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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 |
In a National Leadership Vacuum, Local Leaders Slowly EmergeHere's an excerpt from a February 2005 interview with FCC Commissioner Michael Copps on Why our broadband policy's still a mess (Hint: It's STILL a mess, 3 years and some change later! Copps is expressing a minority opinion - no power to change things given the current make up of the FCC). What makes sense in terms of a national broadband policy? I think Congress is going to have to work through that. If we are going to fix the Universal Service system, which is predicated on the idea that everybody should have access to comparable communications at comparable and reasonable prices, we have to ask, is our advanced telecommunications part of that or not? Is broadband a part of that or not? So before we start fixing every little problem with universal service I think we ought to have some kind of a philosophical or national purpose or national objective discussion about where does broadband fit in. And when I talk about central-infrastructure challenge, you know it seems like each generation faces an infrastructure challenge. Before the Civil War, we had infrastructure challenges and building internal improvements of highways and turnpikes and canals. After the Civil War, it was building transcontinental railroads. With the Eisenhower years, we built the national highway system. I think our (challenge) is broadband. At the same time, the state legislature in Indiana recently shot down a bill that would impose significant restrictions on municipalities for launching their own broadband infrastructure services. It's not an easy thing if you're the leader of a hard-pressed, cash-strapped municipality - as all of them are in this day and age - to take on additional burden of providing broadband to your people. I think we do a grave injustice in trying to hobble municipalities. That's an entrepreneurial approach, that's an innovative approach. Why don't we encourage that instead of having bills introduced - "Oh, you can't do this because it's interfering with somebody's idea of the functioning of the marketplace." And then the marketplace is not functioning in those places. This interview states the problem well, but there's no other way to put this, we have a de facto policy to let the duopoly cable and telecom companies provide us broadband, and we get what they give us, in essence. But that's not always enough, so we are seeing metropolitan networks emerge, ever so slowly, against great odds. The economic opportunity cost of such policy neglect is high. This well-written, in-depth article from a year after that Copps interview (more than two years ago), Let there be Wi-Fi: broadband is the electricity of the 21st century - and much of America is being left in the dark describes the problem well. The countries surpassing the United States in broadband deployment did so by using a combination of public entities and private firms. The Japanese built their world-class system by ensuring "open access" to residential telephone lines, meaning competitors paid the same wholesale price to use the wires. The country is also establishing a super-fast, nationwide fiber system via a combination of tax breaks, debt guarantees and subsidies. But of particular note, the Japanese government also encouraged municipalities to build their own networks, especially in rural areas. Towns and villages willing to set up their own ultra-high-speed fiber networks received government subsidies covering approximately one-third of their costs. Unfortunately, the United States has pursued the opposite policy. President Bush has called for "universal, affordable access for broadband technology by the year 2007," and FCC Chairman Kevin Martin claims broadband deployment is his "highest priority." But they have made no progress toward these goals; in fact, they have rewarded their corporate cronies for maintaining high prices, low speeds and lackluster innovation. Federal policies have not merely failed to correct our broadband problems, they have made them worse. Instead of encouraging competition, the FCC has allowed DSL providers and cable companies to shut out competitors by denying access to their lines. And whereas the Japanese government encourages individual towns to set up their own "Community Internet," Washington has done nothing. Fourteen states in the United States now have laws on the books restricting cities and towns from building their own high-speed Internet networks. No wonder America is falling behind its Asian competitors. Hmm, that is a grim picture ... well, maybe it will improve in time? Not so much, I'm afraid, although there are glimmers, as noted in this article, Broadband: It's a Community Thing, written two months ago, nearly two years after the previous article. This article also focuses on FTTH, rather than Wi Fi. Overcoming challenges FTTH access has been mostly relegated to the larger urban and suburban communities. Looking to get a good return on their investments, service providers target communities with higher densities. Unfortunately, this leaves most rural communities without much more than a dial-up connection. That's not saying bringing broadband into rural towns isn't fraught with challenges. Take Minot, N.D.-based SRT Telecom. Like many independent telcos, SRT's territory spans both metro and rural areas and varied service domains (it offers everything from ADSL2+ data, voice and cable TV to wireless service). Taking part of its name from the Souris River, one of the telco's main challenges is its diverse service territory. In its traditional metro network area, it plans to continue leveraging its existing copper plant via ADSL2+, bonding and VDSL2, while using active Ethernet-based FTTH in its rural sections. "We have targeted FTTH in our rural areas," said Shawn Grosz, SRT's director of network technology. "I am not talking rural towns, but the very rural: out to the farmsteads where, in some cases, we have loops of 20 miles where broadband is very difficult to reach. We [serve] those customers who can't be served with fiber." While Grosz admits carrying fiber out to these remote locations is initially expensive, SRT believes making targeted investments in both its existing copper plant and FTTH will pave a high-speed path to future services such as IPTV when ready. Along with paving a road for future services, community-based initiatives - despite the legal challenges they face from incumbent operators who take issue with public entities providing telecom services - can become an economic attraction to local businesses. As one of the first U.S.-based utility companies to offer FTTP services, Bristol, Va.,-based BVU Optinet was able to attract large government systems integrators such as Northrop Grumman. What’s more, businesses with FTTP-based access are able to offer their employees more effective teleworking opportunities. Teleworking not only can reduce the amount of office space a company needs, but also cut down on automotive emissions since it reduces the amount of cars traveling on the roads. (See: Green to go for fiber) Finally, there's this summary out today, As a result, in most markets in the U.S. there have been only two broadband providers, one telecom and one cable company. While some countries were aggressively trying to catch up to the U.S. Internet lead, "not much changed in the U.S.," said Susan Crawford, a professor of Internet governance at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. Change is finally starting to happen, as cable and telecom companies compete more aggressively in each other's traditional businesses. Bills are now making their way through Congress to remove the state barriers to municipalities offering broadband. Verizon Communications Inc. is in the midst of a $23 billion project, called FiOS, to bring fiber to the homes of more than half of its 33 million customers in 28 states by 2010. Comcast last month began boosting speeds on its network, and estimates 20 percent of its customers will have access to faster speeds by the end of the year. Still, these ultrafast networks are destined only for certain parts of the country, such as major urban areas, at least for the foreseeable future. In large swaths of the U.S., providers consider deploying broadband less profitable. In downtown Chattanooga, James Busch, a radiologist and medical-software entrepreneur, said when he opened his business, he couldn't find an Internet service that was fast enough. Comcast's plan was too slow, and AT&T said it would take three months to build a dedicated higher-speed connection to his business, Busch said. AT&T said it now offers small businesses a download speed of 6 megabits a second, and upload of 512 kilobits a second. Busch's clinic consists of 10 radiologists who provide remote diagnoses for rural hospitals. Transmitting the high-resolution medical imagery often requires a very fast speed, which he said the power board's network provides. "Information technology means a smaller country with fewer people can now do the same amount of work as a larger country," said Busch. "If we don't become more efficient, we lose our big-country advantage." Last month, the power board raised $219 million through municipal bonds, which it said will primarily be used to upgrade its existing electrical system. The upgrade will involve laying a fiber network to create a so-called smart grid, which will allow the utility to remotely monitor and control how power is distributed, DePriest said. As we can see from these four articles, the broadband theme has evolved over time, even as many aspects have remained constant. Where there was much focus on wireless four years ago, now there's more interest in Fiber, it seems. Economic development more than connectivity for social purposes has emerged as the driving factor for communities to get active. And applications drive the business case these days. But resistance from incumbents remains a constant, as does the lack of national broadband policy and the absence of national leadership, or even, for that matter, any sense of urgency in the Congress or at the FCC. Absent the activity we've seen at the local level, we would have little to rejoice in when it comes to progress on national broadband infrastructure, as the big boys would continue to move at their own pace and the US would fall ever more behind their global competitors. It's not too late, and I'm banking on a resurgence of interest in broadband infrastructure after the presidential election in the fall. Let's hope. Posted on June 02, 2008 at 11:32 AM | Comments (0) The Universe is in Synch, the Internet Connects It (and Us)I posted the other day on Perceptions of the Future, using as an example my childhood fantasies about jet packs (see Christmas Letter VIII - Jet Pack/Hovercraft, iPod/iPhone/Prius, or "None of that Nonsense...". In the comics in today's paper, one of my favorite strips - F-Minus (another New Year's Resolution - bookmark this site at Comics.com)
And to my surprise, in response to my post I received an email yesterday morning from Ray Li in Florida, telling me about his efforts to develop a recreational jet pack that is safe. Seems he's making progress. His website is JetLev News.
Posted on January 02, 2008 at 09:10 AM | Comments (0) Christmas Letter VIII - Jet Pack/Hovercraft, iPod/iPhone/Prius, or "None of that Nonsense..."When I was a child in the 1960s, reading my dad's Popular Science magazine and the Weekly Reader at school, I used to fantasize about jet packs and hovercraft in some indeterminate future, but always in my lifetime. Usually the hazy future fell somewhere between"1984" and the "21st Century." Beyond 2000 seemed beyond my imagination. I was amazed at a future that was 32 years out in 1969 when I saw Stanley Kubrick's 2001 A Space Odyssey at the movie theater, at the age of 12.
Well, that future is here (and gone), but I've seen no offers for personal jet packs or hover craft - not to mention an American Airlines flight to the moon... Yet that myth persists - I was more than a little amused a few years back when my daughter assured me that we'd all be driving in hover craft in five years, because "Lydia said so," and "it was in our Weekly Reader," or whatever the equivalent is for her generation. Good to see the family tradition carried on... Even as we outgrow In reality, the future tends to look a lot like the recent past - except when you get dramatic jolts from such dreamers, like the Apple iPod
or better yet, the Apple iPhone
and the Toyota Prius...
each of which look somewhat like the recent past, but with remarkable twists, pointing to what lies ahead in the future. Then there are those serious types who dismiss altogether the radical innovation behind Apple's iPod and iPhone and Toyota's Prius, seeing them as either a) silly notions held by those whose heads are in the clouds; or b) as trivial toys with little impact on serious aspects of society. Sensible people know that history moves slowly and the future looks a lot like the past. But these consumer products capture people's imagination, and because they like them, they drive changes in consumer behavior. As I reviewed the month of December and my posts, the prevailing themes were imagining and managing change - how one looks at the future, how one manages change, the weight one gives to such issues, and how one's generational perspective comes into play - all these aspects of change really come into the limelight when you give some deep thought to broadband. And such themes seem appropriate at this point, given that we all grow reflective as New Year's Eve arrives, and look forward with anticipation to new things in the New Year - that's today and tomorrow, BTW, for those without calendars. December Trains on Tracks v. Cars on Highways: Closed v. Open - in which I propose the analogy of railroads and highways as a model for broadband networks... Our history of physical transportation of atoms and molecules in our rail and road networks has lessons to teach us if we will listen. When we look at information transportation of bits and bytes in our telecommunication systems, we should think about how things transpired with transportation systems. When it came to making decisions on transporting physical material, whether in the form of raw commodities, manufactured products in boxes or real-live human beings, those deciding took advantage of multiple options that made the most sense for their priorities - choice was good. Ships and airplanes today complete the system, offering tremendous flexibility for businesses and consumers. We see this choice as a natural, and wouldn't have it any other way. But when it comes to telecommunications, it's as if our brains have been put on hold. Information material in the form of information bits, voice bits, or video bits is still treated as if it must flow over the closed networks of the big telecom provider, on their terms and conditions. (Not to leave Big Cable and Big Football out, in a true, Open System, I don't think that I would have missed watching the Green Bay Packers and the Dallas Cowboys, the way I missed them this week.) The prevailing sentiment and conventional wisdom still assumes that the large closed networks of Big Telecom and Big Wireless, often one and the same - collectively, the "railroads" of today - are the only options that matter. The bottom line for me is this: We have a collective lack of imagination when it comes to broadband, IP applications, and digital content. We're stuck with Old World thinking in a New World. Still, for the most part, those who trumpet Verizon, AT&T, and the rest may be right, at least for now, that is. Alternatives to conventional broadband are still so new and so small as to get little attention. The winds of change are in the air, however, and the potential of Open Networks, like water on a stone, is having an inexorable effect on the Status Quo. Steeped in the Gospel of Open Networks that drives the Internet, Google has set its calculating eye on telecommunications, specifically, .the upcoming FCC 700 MHz spectrum auction in February. Forget the Past and the Future, Here in the Present, Ignorance is Bliss - in which I pondered the inability of most people to imagine a future much different than the present - until they see it, that is. As I wrote this summary, it dawned on me that when municipalities seek to bring in a third-party to operate a network according to Open Access principles, whether the city owns the network or not, they are mimicking the Google strategy that Feld described. Rather than wait on incumbent broadband providers to bring in new infrastructure or business models that better serve all the public, they're brining in the infrastructure themselves and installing the new business models that will bring about robust competition and lower rates. I think it's interesting to note that no matter what happens in February at the auction, the incumbents are not going away. They are classics who have shown an ability to adapt when they have to. Much of the change we discuss on these pages can be seen as efforts by different parties to force change on the incumbents or to simply go around them. But don't count them out, not just yet. They have lots of money, political connections, customers, and technology experience, and I think they will be around and influential for years to come. They just need a 2x4 to the head once in a while and would be well advised to follow both Joni's admonition about appreciating what you have while you still have it, as well as Harold's observation that most don't know the future until it bites them in the ass. Shamalama Ding Dong - Life is a Highway - in which I suggest that the seemingly mindless play of the roadtrip is actually a journey of discovery in disguise The Road Trip is firmly ensconced in the realm of Creativity, where things happen because they're allowed to happen, because you're out there breaking all the rules that normally keep you in line, out there in the world where nobody knows you, where its safer to take risks. Much of it proves pointless, but for some, it's what the situation demands. Over the past four years here in the Alternate Broadband universe (what I call the various worlds of Wi Fi Mesh, WiMAX, BPL, FTTH), it's been like we've been on one long road trip. It's been an ongoing experiment, a journey of discovery, never knowing what's around the next corner, going where the spirit moves you. We've had a destination in mind, but much of the value so far has come from the exploration and the knowledge we've found along the way. For many on the outside, it appears that we've been wasting time and money, we've been engaged in an irresponsible romp that's going nowhere. But on the inside, we see things differently - we've been enjoying a long ride of discovery. We've been trying out new things, seeing what works. When we pause to look back, we realize how far we've come and how much we've learned, and we see real value. And a couple of posts that talk about perspective in the process of change: - Digital Adolescents Stuck in Digital Puberty - in which I describe the transition from Analog to Digital, which is still underway Since the Rise of the Internet a little over 10 years ago, we've been alternating through many different attitudes, but mostly we've been collectively in denial as the Internet matures and grinds away at our institutions. For many, if not most in society, these changes lie under the surface, unrecognized, subliminal. But they affect us all, nevertheless, and we see more and more evidence of change, and the need to adjust, if we just open our eyes. Once you've had this realization, it's hard not to notice the evidence all around. In fact, getting us all to recognize the significant changes associated with transitioning from Analog to Digital, from stand-alone to connected, from fixed to mobile, is the principal goal of this website. Adjusting to change has to be one of the hardest things to do in life, yet we all have to do it as we age, so it's one of the most universal of themes. As societies go, healthy societies adjust well to change, less healthy ones don't. The least healthy societies get stuck and close themselves off from any outside influence in order to stay the same: just think of Cuba and North Korea. Recognizing this state of Digital Puberty that we've entered is not unlike going through the five stages of grief in the Kubler-Ross model , because such significant change involves a death and a rebirth. In the end, allowing yourself to be reborn, to reemerge from the process of change, involves accepting the death of the previous state. Until then, you're stuck. - From Analog to Digital - A Long, Strange Trip - in which I comment on our aged leadership in federal government which stands in contrast to the dramatic changes underway in technology - T-t-t-t-talking 'Bout My Generation - this post ties together the previous memes of digital adolescence and senesence and posits that generational perspective is valid from both sides It's inevitable for those at the beginning of their lives to look forward to the future with anticipation, and for those at the end of their lives to look backward with nostalgia. And where we choose to place our benchmarks has a large role in determining how we perceive the present. When older folks look back and marvel at how far they've come, it's sincere. But it's also dangerous if that nostalgia and love of the past causes them to take their eyes off of the future, wistfully reminiscing about the Good Old Days. And when younger people look forward and pine for the future before they're ready, impatient to have it all now, it's dangerous if they act on their wishes without full awareness of consequences. They risk repeating the mistakes of the past if they neglect the lessons of history and are in too much of a hurry. We need each other. Each generation has something to offer. We need the accumulated wisdom, maturity and caution of the older generation, and the energy, initiative and optimism of youth. We need both conservatives and progressives if we are to move forward as a society. We need the dynamic tension, the push and pull, the arguments that will help us preserve what's worth saving, and leave behind the things that keep us from moving ahead. Processing these thoughts, I come to the inescapable conclusion that we desperately need leadership, at all levels of society, who will face the facts with honesty and courage, who will lead us into the changes we need to make as a society. My focus in my job and on this website is on the broadband infrastructure that will take us to the future we deserve. Too many people look at how far we've come in ten years with broadband internet and mobile telephony. Too few look at how far we have to go to reach our potential. A Public Private Partnership We Can All Do Without - this post captures current events surrounding FISA and telecom immunity, as the Senate had an important debate in mid-December, ultimately punting the issue down the road until January Look Before You Leap - this series of posts tracks the decision-making process a city goes through as it stands on the brink of change, using the framework below
I'll close out this long post on change and the future with a couple of images from a few generations ago, when change and future speculation was primarily focused on that frontier that could never be crossed, that man should one day fly - imagine, man flying like a bird.... There's this famous image from Leonardo Da Vinci
and then here's a couple from Jules Verne - first, on personal flight
and then on flight to the Moon - really stretching out the imagination!
This has been fun - Happy Holidays all! Be sure to drive safely (or not at all) tonight! Posted on December 31, 2007 at 09:22 AM | Comments (1) Christmas Letter VII - Mad Scientists Run Amock
By the end of November, I was starting to get some clarity on this concept of Alternate Broadband. We're mad scientists, in a sense, mucking about with new technology, new business models, new concepts in community. It's been a good year for learning more about what alternatives are available to the conventional approach of cable and DSL at the wall and cellular data cards and phones through the air. At times, it helps to take a break from experimenting and document how far we've come and what we've learned. That's what I'm doing here on this site. It's true, nobody said it would be easy (and it hasn't been) - in fact, that's a gross understatement. Most continue to say this field is a crock, just look at all the negative press in the mainstream this year. But it's also true that nobody can argue that we haven't learned a lot by trying and failing and in many cases, succeeding. I think that's the storyline that starts to emerge as I look over the past year and contemplate next year. Trial and Error will take us a long way in the upcoming year, and the nature of experimentation means that there's always a killer app -a solution lurking in the shadows, waiting to be discovered. The rational Scientific Method builds on past failures to create a body of knowledge that moves civilization forward. That's what we're doing here, experimenting... it just looks rather ugly close up. And sometimes, things blow up. 1. For Alternate Broadband to succeed and thrive, we'll need creative solutions to at least these three issues (deals that lack a solution to any one of these three issues have a high fatality index - some may make it, but most will not): November In November, we began by finalizing our decisions concerning the written bids in the San Marcos deal, and winnowed the field from nine down to five, then heard oral presentations, ending up with two finalists. I went out to Los Angeles in November to kick off the Orange County wireless assessment and attend a one-day seminar on wireless broadband put on by the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) and NetLogix. And not sitting idle, I followed a strong web focus in October (34) with an equal effort in November - 33 posts. Here's an overview of the Best Posts of November. You'll also notice that November is the first full month I made full use of graphic images and YouTube videos. I like the change. King Kong v. Godzilla - in which we review the upcoming battle between Big IT and Big Telecom. Speed Matters (So Does Price) - which offers, among other things, a speed test for your broadband connection Five posts on Southern California Association of Governments Wireless Conference (aka SCAG Wireless) - in which I reveal our plans for Orange County wireless assessment and other interesting tidbits from this one-day seminar (Scroll down to November 8 in the Archives) Playing Roulette with Your Broadband Future - a cautionary note about putting all one's chips on Red and spinning the roulette wheel - why not get smart and play several games of chance at once? The stakes are too high to do otherwise. The bottom line for me is as follows: In the Networked Information Age, our broadband information infrastructure has become too vital to be left in the hands of a select few, operating behind closed doors. Broadband has become too vital to place all of our chances for success on a narrow strategy defined and executed by insiders. When Big Government Thinks Big, Big Things Get Built - in which I suggest that our nation needs broadband infrastructure, and we need a plan to get there (includes a Green Eggs and Ham riff!) ... Whatever philosophical objections anyone may have to government involvement and leadership in broadband, there are just some things that the government does well. Building Roads is one of them. And in my mind's eye, broadband looks more and more like a road system. Why not? Let's start talking about a Big Government Program for Big Broadband...Why Not? Worked for the Interstate System 50 years ago... On this same theme, see also the follow-up posts Time to Challenge Some Bad Thinking about the Role of Government and In Assessing Change v. MOTS, Start with Putting Consensus Ahead of Coercion. I would argue that as we start to talk more openly and often about National Broadband Policy, we'll be forced to adopt a consensus model in order to move forward. It will take time to resolve differences and chart a path that is workable to all stakeholders - how much time will depend on the willingness of stakeholders to be open to others' viewpoints. And it must start by discrediting coercive means that exploit power positions, which are by definition inefficient, as they leave valuable contributers on the sidelines. Then, we start to look at the diversity within the Public Sector space with Government as a Layer Cake A Wicked Wind Blows Through the Senate, The Shankill Butchers Ride Tonight - I'll close this review of November with perhaps my favorite post of the month. This post addresses the climate of fear we now see operating in our country, vividly captured in the haunting song by the Decembrists - "The Shankill Butchers Ride Tonight." This post draws comparisons to what Abraham Lincoln saw and commented upon prior to the Civil War... And then on a lighter note, there's this: Posted on December 30, 2007 at 09:27 AM | Comments (0) Christmas Letter VI - House on Fire
Man, it's been a busy year .... as I write one of the last installments of my MetroNetIQ Christmas Letter, I realize how much ground I've covered on this site and in my business this year, and how far we have to go. Metropolitan Broadband, now Alternate Broadband, is one big, complex issue, one Wicked Problem, if you will. On then, to the final quarter of the year that is almost over, this last week in December, let's start with October...where, among other things, I proposed that our national telecommunications house is on fire in a series of posts Where There's Smoke ... October Yo, I really cranked it up in October, with 34 posts ... October was also the month we began to process the nine written responses to the San Marcos RFP. Nine - oh yeah...that was exciting to get so many responses... And, the month I learned that we had been selected as the finalist for the contract with Orange County Business Council to do the wireless broadband assessment of municipalities and ISDs in the OC... There were several critical posts this month, but given that there were so many, I'll be briefer here than I have been so far... Phoenix MetroNets, Rising from the Ashes - in which I describe our entry into a new phase of metropolitan broadband - "Emergent Customization," pointing a direction beyond Municipal Wireless Rock of Ages v. Water of Life - in which I describe the eternal paradox of change - balancing the need to preserve the past while adapting for the future (see also the follow-up Conservatives and Innovators - Wrestling for the Remote). When it comes to broadband policy and strategy, I don't think we can even begin to talk about these complex issues as a national community without including in the conversation those same government regulators, lawmakers, and large cable and telecom companies who some consider the Root of All Evil. I'm not one of those types, but I do believe in calling things like I see them. We need to start by bringing all this dirty linen out into the open. I'll try to be dispassionate, so bear with me. If you're part of the Reality-based community, you don't say "What Smoke?" or "That's just Smog." You don't deny what your eyes see and what your brain tells you. We must at least acknowledge that we have an underlying problem with our system. Before we can have an Open discussion on our collective broadband future, or even begin to craft solutions and a policy and a strategy that serve all interests, we first have to have Trust. We have to have Truth as the foundation for our discussion and we have to be Inclusive and engage all the parties. We have to be Honest. Pure Play MuniFi Morphing Into Intelligent Communities? - in which I suggest a new more holistic focus for Alternate Broadband Tangled Webs, Wicked Ways - perhaps the best of several posts about telecom immunity and FISA And Now for Something Completely Different - and two more, about OPLAN - in which I describe a new way of looking at telecom from Great Britain, where the model is less the railroad (ATT) and more the highway (Alternate Broadband). The Old Telecom Business Model - a scarcity-based business model, where a vertically integrated professional network operator manages a closed network and charge retail service fees to retail consumers in exchange for providing access to a limited commodity - Internet Access (and in many cases, bundled content and applications). In today's case, broadband bandwidth is but one more service to mete out to a starving consumer class, who should be grateful for the services the telecom provides over its proprietary network in a low-competition business environment. This service is more akin to buying a ticket on a railroad line to go from point A to point B. The New Telecom Business Model - an abundance-based business model, where a neutral network owner (city, pension fund, etc.) manages an open network and charges wholesale service fees to service providers in exchange for providing access to an abundant commodity, local network access on which to run services and applications for resale to retail consumers. In this new case, the provisioning of broadband bandwidth is separated from the retail services, content, and applications. The Open Network brings an abundance of retail service providers and the benefits of bounteous competition, turning bandwidth into a basic commodity and letting consumers pay instead for retail value-added services. This service is more akin to driving a car on a road or highway, to go wherever you damn well please. October was one busy month, but we went down paths that demanded attention. We have to come to grips with where our devotion to conventional broadband is taking us...so, while I still think its a wonderful life, I have a little more bile in my stomach when I contemplate what's going on...
Posted on December 28, 2007 at 11:13 PM | Comments (0) Christmas Letter V - A Broadband Declaration of IndpendenceWhen do we know that we are living in history? It's hard to see the forest when you're down among all the trees, after all. Starting with July 4 last year, I began to see that there are parallels between what we are doing in taking on powerful government and business interests, in offering an alternative approach and in challenging a flawed status quo...not unlike the challenge our forefathers took on 230 years ago... It's a daunting task, taking on the rich, powerful, established status quo. And sometimes I wonder if we are up to it. But then, when I think of it, I don't see another way around it. The second half of 2007 proved to be just as eventful as the first half. - MetroNetIQ finally launched its RFP for City of San Marcos in July to widespread industry interest. Over the next several months, we worked the process, narrowing the list down to two final contenders by December. In web commentary, we also advanced somewhat in the second half of 2007. After attending a Broadband Properties summit in September, I came back thinking and talking more about Alternate Broadband, with a much expanded view of the potential of broadband. I realized I'd been too focused on mobility to the exclusion of capacity, as much as I had acknowledged multiple technologies when I launched this site nearly two years ago to track and explain Metropolitan Broadband, as opposed to Municipal Wireless. I'm ever more convinced that there is too narrow a focus among the different, narrowly-oriented interest groups (wireless mesh, municipal wireless, WiMAX, BPL, and FTTH) who share a common perspective as they offer alternatives to conventional broadband, aka Cable BB and DSL. A name is important, I realize now, in so much as it defines either narrowly or broadly the interest area - how one defines one's industry determines where one spends their energies, what info they track, and who they hang out with. July In looking at this very short list of blogs, I only count three in July...guess I was busy, between dealing with the San Marcos activities and my upcoming 50th birthday, as well as a two-week car trip to Washington DC. I reprinted one of my favorite blogs, A Declaration of Independence for Broadband Connectivity, originally composed on July 4, 2006. And then, there was this treatment of broadband as a utility... Under a utility paradigm, we accept that it is the role of all society, not just its telecom and cable providers, to finance and build the infrastructure necessary to provide broadband service to all consumers at an affordable rate. That approach drove the penetration of electricity and later, telephone service, and such a universal service model brought about dramatic economic development benefits. And by accepting diverse methods and technologies to provide such ubiquitous service, as a society we can harness the power of a portfolio and iterative feedback loops to manage risk and exploit innovations. Broadband at the last mile around the globe has been most successful so far in tightly knit societies with dense populations and where there is strong national government guidance and leadership. An American approach could be, must be different. We're too big a country, and we don't like heavy central control at the federal government level anyway. We do have an independent streak, though, which we should tap into. Extending broadband on such a scale to cover the nation would mirror the extension of early electric and telephone networks, which were seen as utilities to be provided to all citizens and businesses at affordable rates, because they were essential to society. So is broadband. I would urge this debate to be joined far and wide. Where broadband infrastructure is slow to build out, why not try a utility approach? It's worked before. Broadband at the Edge: Now a Public Utility? August I took a much anticipated family vacation in the first half of August, and got re-engaged on my return for the final 10 days of the month. My rate of posting began to pick up a bit - 8 posts, most of which focused on the demise of EarthLink's erstwhile interest in municipal wireless. I tied the spectacle to the Gartner Hype Cycle, feeling deep down that I too was stuck in the Trough of Disillusionment (a truly sucky place to be). I'd especially point out my last post of the month - Electric Utilities and Metropolitan Broadband - a Relatively Untested Opportunity, in Critical Need of Attention. When, oh when, will the electric utilities wake up and embrace Alternate Broadband?? Cities that own an electric utility are in a great position to take advantage of new broadband communications technologies, as are larger electric utilities. They produce significant revenue, they manage a critical distributed infrastructure, and they have a critical task to manage in the event of an outage. September In looking over the September archive, I counted 17 posts, so clearly, there was something to write about. I was also waiting on the submission of the written bids in the San Marcos RFP, due on Sept 27, so I had a little more time on my hands than usual...it helped to bring me some clarity. 1) I began to formulate this meme about broadband as infratructure... Let's Talk More about Broadband Infrastructure, Less about Individual Technologies One aspect of the events of this past week, I hope, will be an opening up of attitudes to a more technology neutral perspective when it comes to broadband communication. With an open mind, I hope we can begin to experiment with different combinations of technologies that provide custom solutions to different communities, and get away from arguments that pit one technology against another, and that seek to promote a one-size-fits-all model for the sake of mass consumption. Over the past few years, discussion on wireless and wired broadband has tended to fall in various camps that support one technology over another, Wi Fi Mesh v. WiMAX, cellular 3G v. Wi Fi Mesh, DSL v. Fiber, Fiber v. WiMAX. The problem with structuring the debate in such dualistic terms is that it starts with a biased argument that proceeds to create camps and promote divergence. In contrast, in the face of such a large challenge as national broadband infrastructure, what we all need is more cooperation and convergence, and more experimentation. For a Change, How about Trying Cooperation and Convergence 2) and I began to talk about an alternative to conventional broadband... It should, and it does. This is where leadership comes in, or rather, where it is absent. Our leaders should be taking the reins and correcting this situation. It's not happening at the federal level. I still hold out hope at the local level. Robert Cringely, writing his column on PBS.com, is less optimistic. This summer he had a good series on broadband infrastructure, and one month ago he presented a rather bleak outlook, concluding Game Over. He concludes that DSL and Cable won't get us there, dismisses cellular as technologically inadequate, and sweeps right by Wi Fi Mesh and WiMAX. That's where we differ. For if we are to ever get back to a leading position in broadband, or at least an adequate position to support a 21st Century economy, we must place some hope on local government innovation. I may share Cringely's lack of faith when it comes to national policy, the FCC, and the large cable and telecom providers, but I still have faith in small-town America to come through for us. There's enough innovation, money, and most importantly, incentive in our nation's smaller towns to craft solutions that can be adapted to the more dense urban areas. I remain optimistic, if only because the alternative is too grim. Broadband Infrastructure has become too important an issue to leave to the "professionals" anymore. It's time we had some competing alternatives working out in the hinterlands. It's time we took back some of the control over our broadband communication destinies. And the technology is available now for getting started. How Important is Broadband? Why Should We Care Enough to Change our Current Thinking, Anyway? 3) I summarized my views on EarthLink et al and put that whole issue to bed... 1. The demise of Big City Free Wi Fi was a market correction that was long overdue. 4) I had an AHA moment regarding mobility and capacity after attending the Broadband Properties Summit in Dallas ... My AHA is that it's Not EITHER FTTH OR Wireless Broadband. That's a false choice. It's BOTH FTTH AND Wireless Broadband. FTTH can lead, if the community is ready to make the leap to a 21st Century Future-Proof Broadband Network, if community and economic development are front and center, and if more competitive broadband market rates are needed. Wireless Broadband will be important as well for mobility, and that can come initially with Hot Spots, Hot Zones, or more ubiquitous coverage. Wireless Broadband can lead, if it's mobility that's most crucial, but a fiber loop will be needed for back haul initially, and the network will need to grow into a full FTTH network over time to provide necessary capacity to meet future capacity requirements. I've been moving in this direction for quite some time, even writing an RFP this summer that promoted a converged wired and wireless network, leveraging the best of current broadband technology (see City of San Marcos RFP). But this conference really gave me an opportunity to shine a light on what a converged wire line/wireless broadband network would look like. On the Cutting Edge - Citywide Broadband on Steroids 5) Finally, I began to be oriented on National Broadband Policy in the last two blogs, which crystallize my thinking on where we are in this nation when it comes to broadband ... A Second Opinion is needed to provide policy makers with background facts on how the rising broadband Internet is changing the rules of the telecommunications industry. We need an examination of new digital and radio technologies that challenge the current method of regulating spectrum, for instance. We need a fresh look at what is currently happening out in the laboratories of innovation across the United States. We need to listen more to those who are actively working to make a difference for our broadband future, if on a small scale at present. These innovators are the voices of the future. If we truly desire to compete in the global market, we cannot continue to hold up the industries of the past at the expense of the industries of the future. That path is a recipe for mediocrity and gradual decline, and the preliminary results are already in on that strategy. Let's recognize that fact, leverage our considerable advantages (including both the incumbent strengths and the diversity of innovation) and mobilize to do something about it. Like I've said before, anything interesting starts with a conversation. Way Past Time for a National Broadband Policy and Before you get discouraged, let's just acknowledge that there will be no EASY way out of this broadband infrastructure conundrum - this taxation discussion only serves to highlight that we are indeed in a crisis, and we should acknowledge that. I would argue further that progress outside the US and the steady march of technology already combine to create a figurative GUN TO OUR HEAD, leaving for a minute the issue of tax policy at various levels of government and in various geographies. In the issue of what Broadband means to us as a national government and as a national community, we have a sense of urgency that is there for the taking, if it is as yet unacknowledged by our political leaders. But let's probe further on the problem we face. I would argue that these and other questions regarding broadband infrastructure are characteristic of a phenomenon that social theorists call "Wicked Problems." We have to work together to solve such problems, or else we punt them down the road and they get worse. (See also my recommendation earlier today for a national dialogue that can lead us to a National Broadband Policy here). The concept of "wicked problems" was originally proposed by Horst Rittel (a pioneering theorist of design and planning, and late professor at the University of California, Berkeley) and M. Webber in a seminal treatise for social planning. Rittel expounded on the nature of ill-defined design and planning problems which he termed "wicked" (ie. messy, circular, aggressive) to contrast against the relatively "tame" problems of mathematics, chess, or puzzle solving. Wicked problem - Wikipedia Broadband in America: a "Wicked Game We Play" Ah, clarity ... and the courage it brings, courage that led me to make changes and to take sacred cows to task, because that's what it seems I became more focused on at the end of the year, once I began to go down the path of Alternate Broadband and where it should fit in a National Broadband Policy... Posted on December 28, 2007 at 10:19 PM | Comments (0) Christmas Letter IV - A Road Less Traveled
Well, Christmas Day has come and gone, yet the holiday season lives on. It's still an exhausting day in our household, little sleep with lots of activity to follow. Still, very special day and I feel very appreciative. As usual, I was rather ambitious in undertaking a task. Choosing to start a Christmas Letter in the middle of all the holiday rush by filling in the gaps of time with sporadic posts was a leap, but it seems to be working, so I'll plow on ahead. So, on to May, which was yet another eventful month for MetroNetiQ this year. The key thought as I look over this month and the blog posts is that we are really talking about taking a road less traveled. Those involved in this industry, and those cities that choose to go down this path, find themselves at the proverbial Fork in the Road and make the decision to take the Road Less Traveled. May In May, I sold an old car and bought a new one, all in the space of three days, using a variety of broadband tools, which I blogged about in Making Change Happen with Broadband I & II. It was a big event for me, because I hadn't done such transactions in quite a while and was a little surprised how simple the process proved to be, with all the new broadband applications and websites at hand. On that blog, I cataloged my purchase process, which I believe is near universal in any serious purchase, and which we should keep in mind as we go about making such decisions. 1. Personal Inventory. By May, we realized that we had won the City of Longview deal, but then as I was heading up there to go to the city council meeting for final approval, their political leadership made a last minute decision to postpone the long-planned network until the new city manager was installed - OUCH, that hurt, for me for sure, but also for the internal team inside City of Longview. As it turned out, that was enough to snuff the momentum built up over 18 months in this city. This was a lesson in many ways - I hate these kinds of lessons, but nevertheless, life keeps on doling them out. There clearly was nothing we could have done differently, for Pete's Sake - we won the bid, closed the deal and negotiated a good contract. But this event reminded me that any city is a complex organization, with diffuse leadership in a highly political environment. Many leaders are still very nervous about telecommunications infrastructure at this early stage, many unaware of new possibilities and paradigms, and they do not share the same priorities we see inside this industry. There remain so many ways that a deal can go south, so many competing options for city officials, and so much misinformation and ignorance, which all combine to complicate decision-making and confuse the issues. May, however, was the month we really got down to business in San Marcos, writing a new and different kind of RFP, one that would accommodate the changes we were seeing in the industry. We took several steps to match what we saw unfurling in the industry: I think this is some of the best of the blog postings from May: In contrast to this status quo, imagine a solution that is Small, Simple, Cheap, and Fast. (and keep repeating that mantra). Small, because that keeps costs low and provides lots of choices, allows more focus on niche solutions, and lowers barriers to entry. Simple, because there are fewer moving parts (see above) and that means the solution is more likely to work/less likely to fail. Cheap, because the costs of these new solutions are quite a bit cheaper - going over the air without paying for spectrum rights avoids such massive capital expenditures as trenching and spectrum rights acquisition through auctions. Fast, because its fairly simple to hang up these nodes on light poles or mount them on rooftops. We're now living in a world that is undergoing near constant change, on a rapid basis. When you have such dramatic change so consistently, doesn't it make sense to approach things differently than you have in the past? Doesn't it make sense to experiment with new models and try on new ways of doing things? Doesn't it make sense to take some risks? That's yet one more benefit of using new business models enabled by these new technologies - they allow rapid feedback cycles, which enable rapid improvement cycles. It's just like Open Source Software. Lots of experiments, lots of innovation, lots of improvements. That is what I believe is the bottom line on the need for different approaches to broadband provisioning: A divergence from the status quo is called for, and an opportunity presents itself to model the success of Open Source software development. This is what we will see more and more of in the coming year - more experimentation, more innovation, more change. As consumers, we should open ourselves up to new ways of doing things, exploring what we value and what we can do without. There are multiple lessons to be learned if we will set off on this path. Small, Simple, Cheap, and Fast - OHMMMMMMMM June We put the finishing touches on the San Marcos RFP in June, and I began an extensive pre-sell and communication effort to promote the opportunity to the vendor community. This blog, A Fresh Approach in San Marcos, provides a good overview of where we were at the end of June. For a review of June blogs, see here. Posted on December 25, 2007 at 08:20 PM | Comments (0) Christmas Letter III - Building a House with a Firm Foundation
Well, we did manage to sleep a couple of hours last night. My kids are 11 and 13, so they managed to sleep in to a decent hour this morning, and we had time to light a fire and make some eggnog latte before they got up. It was a very pleasant session of opening presents this year, finishing about 11:00. We've broken in the new ping pong table, Wesley is all over the Wii games he rec'd (my wife, Barbette: "are you kidding, he's being chased by police in a stolen car??!!??"), Blake is snapping pics with her new pink Casio digital camera, and I'm listening to tunes on my new iPod Nano (my first, we're late adopters)...Barbette eschews digital gifts... If we're at all typical, there are a lot of digital gifts being opened this morning across America. Many of those gifts have Wi Fi capability (Wesley's Wii console does). Let's see how the impact of another wave of Wi Fi-equipped handsets impacts this new industry this year... I've got a little time to blog before we sit down to our roast lamb chops and a nice Syrah ... Christmas really is one of my favorite holidays. Back to the Year in Review...where one of the key lessons of April is that in forming a community with the help of technology, we're building a house and need a strong foundation of planning and strategy development. April In April, we finally figured out that the Dubai deal wasn't going to go. But soon after that, in another partnership, MetroNetIQ was down selected for the City of Longview and entered into negotiations. We attended the Texas Association of Government IT Managers (TAGITM) conference in South Padre Island. And we launched the San Marcos project, with project orientation and community mobilization activities. On the website, you can see from the April archive that we had a heavy month of blogging (15) and covered a wide variety of topics. Perhaps my favorite quote comes from a blog titled Chasing the Key Demographic for a Sustainable Future, in which I talked about community formation and sustainable growth. Here are the lessons I pulled from a personal experience of community building... Lesson One: The beginning of a solution is an honest assessment of the problem and a willingness to take action to pursue the solution. Lesson Two: Time spent in crafting the strategy that fits best is not wasted time, but an investment in bettering the odds for success. Lesson Three: Start simple and focus on making important, often simple changes to make a more welcoming environment to generate success and build momentum that will energize your community to take on more change. Lesson Four: Community formation is a conscious activity that requires a deliberate strategy and focus, but once started, community activity is contagious and generates energy. Lesson Five: To attract a targeted demographic, spend time to understand their needs and then create the conditions that will attract or retain them - the underlying infrastructure is a good place to start. Lesson Six: Keep it Simple and focus on opportunities to create synergy and socially reinforcing behavior patterns, and work together as a community. Lesson Seven: To stand out and enjoy sustainable growth in the highly competitive 21st Century, a community needs leadership, initiative, a business plan and strategy, commitment, and mobilization of all the resources in the community. Posted on December 25, 2007 at 04:14 PM | Comments (0) Christmas Letter II - It's a Wonderful LifeWell, it's 10:00 pm on Christmas Eve, I just stepped out to smuggle a Ping Pong table from my neighbor's garage into my backyard (success!), and the family is watching It's a Wonderful Life...that George Bailey just told off that SOB Potter one more time. He really is a creep... I'm resisting making comparisons between Old Man Potter and recalcitrant Incumbents, Bailey Building and Loan and an enterprising community-based WISP ... Back to the Year in Review. March In March the big, big event was that we launched the San Marcos deal. Getting busy on the San Marcos project pushed away much of the business development activities - that's how it works with focus in a small company. But we also continued with the Longview deal ... we went up to present and hit the ball out of the park. As for the blog, there are some good posts in the March archive here, but I think the highlight of my writing for this month is the MuniWireless conference I attended in Dallas in March and the several blogs that provide the details. This particular blog Industry Snapshot - Final Thoughts on MuniWireless Texas 07 provides the best overview... 1. The industry supply chain looks increasingly like a barbell to me, with more growth at the ends than in the middle. We will also get more field data this year, which should prove revealing on how well these networks stand up to the tasks of providing the transport function for critical municipal digital applications - some good, some bad. The good data will be a press agent's dream and will be hawked to encourage more cities to enter, while the bad data will have the dual role of teaching the market what works and what doesn't, but also of providing a damper, slowing things down and driving a lot of the hype out. Thank Goodness. The hype is one thing that is growing tiresome for me, as it raises unrealistic expectations! The bottom line comment? I'm bullish on industry growth and predict stronger than average growth of municipal wireless projects in While some of my predictions and conclusions seem naive in hindsight, I'm glad I called two things early: first, the waning of the Public Private Partnership model, and second, exposing the Hype Cycle early on. [So, on the TV as I write, Donna Reed just welcomed George back, and now the townsfolk are streaming into the Bailey household ... everyone is giving George money ....they all really do love him and his life is worth it after all! Man, I'm a sap for this movie. Don't we all wish deep down that we lived in a community like Bedford Falls?....Frank Capra sure knew what he was doing, is all I can say....finally, the kids are going to bed now and we can get down to business.] Looks like I need to sign off and play Santa Claus...I hope no kids are reading this blog... Merry Christmas to all! Looks like I'll have to finish this letter after Christmas. Posted on December 24, 2007 at 10:31 PM | Comments (0) Christmas Letter I - A Long and Winding RoadI wrote our first family Christmas Letter this week, and let me tell you, it's hard not to fall into the trite, all-good-news, bragging kind of letter that people make fun of. That's just how these letters turn out when you start to write 'em. You tend to want to share the good stuff, and not talk so much about the less-than-good stuff. The surprise for me was how enjoyable the task was - it was helpful for me personally to write a letter like that, to realize what's important to me - so much good news about the kids and family. You realize how good your life is when you write a letter like that. So, I thought I'd try something of the same for you all on this blog, my website extended family. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, for my Christian readers! It's been a long and winding road this year, and I'm glad this website and you readers are along for the ride. Happy Holidays for everyone else, whatever your beliefs - this is a time of year to celebrate joy, family, community and being connected, particularly a propos on this website! January What a difference a year makes! Back in January, I was doing a lot of business development, especially exploring new business relationships. I was busy with an ongoing contract to move a medical practice into a new office building, in partnership with Randy Baker at Tuanis Technology here in Austin. Randy is the founder of the Austin Wireless Alliance and has great experience and skills in broadband, both the wired and wireless varieties. Getting to work with Randy was enjoyable. I brought Tuanis in on another potential opportunity in Dubai early this year, one of those deals that looked good at first, but failed to develop. It was interesting to investigate business affairs in that part of the world together with Randy and a Middle East technology consultant from Bahrain. And speaking of good deals, in January I was busy developing a written proposal for the City of Longview, together with Karl Edwards at Excelsio Communications. That was yet another highlight of the year, to get to work with Karl and get to know him better. And I was busy putting a report together for the City of San Marcos - I had a small contract from Nov-Jan, where I interviewed over 50 city leaders to get their impressions on the potential wireless plans of the city government. I had also submitted a bid for a bigger wireless project in San Marcos, waiting in January to hear back on how that was progressing. With regard to the MetroNetIQ blog, it's pretty easy - not much blogging in January - a quick look at the Archives shows only one blog, but it's a good one. See Cities as Complex Ecosystems: Mother Nature Knows Best. In Pulse, Frenay takes a view that nature has far more experience at organizing complexity than does man, as sophisticated as we think we are. It's hard to imagine more complex ecosystems than what we see outside our window. Whether we refer to weather, the interactions of predators and prey, symbiosis between animals and plants, the work of insects (most notably, ants), the tropical rain forest ecology, polar bears/seals/fish/icebergs - pick it, these are all complex systems that have figured out how to get along in balanced, closed ecosystems in harmony, without the help of man and his/her big brains. So, Frenay proposes that man's organizational efforts, while they've come a long way since the first plows moved dirt around in Mesopotamia 20,000 years ago, have a lot to learn from nature's organizational methods. Frenay argues that linear "machine age" thinking has served us well since the dawn of the Industrial Age a short 200 years ago, and that the corporation has accomplished wonders in a short 100 years, but our world systems are flawed because they do not adequately account for externalities like pollution and negative environmental impact. We're now reaching the limits of where we can go as a civilization with those tried and true models. He uses the metaphor of an animal species reaching the limits of its habitat and the consequences that nature imposes. To suspect that man is somehow immune to consequences is naive when you look at what happens to other species that outgrow their habitat's ability to support them. Frenay highlights how we're hitting limits, from the permanent damages man is causing to his island home by pumping waste into the air (CO2), to stripping away forests that take centuries to regenerate for short-term gains, to eliminating species from overconsumption. Connecting the dots is illuminating. Wheww. Nothing like a cold dose of reality. February February saw some important activity for MetroNetIQ. I started down a very interesting trail on broadband policy, for one. See the blog archive here for blog posts in February. There were some good posts in Feb - Broadband Leadership? It Starts at Home So I'm struck by the difference between what we were able to do back in the 60s and 70s, with sheer will power, perseverance, and good old American can-do attitude, compared with what we are not doing today as a nation, as we watch countries like Japan, Korea, Sweden, and France, move ahead with strong national leadership and vison, as they implement a broadband strategy to create a national communications infrastructure that befits the 21st Century. Why is that? How come, I ask myself, broadband doesn't capture the imagination of people today the way that space exploration did back then? Well, for one, we've become pretty used to techological magic in the past 40 years. For another, we lack the leadership we had back then. No leadership focus, no national mobilization. Making Metropolitan Broadband Work Once again, despite my approval of this particular test, I feel that when we compare 3G and Wi Fi Mesh, we engage in comparing apples to oranges - effectively, we try to make a "mobile data network" be a one-size-fits-all utility service. The fact is that Wi Fi Mesh networks are a decent relatively cheap alternative that provides better service over wider areas than Hot Spots or landline connections, adds a mobile access feature not found in either of those alternatives, and is available at a price point far more accessible to far more people than the relatively exclusive data plans of cell phone carriers. Time for Spectrum Reform? Well Past Time, More Like And it's hard to imagine a more cozy relationship between big business and big government than the current spectrum regulation at the FCC. Big Business likes spectrum auctions because it keeps the competition out. When it takes billions of dollars to win a spectrum auction, only the big guys win, and the little guys are left penned into their ghetto of unlicensed bands - free to innovate, but not free to grow large and threaten the established players. And Big Government gets the billions from the auctions to fill the government tills and finance the war in Iraq. Pardon me if I get a little cynical here, but I don't see this situation changing in the near term, even if it makes even more sense than it already does. Corruption favors the powerful and maintains their hold on power and this, folks, can only be described as a corrupt and inefficient system. We won't even go into the current relationship between FCC commissioners and staffers and the industry they "regulate." Penalty for Piling On - Fifteen Yards A political storm is brewing, where passionate social advocates are seeking to make the proposed municipal wireless network, like the US Marines, "be all that it can be." Problem is, their efforts to ensure consumer privacy and add other things, maybe with the best intentions for San Francisco, risk derailing the effort entirely. I wrote a long comment to Greg's essay, captured below. The essence of the comment is that well intentioned though they may be, such efforts by consumer advocates to pile too much onto a municipal wireless effort do indeed pose a serious rsk. These wireless projects need to get up and running more than anything, and they can be improved after the fact. We need lots more networks, and lots more experiments, not perfect networks that cover all the bases politically. Many more networks will give us all experience, with successes to borrow from, and failures to learn from. And that experience, with its successes and its failures, will make all the networks in the future the better for it. What's Municipal Wireless Good For? So, back to What's Muni Wireless Good For ... In addition to agreeing with Richard Martin and Craig Settles on the efficacy of muni wireless projects to kick start a technology and provide good experimental feedback, I listed three things (I'll add a separate blog with more - this will make a good Top Ten List): 1. Muni Wireless provides a stimulus for national debate on broadband. Bottom Line: Muni Wireless has defined a new industry and set the tone for a new debate on broadband in America, where all of our official leadership has gone AWOL. No longer is it "When will the telecoms and cables give us broadband?" Now, we have a trend line of cities taking matters into their own hands and bringing in new broadband infrastructure alternatives. Before Muni Wireless, they just could not do that - it was not an economically feasible option. Muni Wireless has changed the near term prospects for broadband in America, and that's pretty significant for a little underrated technology that everyone overlooked. Finally, I wrote at length on National Broadband Policy in my last two posts of the month - I urge you to read those fully. See both What's Municipal Wireless Good For? The Whole Enchilada and Lead, Follow, or Get out of the Way. The gist of those two posts was that we lack leadership in broadband, but we can get there and Municipal Wireless points the way: The bottom line for these three new benefits of Muni Wireless? The results may be small, but they will be cumulative. A town enjoys a positive impact when its community launches a Muni Wireless project: 1) they gain an opportunity to leverage new wireless applications; 2) they become engaged and mobilized; and 3) they enjoy incremental (and perhaps more dramatic) economic development benefits. And February wasn't a slouch away from the website. While I continued to work on the Dubai deal with Randy and Suleiman, and was short-listed on the Longview deal with Karl, we were down-selected as the finalist in the San Marcos Wireless Project bid (the big one) and negotiated the contract in February. We were thus set on the path to our most interesting project to date. A lot of water has passed under the bridge since then, hard to believe it was only 10 months ago. This is running long, so I'll pick up on March in the next post. Posted on December 24, 2007 at 09:04 PM | Comments (0) Something in CommonEveryone ought to study and learn a foreign language at some point in their lives, preferably sooner than later. The sooner you set your brain to that task, the better off it will be for the effort. Some lucky kids start out their lives by learning second and third languages as children, when their brains are very plastic and can easily adapt to such changes. Later in life, it becomes more of an academic exercise, not as natural but still highly beneficial. I'm so happy I took that first French class in the eighth grade some 37 years ago and went on to study Latin in high school, then dabbled in Spanish, Italian, Japanese, and learned Swedish that year I lived in Sweden, 25 years ago. My daughter is now in her third year of Latin in the eighth grade and just received high honors on her report card, and my son is following in her footsteps in his first year in Latin in the sixth grade. They're doing it right. Seeing them studying Latin last night at the kitchen table brought to mind all the time I spent learning grammar and vocabulary so long ago. In fact, there's an OpEd in the NY Times today, extolling the virtues of an education that includes Latin (see A Vote for Latin). Little did I realize the fringe benefits I'd enjoy from that early hard work - first and foremost, beyond being able to communicate in other languages, all that study of language gave me added perspective, as well as vocabulary and grammar skills in my own language - I love English, and as you can tell, enjoy writing. What's more, learning foreign languages changed the way I look at the world and encouraged a desire to travel and get out and see the world, which I did in abundance in my twenties. When you experience the common elements of all these different languages, societies and cultures, through one-on-one interaction with other people, the point is driven home. How much we have in common with people all around the globe. As different as we all are, we have so much in common. And the proof is there in the pudding. You can tell when you look at the words, really look at them, that they have something in "common." Dictionary.com shows us that Community shares a stem in the Latin word for "common" - communis, with Communication. What both those words have in common, is the stem "common." And then there is the Latin word for "with" -"cum," which in English becomes the stem "co-" "com-" or "con-". Just think of all those words that begin with those three stems ...what they have in common is they all involve bringing together things, people, efforts, actions, studies, etc. Cooperate The list could go on and on. Having something in common is the basis for all friendship, the connections we form with others. From those connections we gain the experience we need to establish trust. From trust, we get the courage to accomplish things by working together, to share risks and reap greater rewards. Our joint actions involve bringing things together. All those things we really enjoy in life, those things that make it worthwhile, come from connecting with others and finding a way to live and work together. I remember when I was a kid, I used to wonder at all the Christmas cards that would come in the mail from people I'd never met. Little did I realize that for my parents, the ritual of sending and receiving Christmas cards was the one sure way that they'd be able to stay in touch, to maintain a common bond that they'd established with friends and loved ones from the earlier stages of their lives. For a military family that had to relocate often, staying in touch took on an added importance and meaning. So today, I'm tasked with putting together the Christmas mailing list, which will be a tweaking of last year's list. That won't be that big an effort. The bigger effort will be in writing the Christmas letter, taking the family picture, and sending the cards out. All that effort has a meaning though. It communicates to those friends and family the closeness we still feel. It says to them that at one point and still, we had and still have something in common with them, we were and still are a part of a community, and so we communicate. I find it hard to fathom sometimes, but even I still write letters and send cards, especially at Christmas time. But we communicate with more variety now than we used to; our need to communicate has in no way diminished, and we have more tools at our disposal. It's far easier to pick up the phone and make a call, in fact, long distance is beginning to fade away as a communications term. And then there's email. Now there's too much of a good thing. And while we may send fewer letters, we actually end up writing more, I would argue, by using these new electronic media. An essential element to make all this communication work is broadband infrastructure - "always on" makes writing that much easier. Broadband technology is making it ever easier to communicate and stay in touch, to form and keep communities. In a world where events and activities seem to conspire to pull us apart, broadband has become one of our most potent and vital tools. We will never stop talking, never stop connecting. Our need to stay connected will not diminish. Broadband, in that light, is not that exotic, but rather one more step in an evolutionary path to find easier, better, and cheaper means of staying in touch with the many communities that we have become part of. Posted on December 03, 2007 at 08:13 AM | Comments (0) On the Cutting Edge - Citywide Broadband on SteroidsThe major AHA moment for me at the Broadband Properties Summit 2007 in Dallas last week occurred on the second day, during this great panel discussion featuring pioneering, award-winning city officials and organization leaders who are pushing out the envelope on what the definition of "community broadband" can be. So much of my time in the metropolitan broadband industry over the past four years has focused on wireless broadband - even defined by the more common term "Municipal Wireless," where we often talk about duplicating current broadband speeds (about 1.5 Mbs) through the air, to support mobile applications, but also to provide an alternative to DSL and Cable broadband services. If you've been reading my previous three posts on Open Access FTTH, Broadband Applications Convergence, and the Coming ExaFlood, then you realize there's a more complete broadband picture than that described by the term "Municipal Wireless," and you know that future networks will need to pull together both wired and wireless broadband, and the faster, the better. My AHA is that it's Not EITHER FTTH OR Wireless Broadband. That's a false choice. It's BOTH FTTH AND Wireless Broadband. FTTH can lead, if the community is ready to make the leap to a 21st Century Future-Proof Broadband Network, if community and economic development are front and center, and if more competitive broadband market rates are needed. Wireless Broadband will be important as well for mobility, and that can come initially with Hot Spots, Hot Zones, or more ubiquitous coverage. I've been moving in this direction for quite some time, even writing an RFP this summer that promoted a converged wired and wireless network, leveraging the best of current broadband technology (see City of San Marcos RFP). But this conference really gave me an opportunity to shine a light on what a converged wire line/wireless broadband network would look like. This has to be one of the best aspects of a conference like this, getting to meet and talk to world-class city officials and private sector movers and shakers who have successfully pioneered projects that addressed real-world problems with solutions that are available today - none of that pie-in-the-sky policy or technology discussion here - this is the future, real, here and now. Note: Be sure to see also this link to the Agenda for the conference as a reference on presentations and speakers. Details on the panel, after the jump. This particular panel on Tuesday afternoon featured Bjorn Sernhed - CTO, Affarsverken Municipal Utility, City of Karlskrona, Sweden; Joseph Franell - Director of IT at the City of Ashland, Oregon (and manager of the Ashland Fiber Network); Bill Hutchison - Chairman, i-Waterfront Advisory Council, Waterfront Toronto; and Tim Scott - Vice President, Marketing, PacketFront. Karlskrona, Sweden First up was Bjorn Sernhed - CTO, Affarsverken Municipal Utility at the City of Karlskrona, Sweden (For his pioneering work at Karlskrona, Bjorn won a Broadband Properties Cornerstone Award). Bjorn described the unique situation of Karlskrona, an archipelago city at the tail end of Sweden, on the North Sea. A city of 62,000, Karlskrona is off-the-beaten-track when it comes to Internet backbone in Sweden. Faced with a need for better connectivity, Karlskrona was able to lean on its city-owned multi-utility authority, the Affarsverken Municipal Utility, to get the ball rolling. Acting as the lead anchor tenant, Affarsverken worked with PacketFront and leaders from the broader community, including a regional group, the Swedish Urban Network Association. From the outset, these community leaders determined that they wanted a "future-proof" technology, so they choose an Open Access network approach, where they incubated a market of smaller service providers after the network was put in place. They attribute their success to three factors: 1) One unified network; 2) detailed, documented process and procedures; and 3) focus on quality network management. Ashland, Oregon, USA Next, Joseph Franell - Director of IT at the City of Ashland, Oregon (and manager of the Ashland Fiber Network) told a very compelling story. You'll remember, back in 2005, opponents of municipal wireless would cite the city-owned fiber network in Ashland as an example of a "failed city-owned network." Fact is, things were very rough to begin with, and the city officials and leaders working the network made many mistakes. But this is a story of persistence. An expensive story of persistence, but that's also life on the cutting edge, when there are no models for success - it's trial and error on the path to success. Joe was brought in after many mistakes were made, and he's had the pleasure of helping to set the ship on an even keel, documenting the lessons learned. Now, in contrast to the municipal broadband opponents case studies from two years ago, Ashland represents a FTTH success story, recognized as a Smart 21 Community by the Intelligent Community Forum. Among the Mistakes Made / Lessons Learned: In particular, Joe stressed the Open Carrier Model as a key to success, highlighting the need to make room for smaller niche service providers, while acknowledging a downside of this model: the inherent conflict between the needs of citizens (best-in-class network over the long-term) and the needs of the smaller service providers (need to maximize profits in the short-term). It takes work to balance this inherent conflict, but the benefits are worth the trouble. Joe's bottom line summary for Ashland Fiber Network: Toronto, Ontario, Canada Bill Hutchison - Chairman, i-Waterfront Advisory Council, Waterfront Toronto stressed the difference between a "redevelopment" project and a "revitalization" project - it's about a lot more than property development - it's about changing the lifestyle potential for a major world city. This world-class project, when completed, will represent the world's largest revitalization project. An RFP is anticipated for Fall 2007. (For their pioneering work in Toronto, Bill also accepted a Broadband Properties Cornerstone Award). In this unique project, the national, provincial, and city governments came together to form a management corporation. In addition, a community advisory council has ensured that local stakeholder viewpoints are represented. The project will reclaim land and create substantial waterfront parkland. My own AHA moment was underscored when Bill stressed that the project would feature BOTH a FTTH network AND ubiquitous wireless. After all, we need access to high-bandwidth applications not only when in the office or home, but also when mobile. The system must work together. Key elements of their plan include Featured eApplications will include The Winning Approach of Waterfront Toronto, according to Bill, included these features PacketFront and the Open Access Model Tim Scott - Vice President, Marketing, at PacketFront summarized the common threads of these three projects. They all have Vision, they all feature Partnerships, and they all rely on the Community as Facilitator. Ashland's city leaders finally determined that the Open Network is the right approach, and realized that the network is not about retail rates and revenue. A Community Broadband network requires both FTTH to ensure access for residential and commercial consumers and Wireless Broadband for access to mobile applications, the Internet, and the LAN. Toronto's leaders have had success by stressing planning and marketing. And like Ashland, they figured out that broadband access requires fiber for sufficient capacity and future-proofing as well as wireless for mobile access. Posted on September 16, 2007 at 09:33 PM | Comments (4) Cities as Complex Ecosystems: Mother Nature Knows Best"The best way to predict the future is to invent it." and How one looks at the world can be a competitive differentiator. How do you look at your city? How about considering it as a complex ecosystem like a natural habitat, say the ecosystem of a wetlands or the cycle of water that my 10-year old son made a chart of the other day? A different perspective can separate one leader from the next, and open up new possibilities, providing advantages. And what better time than the New Year to get a new perspective! One of the books I read this year captured a direction my thinking has taken me and demonstrates the way that the Internet is changing the face of both publishing and consumption of media. As a blogger, I'm officially in the publishing industry, if only on the fringes. I'm not altogether sure how many of you read my little blog, but nevertheless, I consider myself a journalist and every time I hit the Publish button on this software, I've published a work, incrementally, one thought piece at a time, and delivered it for consumption. Such is the incremental influence of the Internet that I tend to forget that a mere five years ago (?), the word blog wasn't even in my vocabulary, much less a part of my daily routine. I also am a daily consumer of blog posts, and inevitably, when reading a blog, I will click on a hyperlink, which may well take me in a new and altogether unplanned direction. Its the unplanned and spontaneous part that makes this new medium so exciting and different. So it was one day when I stumbled upon this particular website: Pulse The Book by Robert Frenay, also a book of the same name, see it here on Amazon. I'll get to the contents in a second. What's notable for me in hindsight is that this is the first book I sampled using RSS ("Really Simple Syndication"), a new tool that allows an on-line publisher to push his works out to the reader automatically, or from the reader's perspective, allows a reader of on-line material to receive updates by email so that one does not have to go out to the website and/or check it routinely. Well, it worked, and after receiving 70 or so emails at one page each, I bought the book. I was hooked by a new 21st Century marketing ploy. It is a stimulating work, one person's view of how all these changes we see around us are coming together. In Pulse, Frenay takes a view that nature has far more experience at organizing complexity than does man, as sophisticated as we think we are. It's hard to imagine more complex ecosystems than what we see outside our window. Whether we refer to weather, the interactions of predators and prey, symbiosis between animals and plants, the work of insects (most notably, ants), the tropical rain forest ecology, polar bears/seals/fish/icebergs - pick it, these are all complex systems that have figured out how to get along in balanced, closed ecosystems in harmony, without the help of man and his/her big brains. So, Frenay proposes that man's organizational efforts, while they've come a long way since the first plows moved dirt around in Mesopotamia 20,000 years ago, have a lot to learn from nature's organizational methods. Frenay argues that linear "machine age" thinking has served us well since the dawn of the Industrial Age a short 200 years ago, and that the corporation has accomplished wonders in a short 100 years, but our world systems are flawed because they do not adequately account for externalities like pollution and negative environmental impact. We're now reaching the limits of where we can go as a civilization with those tried and true models. He uses the metaphor of an animal species reaching the limits of its habitat and the consequences that nature imposes. To suspect that man is somehow immune to consequences is naive when you look at what happens to other species that outgrow their habitat's ability to support them. Frenay highlights how we're hitting limits, from the permanent damages man is causing to his island home by pumping waste into the air (CO2), to stripping away forests that take centuries to regenerate for short-term gains, to eliminating species from overconsumption. Connecting the dots is illuminating. Wheww. Nothing like a cold dose of reality. If it's a glum worldview Frenay presents, it's not without hope. Frenay offers us hope in technological innovation, which changes the rules of the game and reshuffles the pieces on the gameboard, even enables a new paradigm. We're seeing convergence of different technological platforms, from IT to telecom to entertainment. The changes of digital technology and the Internet, combined with globalization and environmental impacts like global warming beg the question - is it time to consider a new paradigm to replace our "machine age" model? Frenay thinks so and makes a credible argument. I would urge anyone in the city management business to take a look at this perspective. If anything, I believe that cities are complex ecosystems and they're best managed wholi | ||||
