Baloga - COO, Airwave Infrastructure Options slide Coverage and Capacity slide Steve Carlock, Sales, BelAir Chris Bowman, CTO and Co-Founder, Korcett Holdings Steve Sadler, Director, Ancillary Services, Post Apartment Homes LP Ian Davis, Lawyer, Muncsch Hardt Kopf and Harr Q&A "Please summarize the business value of wireless in an MDU facility?" (I asked this question!) Wireless has a place: Posted on May 13, 2008 at 12:49 PM | Comments (0) Fiber = Economic Development
(I have to say, the fiber pictures are way, way cooler than the wireless ones ...WOW)... Back at the Broadband Properties Summit 08 in Dallas two weeks ago ... Joe Savage, President, Fiber-to-the-Home Council, introduced the speaker on the topic of this session: "FTTH Means Economic Growth for Your Town" Dan Rogers, the President of the Economic Development Corporation of Kendall County, Texas (this is a picturesque rural county in the Texas Hill Country, just northwest of San Antonio). Dan Rogers, Pres, Eco Dev Corp, Kendall County, TX Kendall County, whose County Seat is the charming little burg of Boerne, and erstwhile potential wireless city (see Cisco Puts Its Best Foot Forward, Shows Leadership from November 8, 2006), is growing rapidly and is predicted to have a population of 50,000 by 2020 (which gives you an idea of the remaining rural quality of the county - very pretty indeed). Dan described the value of broadband to his Eco Dev strategy, and all I can conclude is that he has struck up a very healthy relationship with Guadalupe Valley Telecommunications Cooperative, the resident telephone company and a strong adherent to fiber, apparently. (such a strong backer of broadband infrastructure really, really helps an economic development strategy, I do believe). According to Dan, the key to a strong economic development strategy is to avoid being eliminated in the competition for Site Selection, when companies decide which cities they will consider for a move or expansion - make it to the Short List, and then you have a chance to negotiate. This is also a good strategy when it comes to March Madness. Quality of Life is a huge component in Site Selection which helps Boerne and Kendall County. Working with the telecom and utilities also helps. Broadband has now become a critical component for site selection, and based on the relationship and partnership with GVTC, Kendall County is well positioned. It's also a good fit for the demographics: commuters in beltway communities require high speed connectivity when they get home, and having the FTTH option provides them with an opportunity to avoid commuting altogether. Dan sees this growing as the price of gas goes up. Have to agree. Connectivity is becoming the key aspect to attract/retain quality employers and residents – they want FIBER! A target market for Kendall county's economic development strategy is Medical Research - and doctors and hospitals need Fiber for X-Rays and MRIs and other high data rate graphic content. Next up, Jeff Mnick, FTTH Council member and VP Sales & Marketing, Guadalupe Valley Telecom Coop, moderated a panel discussion titled "Leading-Edge FTTH in Texas." On the panel were: 1. Trinidad Aguirre, Verizon Focus on DFW area and FTTH strategy - 100% overbuild in network, so no prioritization, as everyone gets it! FIOS TV and FIOS Internet are the two key offers. FIOS Internet FIOS TV By 2010, $18 B will have been invested in fiber (sound of eyes popping) Manufacturers and software development companies will take it to the next level. Key motivator to go to Fiber is Access Line Loss - POTS has well past being a commodity and Verizon cannot depend on its revenue contribution for the future and now, DSL is less and less satisfying - both Verizon and its customers need more speed. 2. Joey Anderson, Nortex Muenster and Valley View are the two fiber communities - both small towns of 1-2000 in size About the company: About the deployments: 3. Charlie Cano, Etex Similar in size to Nortex - highly innovative cooperative with about 18,000 access lines, spread over 1,700 sq mi in E. Texas, providing a full boat of services Started deploying FTTH about 5 years ago, and its been a learning process since then; BPON, now GPON, used all techniques to deploy, etc. Only certain areas get fiber because they have copper as well. So, have to accommodate a service offer for both technologies. Their strategy is to deploy empty conduit as neighborhoods go in, to accommodate future growth. Local content insertion is a key differentiation against the competition - local content is a big deal in small rural territories. There's is a dynamic project with long-term deployment, where broadband was the driver Q&A What about an Open Network Philosophy? Joe - (reality based) "one of the challenges is to keep the services bundled with the access - it's a reality that Open Access is coming" Posted on May 12, 2008 at 09:35 PM | Comments (0) Fiber Rules (when it comes to Capacity)
My notes from the Broadband Properties Summit 08 in Dallas two weeks ago - first batch... One of the first general sessions, researcher Mike Render welcomed the crowd of about 300 and presented new data from the Fiber to the Home Council of North America on Fiber to the Home (FTTH) deployments. Consider these facts for the fiber market in the US, as of March 2008: - 11.7 million homes passed with fiber The number and variety of services over fiber is growing: 8 million households are offered services, and 1.6 million have accepted same (that's a 20% take rate, by my math ...). As for homes offered 100 Mbs connection - the premiere fiber service level - that number has grown from 12,000 in March 2007 to 17,000 in March 2008. FTTH take rates are growing again, after dipping with the introduction of Verizon's mammoth fiber build out in 2004 - from a take rate of 41% in March 2004, the rates dipped, but are now back up to 29% in March 2008. In contract, non-RBOC competition - mostly smaller fiber providers - is much more robust, around a 52% take rate, but to be sure, that's in less competitive areas, mostly rural areas with nothing close to FTTH as competition, so some take rates can go as high as 80%. And in some areas with no competition whatsoever, ILECs that completely replace their copper with FTTH make for a 100% take rate (consequently, the 52% number may be a little skewed). Statistics can be a funny business. There's more, I just needed to catch my breath... Fiber providers are a diverse lot - of course, there are more providers out there than just Verizon, though the big V is most certainly the 800 lb. gorilla in this industry. Verizon has over 2 Million connections while the remaining 593 other providers have only 833,000 connections between them. But interest in fiber is growing: 41% of ILECs (small telecoms) surveyed indicated they are very likely to have a fiber deployment in the next five years. What do fiber projects look like? Well, 83% are "overbuild" projects, where service already exists, leaving only 17% as "Greenfield." New technologies have made it easier to deploy fiber, and cheaper too. When you focus on Master Planned Communities, you see that Brand New Developments have grown from 20% in 2004 to 80% in 2008. According to Render, the current economic "downturn" (note: there is no official Recession yet!) will negatively impact fiber deployments - housing starts have declined - inventory is starting to work off, between 7 and 12 months, so he expects we'll see a turnaround. Nevertheless, you can't dismiss the fact that the economic climate has a dampening effect on fiber world - it's a rather depressing note to end on, if you ask me ... Still, looks like Fiber is here to stay, with lots of room to grow! Great way to kick off a conference! Posted on May 12, 2008 at 08:42 PM | Comments (0) The 747 and the Helicopter
OK, listen closely ..."This is the Infinite Capacity of Fiber / FTTH..."
"This is the Ubiquitous Mobility and Utility of Wireless Broadband ..." We Need Both. I wish I could remember who used this analogy, so I could attribute it. Two weeks ago, I was at the Broadband Properties Summit 08 in Dallas, Texas - it's a good show if you can ever make it, chock full of good information, with a heavy focus on FTTH. I have to admit, as a mostly wireless-focused consultant, at times I felt a little like a fish out of water, but then, it's probably people like me that get the most out of conference like this, because I have so much to learn about fiber. I've made this argument since I launched this site 2.5 years ago: Connectivity is about BROADBAND, not about Wireless...(I've also made the argument that networks are more about METROPOLITAN REGIONS than they are about Municipalities) - thus, my ditching "municipal wireless" in exchange for "metropolitan broadband." We need wired solutions like FTTH, Cable, and DSL for reliable connectivity when we are in a fixed position, like at home or in the office. We need wireless solutions like cellular wireless (voice and/or data) and wireless broadband when we are mobile and away from our normal fixed locations. Hot Spots are a blend - really a portable solution that is not so much mobile as it is an alternative, fixed location. That said, I spend far more time on wireless than I do wired solutions, because wireless is my bread and butter. Until that changes, I'll no doubt keep spending more time on wireless. But that's no reason that we all shouldn't look at wireless and wired broadband as two equally valid and complementary technologies. Asking which is better pre-supposes that there is a certain need being filled and that they are comparable solutions to fill that need - most times, one is better than the other. Having this conversation regarding the need for both FTTH and wireless broadband at the Summit, not one or the other, I recall some people looking at me like I was crazy. But I also remember others nodding, and one expert in particular finishing my sentences for me, saying "Oh, yeah, it's like the 747 and the helicopter..." "How so?" I asked. "The 747 is hard to beat if what you need to do is move a large number of people economically and comfortably over a very long distance, say, over an ocean or between continents. The helicopter is the best solution if what you need to do is to move a small number of people or things from any one location to another, generally over a relatively short distance, irrespective of airports and runways." Huh, hard to argue with that! Similarly, there is no better network for capacity than fiber - FTTH offers nearly infinite capacity and long-term viability because of its physics. But there is no better network for mobility than wireless broadband - IMHO, Wi Fi Mesh offers a relatively low-cost wireless solution that goes up relatively quickly, then provides far more bandwidth than a cellular air card solution to far more people. What was interesting were the conversations I had about which comes first. On the one hand, a small town may opt for a FTTH solution first, because they have very poor alternatives for triple play services, and little need for mobility. But after the network is in place they may grow more interested in a Wi Fi Mesh network, because with fiber widely available, the price of Wi Fi Mesh goes down, and its utility goes up. On the other hand, another town, perhaps a little larger than the previous one, may opt for wireless broadband because they already enjoy adequate competition for triple play service, but their city government operations could benefit from more options for mobile solutions. But after the wireless mobile broadband solution is in place, the value that the community places on broadband goes up, and there may be a more compelling appreciation for the benefits of FTTH. It's a matter of priorities and at some point, after some experience is gained, its about awareness and paradigms. But in every case, we will all need BOTH THE INFINITE CAPACITY OF FTTH AND THE UBIQUITOUS MOBILITY OF WIRELESS BROADBAND, before all is said and done. Some of us will get it sooner than others. And those of us who get one, so goes my argument, are more likely to get the other sooner. OH, one more thing... A hot skillet and a fried egg .. made an impression on me ...a classic, and an inspiration for this post. Posted on May 12, 2008 at 03:45 PM | Comments (0) Time to Get to Work
It is especially not trivial now, because millions of Americans are dying to be enlisted - enlisted to fix education, enlisted to research renewable energy, enlisted to repair our infrastructure, enlisted to help others. Look at the kids lining up to join Teach for America. They want our country to matter again. They want it to be about building wealth and dignity - big profits and big purposes. When we just do one, we are less than the sum of our parts. When we do both, said Shriver, "no one can touch us." Who Will Tell the People? - New York Times Love him or hate him, Tom Friedman is back from sabbatical and he's shouting from the mountaintops - this time, he's ranting about the need to mobilize a Can Do spirit in the US. I'd suggest you print up this article and slide a copy under your mayor's or favorite council member's office door. Odds are, if the people support a local infrastructure project that makes good sense, so will the political leadership. America works well when people organize and let their leaders know about it. America works somewhere between "less well" and "not so much" when people sit back and let our leaders do what is politically expedient. We need to get informed, set priorities, and prod our leadership to move out ahead of the parade! I'm with Tom - it's TIME TO GET TO WORK, AMERICA!! Posted on May 12, 2008 at 09:54 AM | Comments (0) Big News Week!We can go on for months and, seemingly, years, with relative balance in the environment, then along comes a week with some major disruptions. First, on Wednesday May 7, there was Clearwire's deal with Sprint, which brings renewed promise to WiMAX, no doubt just in time to help the shareholders at Clearwire and Sprint to sleep a little better at night, at least for the short-term. The details of that deal remain to develop, but nobody can discount the disruptive effect. See Forbes and WiMAX.com coverage. Second, on Thursday May 8, we saw another development. It looks like some movement among incumbent cables and telcos regarding the usefulness of unlicensed wireless broadband - see the coverage of Cablevision's decision in Long Island at Daily Wireless, Muniwireless, and Wi Fi Networking News (May 8). Third, the continued bad news on the municipal wireless front, as early business plans unravel. See the Earthlink / Philadelphia squabble here, and for broader coverage on Earthlink's withdrawals, see Dailywireless coverage. These trends all come together when we look at the environment as a whole. Mobility is accepted as a necessary element of broadband communication, and we are seeing the worlds of mobility (wireless) and capacity (wireline) starting to come together. A lot of the argument about what is "right" and what "should" happen often boils down to competing perspectives on the world and the natural world order coming into conflict as this convergence happens. Check out the debate thread over on MuniWireless about a retrenchment in Sydney, Australia from one week ago, which I was clued into (Thanks Jason at Strix Systems!) and couldn't help but join after reading (see my comments reprinted below). This is a fascinating thread, so against my better judgment, I'm jumping in (moth to the flame). First, just because city-wide Wi Fi Mesh hasn't worked yet doesn't mean it won't ever, or that it shouldn't. We're still early in the game, so failures of experiments to date may just be learning moments leading to ultimate success (think Edison and the light bulb and Marconi and wireless - lots of widely criticized failures before ultimate game-changing success). Second, just because Earthlink led a marching band down a dead-end alley doesn't mean that all parades are bad, just that particular one. We should all be more discerning in the future. Third, just because incumbents have been against this trend because it threatened their comfortable status quo doesn't mean they're evil or corrupt (though some certainly are) - it may also be that they've been insufficiently motivated. Things change: witness the news this week that cables are starting to drop wireless zones into their territory, and the jury's still way out on the stimulus effect of the Clearwire/Sprint WiMAX announcement. Fourth, free was never "free," rather it was "subsidized." The right subsidy model may well still be waiting out there to be discovered, and we may well still find a home for free access in the right markets. As long as wireless access provides value, it will find a market, and free will be less and less relevant. There's a lot of confusion in this argument, but there are rational positions still to be taken on all sides. What we need to be mindful of is throwing out the baby with the bathwater...unlicensed wireless technology has a future, we're just trying to figure out what exactly it is. There are more mistakes yet to be made, but they too will bring lessons and we'll all get smarter (let's hope!). Posted on May 09, 2008 at 02:49 PM | Comments (0) Analyst, Sampler, Tire Kicker or Strategic Buyer?
Is your city considering broadband infrastructure and its impact on your future? Still stuck in the analysis phase? I came across some notes I put together five years ago concerning what is known as Miller Heiman's Strategic Selling, a concept and sales approach active among the sales industry, especially appropriate for complex sales to large organizations. Over the past five years as a consultant, I've had two consulting contracts where I've acted as a consultant on behalf of government organizations considering a procurement, first with Austin Energy, a large municipally-owned electric utility, and most recently with the City of San Marcos. It's been quite educational to sit on the Buy Side and watch the various vendors pitch their wares ("There but for the Grace of God go I"), and then turn around after they've left and discuss with my clients - the potential buyers - their opinions on the sales proposition. I've learned a lot. First, let me say - "Folks, there's plenty of work to be done on both sides." Second, I'm sure that my recent experience has made me a much more empathetic seller, should I go back over to that side of the equation. Which leads me to ask the question of my public sector readers: "What kind of buyer are you?" And the follow-up: "Have you given much thought to the Sell/Buy relationship and how you can benefit from a better understanding of what goes on in the dances that we do with folks trying to sell things to us?" After the jump, check out this short discussion on the techniques that good sales people use on a long-term strategic sale to a large organization, and compare it to the multitude of steps that any purchase should go through - see if you recognize yourself as a buyer type, see where you fit in the equation, and how you might improve things, if possible. Notes on Strategic Selling 1. A "Buyer" is really an entire set of buying roles played by different members of the organization So, how much thought do you give to a purchase as a buyer? Which category best describes you as a buyer? And what does that portend for you ever actually getting what it is you purportedly seek as a "Buyer?" Steps in Any Purchase Before we talk about predominate buyer types, a little background is in order. Let's see if I get this mostly right. In any purchase, these steps are generally followed: Does that about capture all the steps any buyer goes through on any purchase? (Let me know if I left anything out! ) So, which TYPE of buyer are you? Analyst? Sampler? Tire Kicker? Strategic Buyer? Analyst: The analyst relies heavily on the research phase of the purchasing process - Steps 2-6 above, with the possibility of dabbling in Step 7. To an analyst, a purchase is all about gathering information and comparing options. This is the most important phase, and it's impossible to ever have "paralysis by analysis." It's really about making absolutely sure that you are ready before moving ahead. The problem for this type buyer, is that when technology is complex and rapidly changing, there is NEVER sufficient evaluation, because the situation is always changing and there is always a better deal and a better time, right around the next bend. (Think, WiMAX, etc.) If you are an Analyst, your biggest challenge is bringing this phase to conclusion, acknowledging that you have Enough information, and are ready to go ahead and engage in the purchase process. Beware of reverting to Steps 2-6 when under stress later in the purchase cycle! Time for more information! - but will more or better information really help?? Tire Kicker. The tire kicker is a more involved version of the Sampler above. The tire kicker is a derogative term that originated from frustrated car salesmen, who despaired that the shoppers would ever make a decision, but would spend all their time kicking the tires of the car and evaluating the purchase. Where there is a legitimate role to engage in a trial period to evaluate a serious purchase, the tire kicker takes this phase to the extreme and gets stuck, never moving on to a purchase. In a sense, the tire kicker is motivated by fear and a lack of confidence. "It's not that I'm afraid to move forward, I'm just a very thorough shopper," they say as they lie to themselves. The biggest risk a tire kicker faces is a loss of faith on the part of sellers, because their failure to take the sales process seriously and come to a conclusion identifies them as "non-serious" and "a waste of my time" in the eyes of serious sellers (the sellers that any serious buyer really wants to deal with over time). Strategic Buyer: The strategic buyer understands that a purchase is a complex social process that involves creating trust on both sides of the equation. To have mutual trust, both the buyer and the seller have a role to play that over time, creates the foundation for a successful sale/purchase, where both parties feel that they got a win ("Win/Win") and leave the sale with respect and admiration for their opposite. A sale is a complex business decision that deserves special attention and resources at each step. A strategy will ensure that the buyer understands exactly what they need, exactly what the market has to offer and how it aligns with their need, and exactly (in the end) the value equation that justifies a Win/Win. Which role most appeals to you? I recommend you take a second look at both the Notes on Strategic Selling and the Steps in Any Purchase check lists above. See what you can learn about your own purchase and the process you have in place, as well as what you can learn about your potential transaction partner, before the transaction gets too far down the road. Posted on May 09, 2008 at 12:03 PM | Comments (0) From Irving to Irvine in Ten Days, By Way of San MarcosI haven't posted a significant article on this site for 2-3 weeks, and I'm having withdrawals. I'm sitting now in a hotel room in Irvine, CA, after attending a remarkable exercise in regional coordination yesterday, where I helped to present results of a study I've been involved in for the past six months. Orange County is leading an effort to investigate its options for regional collaboration of a wireless broadband infrastructure, and they hosted a Business Summit yesterday attended by about 50 local and regional government leaders. I'll post more on that meeting in the next few days. Last week, I spent three days in Irving, TX, where Broadband Properties magazine hosted a Summit, with the focus of the discussion mostly on FTTH, although a smattering of discussion on wireless options was thrown in. I'll post more on that meeting as well in the near term. Finally, in between these two road trips, I've been wrapping up work on a consulting contract I've had with the university town of San Marcos, which sits just south of my hometown of Austin, TX. I've been engaged with San Marcos in some capacity or another for nearly two years, since June 2006, when I first made a presentation to a staff group. City leaders are now preparing to make a decision on buying a wireless mesh network, with a vote expected at the May 20 city council meeting. I feel like I've earned my PhD in Metropolitan Broadband through my in-depth work with San Marcos, and I'll be sharing what I've learned over the coming months. For starters, I've put together two documents that I'd like to share with the readers of this site (you'll need to register to download these, but I assure you that it's a painless process, well worth the time!). First is a paper titled Lowest Risk Publicly Owned Networks, which is a short (3 page) argument on why public ownership offers particular advantages to a city considering its broadband connectivity strategy. Second is a paper titled Wi Fi Mesh Economics - Costs, which describes the cost elements of a 10-sq. mile mesh network, which can easily be divided by 10 to come up with a cost/sq mi, for help in estimating about what it might cost your city to build its own network. Taken together, these documents offer interested city leaders a strong business rationale to start a metropolitan broadband project. While starting is only a first step, with multiple steps to follow, one must start by taking a first step if one is ever to finish and achieve a worthwhile objective...I've discovered that in 2008, there remains no reason for a city to put off starting a metropolitan broadband project. Do not fall into the common trap of using the cacophony of bad news about municipal wireless and the EarthLink withdrawal from the market as an excuse to put off a project - that's just what it is, an EXCUSE for inaction. In fact, we've now moved beyond prudence when it comes to metropolitan broadband. I believe that it is now imprudent NOT to start a wireless broadband project, given what we know, so strong are the benefits of broadband to a community. In short, the opportunity costs of not starting a project now exceed the costs of starting a project. The prudent city leader must now move beyond study to taking action. Posted on May 09, 2008 at 11:20 AM | Comments (0) Back to Basics, Back to BackhaulHere's an article I came across recently that really drills down on Mesh backhaul - see Meshed metro Ethernet backhaul for Wi-Fi access networks. Posted on May 09, 2008 at 07:12 AM | Comments (0) |
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