A buddy of mine, Jim Pitkow and his latest company Attributor was featured in a Wall Street Journal article today talking about the technology these folk have created to scan the web for content as a means for tracking digital rights use/abuse on the web.
This could be huge, with the explosion of images, audio, and video not to mention the massive amounts of other intellectual property published on the web -- being able to track this could be an important piece to the puzzle on how to keep the web semi-organized and 'safe' for all publishers of content.
Having spent some time with DRM systems, I've always been suspect of how such systems can scale and survive on the Net. Some of them have been closed systems that require all things to be under one tent. All of them have suffered from the ability of smart people to 'break' their system, thus rendering them ineffective and setting up an arms race between the DRM and the hacker community.
On the other hand, tracking content on the web has been a challenge due to the massive scale that must be dealt with. A different kind of search engine, in this case dealing with finding and tracking specific pieces of information through, one can imagine, some form of fingerprinting technology that they've developed. A very interesting problem, I hope they've found a way to crack it.
Very cool stuff, and good luck to the Attributor team!
Kipp
Monday, December 18, 2006
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Weather anyone?
From the MIT Technology Review, I caught the personalized weather forecast that IBM's supercomputer is spitting out. The article talks about why this resolution can be beneficial and what some of the downsides are.
Personalized Weather Forecasts by Duncan Graham-Rowe
An IBM supercomputer forecasts weather down to a one-kilometer resolution.
Pretty nifty animations (well, time-lapse jpegs) of tempature, cloud and precipitation, wind and surface conditions.
Now, can you link this to an investment strategy?
Kipp
Personalized Weather Forecasts by Duncan Graham-Rowe
An IBM supercomputer forecasts weather down to a one-kilometer resolution.
Pretty nifty animations (well, time-lapse jpegs) of tempature, cloud and precipitation, wind and surface conditions.
Now, can you link this to an investment strategy?
Kipp
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
BCS - Bracket Can Succeed
What if the BCS had a tournament -- okay, so it's not an original question, but still a good question. Buddy of mine (Greg Mills) sent me this, a hypothetical bracket given the final BCS standings this year. That would be a fun set of games to watch. I don't think any of them are easy, but some have a much higher probability. USC/LSU, the battle of the TLA (three letter acronyms) would be a good game. Oh come on BCS, where's the spirit of adventure? I think this could work....
Oh well, I'm sure Auburn would argue that they should have been in the bracket, but instead they get to play Nebraska!
Kipp
Friday, December 01, 2006
Peter Freeman moving on from NSF
Our very own (Georgia Tech) Peter Freeman officially announced his departure. This was not a surprise move, term expiration and all. A nice write-up can be found at the CRA site as well as on the NSF site.
He's staying in DC to work for The Washington Advisory Group. This looks to be a high-powered consultancy group that helps various organizations in R&D and higher education, presumably with a perspective towards policy and other strategery work...
Peter was the Dean of CoC the first time I came to Tech and I have fond memories of his tenure here as well as the work he has done at NSF.
Kipp
He's staying in DC to work for The Washington Advisory Group. This looks to be a high-powered consultancy group that helps various organizations in R&D and higher education, presumably with a perspective towards policy and other strategery work...
Peter was the Dean of CoC the first time I came to Tech and I have fond memories of his tenure here as well as the work he has done at NSF.
Kipp
Friday, November 03, 2006
$100 Laptop or $15 Mobile?
Motorola's chairman David Brown thinks they will have $15 mobile phones available by 2008. The impact of this is likely to be quite large. As the article states, they think this could add another 100 million people to the wireless world a year.
Another interesting statistic is the one cited from a 'recent study by the London School of Economics' which states that a 10% increase in mobile penetration leads to a .6% increase in GDP (also mentioned back in July in an article on the Economist). After doing some digging (don't you hate it when 'journalists' cite studies but don't actually have any reference to said citation!), I believe they are referring to a paper entitled "The Impact of Telecoms on Economic Growth in Developing Countries" which was written by Leonard Waverman, Meloria Meschi and Melvyn Fuss [1].
Anyway, it looks like the wireless world is benefitting from a number of efforts which include the OLPC $100 laptop and the MOT $15 mobile. Both efforts are good and will have impacts which we can't predict just yet. The $15 price tag sure makes things even more interesting in the developing countries where connectivity is still the major stumbling block even if you were to give away computers. GSM providers have continued to expand their coverage, and with the pre-paid model of network access, they have a huge advantage over any deployment of laptops (unless the laptops come with GSM modems)...
Kipp
[1] Waverman, Meschi and Fuss, The Impact of Telecoms on Economic Growth in Developing Countries, Africa: The Impact of Mobile Phones, Vodafone Policy Paper Series 2 (March 2005)
Thursday, November 02, 2006
Tech and elections - GA not doing so well
CNET just came out with a 'Technology Voter Guide' in which they rate various politians based on their pro/con- technology voting record.
Georgia not only had 2 of the worst performers (Lowest scoring House Democrat - John Barrow @ 25% and Lowest scoring House Replican - Lynn Westmoreland @ 13%), we hve only 2 politicians that scored above 500 (Chambliss @ 60% and Kingston @52.63%).
This puts GA in 38th place as a state...sad...
Kipp
Georgia not only had 2 of the worst performers (Lowest scoring House Democrat - John Barrow @ 25% and Lowest scoring House Replican - Lynn Westmoreland @ 13%), we hve only 2 politicians that scored above 500 (Chambliss @ 60% and Kingston @52.63%).
This puts GA in 38th place as a state...sad...
Kipp
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Wireless Meant To Be Free(ish)
While not really free, the idea behind FON is through sharing your network, you get access to others' networks, thus expanding your ability to be online. This is sort of the seti-at-home model for networks -- by giving up your 'excess/wasted' bandwidth, you can make the world better.
The latest in this push is in San Francisco, they are kicking off a Freedom Friday event to give away these standard Linksys routers with special firmware that provides the ability to offer up your network for others use while still protecting your internal network. In exchange, you can get access to others who are doing the same. I have my FON router, but haven't seen much usage, and haven't found any place where I've been that I could hook up to another FON network, but still hoping they grow!
I think FON should hook up with the actual PHONE companies to expand their smart phone offerings, like what T-Mobile has done with their dual Wi-Fi and Cell Service offering. You can learn more about it at www.theonlyphoneyouneed.com. Now, if you could expand the offering beyond their hot-spots through some kind of connection to FON...
The next few years should be interesting as Wi-Fi not only reaches critical mass, but we come up with more ways to open up private networks to exand the bandwidth and coverage available to users. I did read a paper on the use of open Wi-Fi networks for mobile vehicular access. The bandwidth/throughput is somewhat limited due to the acquisition rate and the mobile nature, but it is possible. Some applications will need to be modified to make it work in a discontinuous mode, but it will happen.
Kipp
Thursday, October 19, 2006
Jerircho
I caught an episode of Jericho recently -- an end of the world TV show focused on a small fictional town in Kansas named Jericho. According to those who edit wikipedia, the best fit for an actual Jericho is Oakley, KS and was chosen for its realtive isolation from major cities.
As I've always said, I grew up in the middle of nowhere -- less than 100 miles from Oakley/Jericho! So I guess I should head back to the farm in the event of a nuclear war, especially since Atlanta was one of the first cities to go in the TV show...
Kipp
Monday, October 16, 2006
Home from Liberia
Well, I made it home again after a couple weeks in Liberia. The experience was amazing, and the people were incredible. Tere were aspects of the country which were better than expected, and some that were worse. There is an amazing amount of work to be done to get the country fully operational.
The total human capacity in the country is still devastated by the war, 15 years of broken educational systems, broken governmental systems, broken industry -- has left many gaps in the capabilities. It has also devastated any institutional knowledge that was present before the war.
There is an underlying current that seemed to have a push/pull against the international community. A couple of paraphrased quotes:
- The UN is helping, but all of the money goes back out of the country to these high paid consultants
- They want to make the country in their likeness (e.g. western)
- The WorldBank is trying to impose their ideas on us, but they don't understand the situation (e.g. we're different)
- We should ban export of raw materials (even go so far as to follow Bolivia's lead and nationalize resources)
- We want foreign investment and competition, but 'need' state owned entities with special priveleges (e.g. telecom, power, media)
There is also a sense of lost opportunity, especially noticeable in the telecom sector. The country missed several opportunities during the last decade with resepct to spectrum licensing and it seems they want to somehow turn back the clock to recoup those lost revenues. But going back is not the path forward. Dwelling on the past way of doing things, the misssed opprotunities, will only exacerbate the problem.
We need to some fresh thinking -- if you are building a country with a fresh start, what should you do? Unfortunately, as it currently sits, it isn't a fresh start, there is baggage all around that are left overs. Nonetheless, it is an opportunity to set things on a path forward not backwards. How should a country handle it's raw resources? How should the country attract foreign investment? How should the country build it's educational system? These and many more questions can be looked at with a fresh perspective.
The Liberian diaspora have an important role to play. As a cross between foreign investment and local investment, they are likely to be more able to understand and take the risks needed to invest in the country. They can assimilate ideas from other regions and apply them to the context of Liberia. They can provide anchors for other investments. But, they also must force out the culture of corruption and ensure that they do not contribute to the continuation of bribery and cronyism that can leave the country in a state of decay.
According to many who have been working in Liberia over the last several years, it has come a long way from the bottom. This may be true, but there is still a long way to go to get the country truly operational. I hope our work can contribute towards some of that progress by helping the government embrace technology as a lever for many of the other sectors that are being built/rebuilt.
Kipp
The total human capacity in the country is still devastated by the war, 15 years of broken educational systems, broken governmental systems, broken industry -- has left many gaps in the capabilities. It has also devastated any institutional knowledge that was present before the war.
There is an underlying current that seemed to have a push/pull against the international community. A couple of paraphrased quotes:
- The UN is helping, but all of the money goes back out of the country to these high paid consultants
- They want to make the country in their likeness (e.g. western)
- The WorldBank is trying to impose their ideas on us, but they don't understand the situation (e.g. we're different)
- We should ban export of raw materials (even go so far as to follow Bolivia's lead and nationalize resources)
- We want foreign investment and competition, but 'need' state owned entities with special priveleges (e.g. telecom, power, media)
There is also a sense of lost opportunity, especially noticeable in the telecom sector. The country missed several opportunities during the last decade with resepct to spectrum licensing and it seems they want to somehow turn back the clock to recoup those lost revenues. But going back is not the path forward. Dwelling on the past way of doing things, the misssed opprotunities, will only exacerbate the problem.
We need to some fresh thinking -- if you are building a country with a fresh start, what should you do? Unfortunately, as it currently sits, it isn't a fresh start, there is baggage all around that are left overs. Nonetheless, it is an opportunity to set things on a path forward not backwards. How should a country handle it's raw resources? How should the country attract foreign investment? How should the country build it's educational system? These and many more questions can be looked at with a fresh perspective.
The Liberian diaspora have an important role to play. As a cross between foreign investment and local investment, they are likely to be more able to understand and take the risks needed to invest in the country. They can assimilate ideas from other regions and apply them to the context of Liberia. They can provide anchors for other investments. But, they also must force out the culture of corruption and ensure that they do not contribute to the continuation of bribery and cronyism that can leave the country in a state of decay.
According to many who have been working in Liberia over the last several years, it has come a long way from the bottom. This may be true, but there is still a long way to go to get the country truly operational. I hope our work can contribute towards some of that progress by helping the government embrace technology as a lever for many of the other sectors that are being built/rebuilt.
Kipp
Thursday, October 12, 2006
View from the top
There used to be a 5 star hotel up here, but no more. From here, everything looks quite normal. But as you've seen, and as we've experienced, it's far from normal, but not as bad as some would have you believe.
The Masonic Temple, which is quite impressive even in it's post-war state, is also located up here. The building is actively used by the lodge members here (one of which which we met).
So long from my last full day here, tomorrow should be bit more calm with only one meeting before flying out....
Kipp
The Masonic Temple, which is quite impressive even in it's post-war state, is also located up here. The building is actively used by the lodge members here (one of which which we met).
So long from my last full day here, tomorrow should be bit more calm with only one meeting before flying out....
Kipp
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Boys will be boys
Edem and I spent part of the afternoon walking between meetings. As we were walking by, these boys had discovered a tire and were working on taking it someplace.
Today, it's rainy. Started raining last night, and hasn't let up -- some great thunderstorms this morning and there is flooding around the city. But we don't let that slow us down, 5 meetings on the docket today, but so far tomorrow looks light with only 2 so far.
Our Internet connection at the compound was not working, so I'm working from an Internet cafe -- about $1.20 USD for 30 minutes of time, but the connectivity is pretty darn good (278kbps down with 32 kbps up -- Vital Technology is the name of the place).
It's amazingly low price considering what they have to go through to get access here. All of the equipment is expensive and taxed rather heavily. The license fees for VSAT add to the burden as does the cost of burning diesel to keep the power going. Satellite bandwidth is just plain expensive.
The mobile market is doing very well here, with some providers now offering GPRS, others with money transfers, and others offering fixed wireless Internet access.
Kipp
Today, it's rainy. Started raining last night, and hasn't let up -- some great thunderstorms this morning and there is flooding around the city. But we don't let that slow us down, 5 meetings on the docket today, but so far tomorrow looks light with only 2 so far.
Our Internet connection at the compound was not working, so I'm working from an Internet cafe -- about $1.20 USD for 30 minutes of time, but the connectivity is pretty darn good (278kbps down with 32 kbps up -- Vital Technology is the name of the place).
It's amazingly low price considering what they have to go through to get access here. All of the equipment is expensive and taxed rather heavily. The license fees for VSAT add to the burden as does the cost of burning diesel to keep the power going. Satellite bandwidth is just plain expensive.
The mobile market is doing very well here, with some providers now offering GPRS, others with money transfers, and others offering fixed wireless Internet access.
Kipp
Monday, October 09, 2006
Hot spot
Just to make sure I wasn't an entire weanie with respect to the weather, it really is quite warm here. According to one report (boston.com), while the temperature was only 29 degrees celcius (about 84 farenheit), with the humidty running at 87%, the 'RealFeel' temperature is about 99 degrees F.
Kipp
Kipp
Laundry Day
Well, most days are laundry days around here. Most people don't have electricity, so laundry along with a lot of other things involves manual labor.
For a country just slightly larger than Tennessee [1] and a population of somewhere around 3 million (about half as many as Tennessee [2]), they sure do know how to create big problems! Without power (excepting for a small area around the Presidential complex which is served by a grid), the only power is via generators (and boy does the smell of burning diesel add to the joy of the sound of those generators). Of course, all fuel has to be imported, so fuel here is about $3/gallon in the city, going up to around $5/gallon in the bush.
I heard some stats regarding the cost of kvh here, but I'd probably get them wrong if I put them here...suffice it to say, the cost per kvh is a lot higher here than in most places. Very few buisiness are 24 hour, even most of the radio stations are run on a 2-shift block so as not to burn diesel during the non-peak listening times.
Without consistent electricity, the act of preserving foods is dealt a blow. This limits the available options for sustenance. Speaking of sustenance, rice is a huge thing here, and rice is expensive ($32/bag, which apparently is normally around $19). There, at least in the past, and perhaps presently, some kind of monopoly on rice production/importation. This apparently doesn't help reduce the price that people end up paying -- go figure!
The roads are torn up, from the war and general lack of repair capability. I'm sure the UN tanks rolling around on the roads don't help (I actually got to witness one of these patrols the other night as we were heading home from Ellen's place -- a bit of surprise to see a couple of tanks roll by -- I was so enthralled with watching, I forgot to grab my camera!). the repairs that they do, don't last long due to the heavy rains, plus I think the equipment they use to patch the roads are not the most up-to-date. (see pic.).
The state of the roads causes what almost appears to be a video game style of driving, weaving around both sides of the road to avoid dropping a wheel in the potholes. Meanwhile the pedestrians are in their own game, playing a version of frogger trying to get across the road...
And that's just the beginning...
[1] https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/print/li.html
[2] http://www.npg.org/states/tn.htm
For a country just slightly larger than Tennessee [1] and a population of somewhere around 3 million (about half as many as Tennessee [2]), they sure do know how to create big problems! Without power (excepting for a small area around the Presidential complex which is served by a grid), the only power is via generators (and boy does the smell of burning diesel add to the joy of the sound of those generators). Of course, all fuel has to be imported, so fuel here is about $3/gallon in the city, going up to around $5/gallon in the bush.
I heard some stats regarding the cost of kvh here, but I'd probably get them wrong if I put them here...suffice it to say, the cost per kvh is a lot higher here than in most places. Very few buisiness are 24 hour, even most of the radio stations are run on a 2-shift block so as not to burn diesel during the non-peak listening times.
Without consistent electricity, the act of preserving foods is dealt a blow. This limits the available options for sustenance. Speaking of sustenance, rice is a huge thing here, and rice is expensive ($32/bag, which apparently is normally around $19). There, at least in the past, and perhaps presently, some kind of monopoly on rice production/importation. This apparently doesn't help reduce the price that people end up paying -- go figure!
The state of the roads causes what almost appears to be a video game style of driving, weaving around both sides of the road to avoid dropping a wheel in the potholes. Meanwhile the pedestrians are in their own game, playing a version of frogger trying to get across the road...
And that's just the beginning...
[1] https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/print/li.html
[2] http://www.npg.org/states/tn.htm
Sunday, October 08, 2006
New friends
Ellen (our host here) invited us, her team, and some of the folk from the Energy Forum over for a dinner party last night. Her team has been working 24x7 to get everything ready for what turned out to be an extremely well attended conference on Energy in Liberia. We'll see what comes out, but this certainly should kick up the activity -- but it still looks like it is up to the government to clean up it's legal and regulatory framework and figure out what they really want to do before the investors are going to be willing to step in.
There are some similarities between the energy and telecom industry regarding the legal, regulatory, and investment environment. Transparency and clarity are needed in order to move things forward.
Anyway, we spent Friday in meetings with USAID, Comium (mobile provider that was incredibly unhelpful), Search For a Common Ground (regarding community radio) and some folk from the Carter Center. We were able to gather a good bit of information on the industry and some of the policy issues. As I mentioned above, Comium was completely closed and would not discuss anything.
Saturday was some work around the office here, with Edem trying to get his crew ready to do the personal survey work. I spent some time playing around with Google Earth and showing some of the folk at Genesis a few geographic details (like where the heck is Nebraska!).
We closed the work day with an excellent meeting with Boutheina from the World Bank. Great stuff, and I think they are doing some incredible work here and elsewhere -- she was off to Freetown today to mark the first engagement with the Telecom sector in Sierra Leone. Good luck on that one!
I was jonesing for some college football yesterday -- caught a few early scores online while hanging out at the Mamba Point Hotel, but just not quite the same. At least the Huskers won (sorry about the Tigers Greg).
Today is a day to catch up on my notes and get the week nailed down. Should be pretty quite, and it looks like the rain may have moved on for the day or at least the moment.
Kipp
There are some similarities between the energy and telecom industry regarding the legal, regulatory, and investment environment. Transparency and clarity are needed in order to move things forward.
Anyway, we spent Friday in meetings with USAID, Comium (mobile provider that was incredibly unhelpful), Search For a Common Ground (regarding community radio) and some folk from the Carter Center. We were able to gather a good bit of information on the industry and some of the policy issues. As I mentioned above, Comium was completely closed and would not discuss anything.
Saturday was some work around the office here, with Edem trying to get his crew ready to do the personal survey work. I spent some time playing around with Google Earth and showing some of the folk at Genesis a few geographic details (like where the heck is Nebraska!).
We closed the work day with an excellent meeting with Boutheina from the World Bank. Great stuff, and I think they are doing some incredible work here and elsewhere -- she was off to Freetown today to mark the first engagement with the Telecom sector in Sierra Leone. Good luck on that one!
I was jonesing for some college football yesterday -- caught a few early scores online while hanging out at the Mamba Point Hotel, but just not quite the same. At least the Huskers won (sorry about the Tigers Greg).
Today is a day to catch up on my notes and get the week nailed down. Should be pretty quite, and it looks like the rain may have moved on for the day or at least the moment.
Kipp
Friday, October 06, 2006
Scrubby time
This was one unhappy little boy! Getting clean is no fun!
I was sitting in the office when I heard him crying, looked up and just had to snap the shot...
I'm rather tired now after a long day filled with meetings. I'll fill you in on it tomorrow.
Kipp
I was sitting in the office when I heard him crying, looked up and just had to snap the shot...
I'm rather tired now after a long day filled with meetings. I'll fill you in on it tomorrow.
Kipp
Thursday, October 05, 2006
Monrovia in B&W
It seemed like a good day to switch to black and white. The cloud cover made for some soft light but stil plenty of contrast (in more ways than one).
I made a bonehead move today and ended up at the wrong building for a meeting this morning. Doh! Had to apologize profusely and reschedule for Monday. I'm a dork...
I did get a chance to see more of downtown Monrovia. We stopped by the National Engergy Stakeholders' Forum which is being sponsored by USAID and all of the logistics are being done by our host here, Genesis. Some 350 participants from all over are coming with the event being kicked off and closed by the President.
Speaking of electricity, I spoke with one gentleman who spends some $30 a day on fuel for his generators. Not too many people can afford that around here, so there are a lot of places without. The generator in our compound provides good power, but the noise is deafening, especially since the windows are open due to no a/c. But, not complaining, have electricity and Internet connectivity which is pretty darn good.
Kipp
I made a bonehead move today and ended up at the wrong building for a meeting this morning. Doh! Had to apologize profusely and reschedule for Monday. I'm a dork...
I did get a chance to see more of downtown Monrovia. We stopped by the National Engergy Stakeholders' Forum which is being sponsored by USAID and all of the logistics are being done by our host here, Genesis. Some 350 participants from all over are coming with the event being kicked off and closed by the President.
Speaking of electricity, I spoke with one gentleman who spends some $30 a day on fuel for his generators. Not too many people can afford that around here, so there are a lot of places without. The generator in our compound provides good power, but the noise is deafening, especially since the windows are open due to no a/c. But, not complaining, have electricity and Internet connectivity which is pretty darn good.
Kipp
Brain Gain
This article, Liberia's elites leave American comforts for war-torn home in the Christian Science Monitor echoes what I have witnessed, both on the trip over, and since I've arrived.
There is a very noticeable number of highly trained and skilled professionals coming and staying in Liberia. Many that I met on the trip over are on 'exploratory' missions, but others have decided this is where they want to be. Take my hosts for example, Genesis, they have some massive brain power -- executives from wall street, Goldman Sachs, E&Y, etc. that have all come back and made this their home again. With their return they bring not only vast experience, but a means to help build the local capacity by training and educating those they work with.
These are very positive currents, but there is always this undercurrent that is present, especially in an area which lacks the institutional capability to fully police itself. The temptations and opportunities for unethical behavior abound, with both international and locals looking for opportunities to take advantage of the situation.
Kipp
There is a very noticeable number of highly trained and skilled professionals coming and staying in Liberia. Many that I met on the trip over are on 'exploratory' missions, but others have decided this is where they want to be. Take my hosts for example, Genesis, they have some massive brain power -- executives from wall street, Goldman Sachs, E&Y, etc. that have all come back and made this their home again. With their return they bring not only vast experience, but a means to help build the local capacity by training and educating those they work with.
These are very positive currents, but there is always this undercurrent that is present, especially in an area which lacks the institutional capability to fully police itself. The temptations and opportunities for unethical behavior abound, with both international and locals looking for opportunities to take advantage of the situation.
Kipp
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Last one for today...
The sun has set over here, but back home, there's still time in the day to play!
Wednesday
Another good ‘n warm night of sleeping. No a/c, but a nice breeze going through. Nice thing was, had water in the morning, so got a nice cold shower to wake me up!
Had several meetings today, the chairman of the Liberian Telecommunications Authority, Dr. Vandi was gracious and took a lot of time out of his day to help us understand the process, the role of LTA, some of the needs, issues and challenges that he sees ahead.
After that, we spent some time with the General Manager of LiberCell, one of 4 mobile providers in Liberia. For a population of some 3 million, 4 providers is quite a few!
Mr. Alawie was also very gracious and hosted Edem and I while we discussed the capabilities and plans for LiberCell in Liberia. Very interesting business, especially given the level of competition.
An interesting side note regarding the effect of this competition. The model of cell phones is quite a bit different here than most people, say, in the US look at cell phones (e.g. mobiles). Here, people actually buy a phone (without subsidization from the service providers). Because they do this, the phones are unlocked, i.e. they work with any service provider given the right SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) card. What appears to happen for some, is they will buy a SIM card from each provider (~$5 each). Then, they wait around for some kind of special on minutes from one of the providers and then stock up….I tell you…
Speaking of locked phones, we went downtown to try to get Edem’s t-mobile phone unlocked….$95 to get it unlocked! Nuts I tell you. Of course it was only $25 to get my cingular phone unlocked (which, btw, they were supposed to have emailed me the code last week, but it still hasn’t arrived….grrr). We got a couple waters and headed back to the office…
Set up a few more meetings, try to get organized for tomorrow, struggle with the bandwidth, and that should about do it for the day!
Wednesday
Another good ‘n warm night of sleeping. No a/c, but a nice breeze going through. Nice thing was, had water in the morning, so got a nice cold shower to wake me up!
Had several meetings today, the chairman of the Liberian Telecommunications Authority, Dr. Vandi was gracious and took a lot of time out of his day to help us understand the process, the role of LTA, some of the needs, issues and challenges that he sees ahead.
After that, we spent some time with the General Manager of LiberCell, one of 4 mobile providers in Liberia. For a population of some 3 million, 4 providers is quite a few!
Mr. Alawie was also very gracious and hosted Edem and I while we discussed the capabilities and plans for LiberCell in Liberia. Very interesting business, especially given the level of competition.
An interesting side note regarding the effect of this competition. The model of cell phones is quite a bit different here than most people, say, in the US look at cell phones (e.g. mobiles). Here, people actually buy a phone (without subsidization from the service providers). Because they do this, the phones are unlocked, i.e. they work with any service provider given the right SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) card. What appears to happen for some, is they will buy a SIM card from each provider (~$5 each). Then, they wait around for some kind of special on minutes from one of the providers and then stock up….I tell you…
Speaking of locked phones, we went downtown to try to get Edem’s t-mobile phone unlocked….$95 to get it unlocked! Nuts I tell you. Of course it was only $25 to get my cingular phone unlocked (which, btw, they were supposed to have emailed me the code last week, but it still hasn’t arrived….grrr). We got a couple waters and headed back to the office…
Set up a few more meetings, try to get organized for tomorrow, struggle with the bandwidth, and that should about do it for the day!
Connectivity in Monrovia
So, I’m getting about 43Kbps download with 16Kbps upload – which would explain why I only uploaded a few photos and then used a smaller version of them…
kipp-jones-powerbook-g4-78:~ kippster$ ping www.yahoo.com
PING www.yahoo-ht2.akadns.net (209.73.186.238): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 209.73.186.238: icmp_seq=0 ttl=53 time=742.164 ms
64 bytes from 209.73.186.238: icmp_seq=4 ttl=53 time=3041.214 ms
64 bytes from 209.73.186.238: icmp_seq=9 ttl=53 time=750.923 ms
64 bytes from 209.73.186.238: icmp_seq=10 ttl=53 time=700.803 ms
64 bytes from 209.73.186.238: icmp_seq=11 ttl=53 time=1240.628 ms
So, a bit tough, but better than being disconnected!
Kipp
kipp-jones-powerbook-g4-78:~ kippster$ ping www.yahoo.com
PING www.yahoo-ht2.akadns.net (209.73.186.238): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 209.73.186.238: icmp_seq=0 ttl=53 time=742.164 ms
64 bytes from 209.73.186.238: icmp_seq=4 ttl=53 time=3041.214 ms
64 bytes from 209.73.186.238: icmp_seq=9 ttl=53 time=750.923 ms
64 bytes from 209.73.186.238: icmp_seq=10 ttl=53 time=700.803 ms
64 bytes from 209.73.186.238: icmp_seq=11 ttl=53 time=1240.628 ms
So, a bit tough, but better than being disconnected!
Kipp
Tuesday in Monrovia - Energy and Telco
It’s now October 3 – After a nice little dinner and a drink last night, I was the first occupant of the newly renovated Chateau De La Genesis. The AC wasn’t hooked up, so I hope my Deet was protecting me as I had to have some air in the room. The location is pretty amazing (see photos if you don’t believe me). They’ve done a lot to restore this set of buildings, the previous occupants, apparently soldiers, had subdivided every room into tiny rooms. As you can see, from the pics, the area around the compound is still in a bit of disrepair. With unemployment running at around 85%, you can understand why.
I awoke early and had a chance to snap some photos as the sun was coming up. The ocean is some 50 m away, so I slept last night to the sound of the waves crashing. Very pleasant, but I’m just not used to it! That, and every time I had an itch I couldn’t help but think about mosquitoes…
This morning met a nice young lady who is a junior at the United Methodist University, majoring in accounting with a minor in economics. She is from Liberia, but spent a number of years in Nigeria (near Lagos) during the war. She’s very optimistic but knows it will take some time to rebuild the country. She hopes to be able to pursue a graduate degree overseas and be able to come back and use what she learned to help out.
I also spent some time with Abraham, a young man who is in networking – primarily sounds like he deals with satellite networks. As with a lot of people, he also spent some time elsewhere during the war and is back.
Both Abraham and Joisei(sp?) are very interested in technology. I ran my Phonopoly idea past them and they seemed genuinely interested. There are times where having access to an account of some kind would be very useful. For example with the universities, many web sites require some type of account. It truly is amazing how prevalent the mobile phones are. They confirmed this, noting that they use them for both voice and texting.
Phones here are not cheap since the phone companies don’t subsidize them. This in turn helps propagate the cell phone thievery. Sam (the economist fellow) mentioned that it is the number 1 item for theft in the country. The young lady showed me a scar (it was on her neck before you ask!) where a thug had cut her to get her cell phone.
Anyway, the generator isn’t on yet, sometime during the night it stopped. I’m on my second battery so I have a bit of time left. My cell phone, however is on it’s last leg – stupid charger doesn’t seem to be working, and my other phone *still* isn’t unlocked! And my IP phone won’t work until they get the network back alive….
Now, preparing for a press conference on Energy. Met a gentleman, Will James from IRG in DC. He’s an energy lawyer. I promised him to send him an article on the Dark Land, about the forgotten land of Africa. Will has a slide of the nighttime view of the earth.
Also met Dunstan L. D. Maculey, the Chairman of the Board of Directors for the Liberia Electricity Corporation (LEC). He spent a number of years in Atlanta (circa 95) and led the Liberian delegation at the Centenial Olympics.
A discussion ensued about the upcoming National Forum. Hydro power (~60%) was the key generator pre-war power source (413 Megawatts ish). Now they have about 4 Megawatts. Rural electrification has always been an issue in Liberia. Petroleum production stopped many years ago. 2004 Energy workshop came out with some options. Issues to tackle include:
1) sector reform and restructuring – liberalized with competition
2) market development – measures to establish market structure within electricity and petro subsectors
3) increase access to rural – renewable energy resources
4) establish independent regulatory bodies
5) strengthen legal and regulatory framework
Several members of the press followed up the speeches with some hard questions about implementation, not just policy. The answers were a mix of ‘we’ll try’ and ‘we know’ about both the perception and the reality of the scorecard on implementation. Pledges to do better…
Sam Jackson drove me to the National Investment Commission building. I’m to meet with Ben Wolo (head of LTC) who will also be meeting with LTA and World Bank.
I was able to meet with Ben Wolo of the LTC briefly. I was more of a fly on the wall during a discussion between LTC, LTA, and World Bank. I can’t say more, but I was appreciative of the chance to participate.
I then made my way over to visit with Zotowan Titus, the Assistant Minister of Telecom. The Ministry of Post and Telecommunications building has a dual image…many areas are in disrepair, yet the offices are in good shape albeit spread around on several levels. Unfortunately, the office does not have Internet access – but I was thoroughly debriefed by Mr. Titus who graciously walked me through the policy process as well as the process by which the provisional government had enacted certain bills.
Back to the office, a number of scheduling calls and debriefs, some note taking, then to a quick dinner and back to bed….
I awoke early and had a chance to snap some photos as the sun was coming up. The ocean is some 50 m away, so I slept last night to the sound of the waves crashing. Very pleasant, but I’m just not used to it! That, and every time I had an itch I couldn’t help but think about mosquitoes…
This morning met a nice young lady who is a junior at the United Methodist University, majoring in accounting with a minor in economics. She is from Liberia, but spent a number of years in Nigeria (near Lagos) during the war. She’s very optimistic but knows it will take some time to rebuild the country. She hopes to be able to pursue a graduate degree overseas and be able to come back and use what she learned to help out.
I also spent some time with Abraham, a young man who is in networking – primarily sounds like he deals with satellite networks. As with a lot of people, he also spent some time elsewhere during the war and is back.
Both Abraham and Joisei(sp?) are very interested in technology. I ran my Phonopoly idea past them and they seemed genuinely interested. There are times where having access to an account of some kind would be very useful. For example with the universities, many web sites require some type of account. It truly is amazing how prevalent the mobile phones are. They confirmed this, noting that they use them for both voice and texting.
Phones here are not cheap since the phone companies don’t subsidize them. This in turn helps propagate the cell phone thievery. Sam (the economist fellow) mentioned that it is the number 1 item for theft in the country. The young lady showed me a scar (it was on her neck before you ask!) where a thug had cut her to get her cell phone.
Anyway, the generator isn’t on yet, sometime during the night it stopped. I’m on my second battery so I have a bit of time left. My cell phone, however is on it’s last leg – stupid charger doesn’t seem to be working, and my other phone *still* isn’t unlocked! And my IP phone won’t work until they get the network back alive….
Now, preparing for a press conference on Energy. Met a gentleman, Will James from IRG in DC. He’s an energy lawyer. I promised him to send him an article on the Dark Land, about the forgotten land of Africa. Will has a slide of the nighttime view of the earth.
Also met Dunstan L. D. Maculey, the Chairman of the Board of Directors for the Liberia Electricity Corporation (LEC). He spent a number of years in Atlanta (circa 95) and led the Liberian delegation at the Centenial Olympics.
A discussion ensued about the upcoming National Forum. Hydro power (~60%) was the key generator pre-war power source (413 Megawatts ish). Now they have about 4 Megawatts. Rural electrification has always been an issue in Liberia. Petroleum production stopped many years ago. 2004 Energy workshop came out with some options. Issues to tackle include:
1) sector reform and restructuring – liberalized with competition
2) market development – measures to establish market structure within electricity and petro subsectors
3) increase access to rural – renewable energy resources
4) establish independent regulatory bodies
5) strengthen legal and regulatory framework
Several members of the press followed up the speeches with some hard questions about implementation, not just policy. The answers were a mix of ‘we’ll try’ and ‘we know’ about both the perception and the reality of the scorecard on implementation. Pledges to do better…
Sam Jackson drove me to the National Investment Commission building. I’m to meet with Ben Wolo (head of LTC) who will also be meeting with LTA and World Bank.
I was able to meet with Ben Wolo of the LTC briefly. I was more of a fly on the wall during a discussion between LTC, LTA, and World Bank. I can’t say more, but I was appreciative of the chance to participate.
I then made my way over to visit with Zotowan Titus, the Assistant Minister of Telecom. The Ministry of Post and Telecommunications building has a dual image…many areas are in disrepair, yet the offices are in good shape albeit spread around on several levels. Unfortunately, the office does not have Internet access – but I was thoroughly debriefed by Mr. Titus who graciously walked me through the policy process as well as the process by which the provisional government had enacted certain bills.
Back to the office, a number of scheduling calls and debriefs, some note taking, then to a quick dinner and back to bed….
A day on the road
Monday
JB stopped by to say hi, Ellen will be stopping by at 10:00 to pick me up and head to the office. Eager to get going…
Oh, and my pathetic GPS (Teletype SBT-1000) unit seems quite worthless. I was unable to get a fix in Brussels, at the airport in Monrovia or at my hotel room. I’ll try outside, but not holding my breath.
Maintained my isolation, reviewing the current proposals for ICT policy in Liberia and writing a document on Phonopoly – a means to transfer money via mobile phones. It appears upon review that this really could be a way to open the cash only economy up to a new form of monetary transactions.
I am supposed to be picked up now by JB around 1PM…
Well, JB didn’t end up picking me up, rather Saey came and gathered me up around 1PM. After checking out, we made about a 15 minute drive up the main road to Genesis. The main road is in pretty bad shape, very large areas where traffic slows to a craw as people try to weave around the minefield of potholes. The destruction from the war is present everywhere you look.
The Genesis compound is near the presidential and other government offices. Since the fire in the Presidential compound, the President has been staying in a different building, I think it is the Ministry of Foreign Affairs building.
I spent the rest of the afternoon meeting the rest of the team: Sam Jackson an economist with a long list of accomplishments, Mr. Woods who has been spearheading the OSIWA project, Ellen Crayton the owner and the brains behind Genesis who also has an impressive background of accomplishments.
There is some buzz around, as the group is very involved in a National Oil & Energy Stakeholders Forum later this week. This is a pretty big deal as they are working on various aspects of the energy issue including the possibility of oil along the coast.
I spent the rest of the afternoon on into the evening establishing contact with the various communications service providers and government officials. After about 40 calls, had several meetings scheduled and several call backs to make to confirm a time. The key this week is getting to as many of the providers and government people as possible.
Next week, we are working on putting together a workshop that brings together representatives from various sectors of the economy to discuss ICT. We think this will be the most effective way to get information from a broad spectrum of the economy.
JB stopped by to say hi, Ellen will be stopping by at 10:00 to pick me up and head to the office. Eager to get going…
Oh, and my pathetic GPS (Teletype SBT-1000) unit seems quite worthless. I was unable to get a fix in Brussels, at the airport in Monrovia or at my hotel room. I’ll try outside, but not holding my breath.
Maintained my isolation, reviewing the current proposals for ICT policy in Liberia and writing a document on Phonopoly – a means to transfer money via mobile phones. It appears upon review that this really could be a way to open the cash only economy up to a new form of monetary transactions.
I am supposed to be picked up now by JB around 1PM…
Well, JB didn’t end up picking me up, rather Saey came and gathered me up around 1PM. After checking out, we made about a 15 minute drive up the main road to Genesis. The main road is in pretty bad shape, very large areas where traffic slows to a craw as people try to weave around the minefield of potholes. The destruction from the war is present everywhere you look.
The Genesis compound is near the presidential and other government offices. Since the fire in the Presidential compound, the President has been staying in a different building, I think it is the Ministry of Foreign Affairs building.
I spent the rest of the afternoon meeting the rest of the team: Sam Jackson an economist with a long list of accomplishments, Mr. Woods who has been spearheading the OSIWA project, Ellen Crayton the owner and the brains behind Genesis who also has an impressive background of accomplishments.
There is some buzz around, as the group is very involved in a National Oil & Energy Stakeholders Forum later this week. This is a pretty big deal as they are working on various aspects of the energy issue including the possibility of oil along the coast.
I spent the rest of the afternoon on into the evening establishing contact with the various communications service providers and government officials. After about 40 calls, had several meetings scheduled and several call backs to make to confirm a time. The key this week is getting to as many of the providers and government people as possible.
Next week, we are working on putting together a workshop that brings together representatives from various sectors of the economy to discuss ICT. We think this will be the most effective way to get information from a broad spectrum of the economy.
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
The realities
This gives a view out the front of the Genesis compound. It provides a bit more view into the devestation that the years of war have had on the country -- a local figure putting unemployment at 85%...
The possibilities
The great view from the Genesis compound. This is a view out of the room I'm staying in.
The journey continues
10/1
Okay, continuing day 2, I spent the morning doing some more readings for the qualifiers. This to add a bit of variety to my reading diet of ‘The Travler’ by John Twelve Hawks and a paper on spectrum allocation…you really wish you were me don’t you?!?
I did run into Boutheina (World Bank), who is on her way to work with the gov’t of Liberia on the telecom act and then to Sierra Leone to work with their government as well. It is her team’s work that we are building on for this Liberian project and I owe a lot of thanks to both her and Judith Hollerstein for the generous sharing of their contacts.
The trip to Monrovia was very interesting. I ended up sitting next to a gentleman, Roland who works for the UN. He’s responsible for the UN fueling stations (some 40+ of them) in Liberia – for land and air vehicles. He had a lot to say about the UN, the countries in which he had been stationed (Bosnia, Sierra Leone, Kuwait…) and his home country of Austria. A quite vocal fellow with a passion for Italian cars, he described how he seems to have a knack for building and fixing things interspersed with a couple of choice curse words and an ‘I tell you what…” in an Austrian accent. In particular his descriptions of some of the waste within the UN machine (both by the bureaucracy as well as by individual and group corrupt behavior of graft and theft of UN resources. I could give you a pretty good history of his life and a fairly detailed description of his favorite things to do (fish) and dislikes (lazy bleeps).
We had a short stop in Freetown, Sierra Leone to pick up and drop off some passengers. I snapped a couple of pictures (but received a good wag of the finger by the flight attendant – apparently my blurry pictures of the airport represent a security threat). I also had a chance to meet Jeff, another UN person who contracts for the UNDP (food). He goes into locations and devises security mechanisms and methods to protect the food chain. He also has done stints all around the world, recently coming from a couple months in Bangladesh – a place that he says is the worst place he has been with respect to quality of life and prospects for improvement. A very interesting fellow, one who just exuded a confidence and had such a commanding voice that you just felt comfortable hanging around him.
There seems to be a lack of consistent understanding of what happens with the technology when the UN retreats. Does it stay or does it go? How much stays and is there training on the use of it? According to Roland, it all goes when the UN leaves, the radios, the towers, the equipment, but Jeff had another take, stating that it all stays...
We then made a quick jaunt from Freetown to Monrovia (about 1 hour/ 700 km). The airport in Monrovia iss minimalist, the main terminal had been destroyed by the war, so all people traffic now goes through the freight terminal (as described by a local a bit later in my day). The process of going through security was quite painless and pretty well organized (especially if you go back to my nightmarish experience in ATL!).
I was able to retrieve my checked bag, but since I didn’t have my luggage tag (doh!), I had to politely beg a lady to let me have my bag. But then, I borrowed Roland’s phone (I didn’t have a local sim just yet) and called my driver who was supposed to meet me at the airport. Well, JB had suffered a vehicular fan belt failure and was 45 minutes away from the airport.
Talk about a stir. There is no place in the airport itself to wait – get your bags and out the door. I talked to one of the ‘workers’, and he had me stand by the terminal. Well, that worked for a bit, until somebody else spotted me and wanted me to move. I informed them that my driver was on the way, so they said okay…until somebody else noticed me and then we all moved down to the edge of the airport building. There is an interesting mix of UN folk on the perimeter, with officers and airport security mixing with what I can only assume are non-employed ‘helpers’. After about 30 minutes of this, I had a veritable army of people surrounding me, 4 officers and a couple of others who were helping get my phone working and get back in touch with JB, as they seemed more worried about me being there than I did. JB finally showed up and I paid $20 for my police escort….
But, we still had to wait for Edem to show up. We then parked and hung out in an outbuilding by the airport for a couple of hours, again attracting a bit of a crowd again. About the time Edem’s flight was arriving, we get a call. He had been delayed and was still in the states and was going to try to make it to Liberia by Monday night…I’m not sure it’ll happen, but good luck!
While hanging outside the airport, I was introduced to the Deputy Director of the Ministry of Commerce, Pete Norman. He was on his way to Miami. Like many here, Pete is a recent returnee to Liberia who appear to be coming back with dual goals. 1) to improve their homeland and help out where they can, and 2) participate in what many see as a huge opportunity for personal gain.
Regarding commerce, it appears the Rice Scandal is weighing heavy on people. My take on this, and apologies if I get it wrong, is the Lebanese (and one family in particular) have maintained a monopoly on the rice industry in Liberia for 3 generations. This issue has become a major problem, and sounds like it has caused several months of delay in the process to apply for WTO membership. Frustration at the speed with which change is taking place can be felt by some folk such as Pete who is struggling to get the momentum going in the right direction.
I also learned that there are about 3 radio stations, Star, Free (UN?) and some other one. The Free station operates 24 hours and, at least according to one youngster, doles out accurate information about events.
So around 10:30, JB and I hop in the 157,000 mile Trooper for the 70 minute ride back to the city. The road at times was in great shape, and at other times, you could lose your axle in the washed out pot holes. People were walking along the dark street, and periodically, there would be some type of shop or stand that had a gathering.
And to continue the adventure, our original plan of staying at the Genisis facilities was modified and I’m now at the Royal Hotel room 303 for the evening. Tomorrow, we’ll get a kick on things and get our plan mapped out for the duration of my stay…
Stay tuned for some pictures...
Kipp
Okay, continuing day 2, I spent the morning doing some more readings for the qualifiers. This to add a bit of variety to my reading diet of ‘The Travler’ by John Twelve Hawks and a paper on spectrum allocation…you really wish you were me don’t you?!?
I did run into Boutheina (World Bank), who is on her way to work with the gov’t of Liberia on the telecom act and then to Sierra Leone to work with their government as well. It is her team’s work that we are building on for this Liberian project and I owe a lot of thanks to both her and Judith Hollerstein for the generous sharing of their contacts.
The trip to Monrovia was very interesting. I ended up sitting next to a gentleman, Roland who works for the UN. He’s responsible for the UN fueling stations (some 40+ of them) in Liberia – for land and air vehicles. He had a lot to say about the UN, the countries in which he had been stationed (Bosnia, Sierra Leone, Kuwait…) and his home country of Austria. A quite vocal fellow with a passion for Italian cars, he described how he seems to have a knack for building and fixing things interspersed with a couple of choice curse words and an ‘I tell you what…” in an Austrian accent. In particular his descriptions of some of the waste within the UN machine (both by the bureaucracy as well as by individual and group corrupt behavior of graft and theft of UN resources. I could give you a pretty good history of his life and a fairly detailed description of his favorite things to do (fish) and dislikes (lazy bleeps).
We had a short stop in Freetown, Sierra Leone to pick up and drop off some passengers. I snapped a couple of pictures (but received a good wag of the finger by the flight attendant – apparently my blurry pictures of the airport represent a security threat). I also had a chance to meet Jeff, another UN person who contracts for the UNDP (food). He goes into locations and devises security mechanisms and methods to protect the food chain. He also has done stints all around the world, recently coming from a couple months in Bangladesh – a place that he says is the worst place he has been with respect to quality of life and prospects for improvement. A very interesting fellow, one who just exuded a confidence and had such a commanding voice that you just felt comfortable hanging around him.
There seems to be a lack of consistent understanding of what happens with the technology when the UN retreats. Does it stay or does it go? How much stays and is there training on the use of it? According to Roland, it all goes when the UN leaves, the radios, the towers, the equipment, but Jeff had another take, stating that it all stays...
We then made a quick jaunt from Freetown to Monrovia (about 1 hour/ 700 km). The airport in Monrovia iss minimalist, the main terminal had been destroyed by the war, so all people traffic now goes through the freight terminal (as described by a local a bit later in my day). The process of going through security was quite painless and pretty well organized (especially if you go back to my nightmarish experience in ATL!).
I was able to retrieve my checked bag, but since I didn’t have my luggage tag (doh!), I had to politely beg a lady to let me have my bag. But then, I borrowed Roland’s phone (I didn’t have a local sim just yet) and called my driver who was supposed to meet me at the airport. Well, JB had suffered a vehicular fan belt failure and was 45 minutes away from the airport.
Talk about a stir. There is no place in the airport itself to wait – get your bags and out the door. I talked to one of the ‘workers’, and he had me stand by the terminal. Well, that worked for a bit, until somebody else spotted me and wanted me to move. I informed them that my driver was on the way, so they said okay…until somebody else noticed me and then we all moved down to the edge of the airport building. There is an interesting mix of UN folk on the perimeter, with officers and airport security mixing with what I can only assume are non-employed ‘helpers’. After about 30 minutes of this, I had a veritable army of people surrounding me, 4 officers and a couple of others who were helping get my phone working and get back in touch with JB, as they seemed more worried about me being there than I did. JB finally showed up and I paid $20 for my police escort….
But, we still had to wait for Edem to show up. We then parked and hung out in an outbuilding by the airport for a couple of hours, again attracting a bit of a crowd again. About the time Edem’s flight was arriving, we get a call. He had been delayed and was still in the states and was going to try to make it to Liberia by Monday night…I’m not sure it’ll happen, but good luck!
While hanging outside the airport, I was introduced to the Deputy Director of the Ministry of Commerce, Pete Norman. He was on his way to Miami. Like many here, Pete is a recent returnee to Liberia who appear to be coming back with dual goals. 1) to improve their homeland and help out where they can, and 2) participate in what many see as a huge opportunity for personal gain.
Regarding commerce, it appears the Rice Scandal is weighing heavy on people. My take on this, and apologies if I get it wrong, is the Lebanese (and one family in particular) have maintained a monopoly on the rice industry in Liberia for 3 generations. This issue has become a major problem, and sounds like it has caused several months of delay in the process to apply for WTO membership. Frustration at the speed with which change is taking place can be felt by some folk such as Pete who is struggling to get the momentum going in the right direction.
I also learned that there are about 3 radio stations, Star, Free (UN?) and some other one. The Free station operates 24 hours and, at least according to one youngster, doles out accurate information about events.
So around 10:30, JB and I hop in the 157,000 mile Trooper for the 70 minute ride back to the city. The road at times was in great shape, and at other times, you could lose your axle in the washed out pot holes. People were walking along the dark street, and periodically, there would be some type of shop or stand that had a gathering.
And to continue the adventure, our original plan of staying at the Genisis facilities was modified and I’m now at the Royal Hotel room 303 for the evening. Tomorrow, we’ll get a kick on things and get our plan mapped out for the duration of my stay…
Stay tuned for some pictures...
Kipp
Sunday, October 01, 2006
Amsterdam and the Internet
Caught this article on the Internet exchange in Amersterdam ( on Yahoo). The AMS-IX is the world's busiest Internet exchange according to the article. It also boasts that it is the world's first mobile Internet peering point -- I wonder what exactly they mean by that.
According to the home page "the 5 minute average high of the aggregate traffic now reaches 120 Gbps for a total of 234 members" which is pretty impressive.
This is another take on the still raging Net Neutrality issue, or at least they work it into the story, even quoting the venerable Tim BL in the process.
Kipp
According to the home page "the 5 minute average high of the aggregate traffic now reaches 120 Gbps for a total of 234 members" which is pretty impressive.
This is another take on the still raging Net Neutrality issue, or at least they work it into the story, even quoting the venerable Tim BL in the process.
Kipp
The Journey begins
Saturday, noontime arrive at ATL Hartsfield airport for a 2:45PM flight out to Washington Dulles. Silly me, my checked luggage came in at over 50 pounds (brought some extra gear, a veritable electronics store of goods including a couple of phones, a VoIP phone, a wireless network, gps, palm, computer, camera…and all associated power accessories). After waiting in line for 45 minutes and reshuffling the load, was all checked in. Another 45 minutes in the security line and I barely made it onto the flight.
Established my first Liberian contact while on the flight. James, an electrical engineer by training and now a software developer for Turner was sitting next to me. 12 years since he’s been back to Liberia.
We reach Dulles with no problems, where I meet a couple other Liberians who are returning – another electrical engineer from Charlotte that is going back after 12 years in the States. I speak with several others and there does appear to be a theme – after the long years of the war, people are very optimistic about the opportunities back home. Several of their relatives have established or are in process of establishing some type of business. They are looking at all types of business – sports, Internet, investigative agencies, construction, education…it appears like a gold rush of a fashion.
Flight from Dulles to Brussels was a long one…thanks to great flight booking skills, I had the middle of the middle on the big ol’ plane. Luckily I was between a couple of young ladies on their way to Brussels for a marketing summit – they and a couple of their colleagues from eBay were headed over for the week.
Arrive in Brussels around 7:30AM Sunday morning, flight out at 11:15. I think I spotted Boutheina in a check-in line, but was too far back to make contact…I’m sure I’ll catch up with her soon.
Used the airport pay for Internet service (10euro for 1 hour). 1516 kbps download from DC, with a 313kbps upload speed…not too shabby!
Established my first Liberian contact while on the flight. James, an electrical engineer by training and now a software developer for Turner was sitting next to me. 12 years since he’s been back to Liberia.
We reach Dulles with no problems, where I meet a couple other Liberians who are returning – another electrical engineer from Charlotte that is going back after 12 years in the States. I speak with several others and there does appear to be a theme – after the long years of the war, people are very optimistic about the opportunities back home. Several of their relatives have established or are in process of establishing some type of business. They are looking at all types of business – sports, Internet, investigative agencies, construction, education…it appears like a gold rush of a fashion.
Flight from Dulles to Brussels was a long one…thanks to great flight booking skills, I had the middle of the middle on the big ol’ plane. Luckily I was between a couple of young ladies on their way to Brussels for a marketing summit – they and a couple of their colleagues from eBay were headed over for the week.
Arrive in Brussels around 7:30AM Sunday morning, flight out at 11:15. I think I spotted Boutheina in a check-in line, but was too far back to make contact…I’m sure I’ll catch up with her soon.
Used the airport pay for Internet service (10euro for 1 hour). 1516 kbps download from DC, with a 313kbps upload speed…not too shabby!
Monday, September 25, 2006
We Feel Fine
Speaking of making you happy, check out what they've done with blog mining over at WeFeelFine.
For over a year, they have been mining blogs to find how people are feeling. But that's not all, as they gather the 'feelings' they also snag as much about the location, weather, person blogging, gender, age -- and then do a cool visualization with a self-organizing particle system....
You just gotta check it out!
Kipp
Sunsets
As reported in 'Good Morning Silicon Valley' by John Paczkowski, Despair: When silent suffering isn't enough
Despair.com which launched in 1998 to combat the motivational art infestation, has provided a new homework avoiding tool.
It just makes you happy!
Kipp
Despair.com which launched in 1998 to combat the motivational art infestation, has provided a new homework avoiding tool.
It just makes you happy!
Kipp
Saturday, September 16, 2006
Johnsons
We recently lost a couple of great friends and some of the best people you'd ever meet. My friend's parents from back home (Nebraska/Kansas) passed away -- Viron and Christa Johnson -- we'll miss them.
Very sad and tragic.
Of course these events are the only time groups of people get back together, so I did get to see my Bro and old man while I was there. I also took the opportunity to get a couple of photos since it was such a beautiful fall like day. These photos were taken as I drove across Kansas and into Nebraska.
This one is interesting -- wireless is everywhere!
Very sad and tragic.
Of course these events are the only time groups of people get back together, so I did get to see my Bro and old man while I was there. I also took the opportunity to get a couple of photos since it was such a beautiful fall like day. These photos were taken as I drove across Kansas and into Nebraska.
This one is interesting -- wireless is everywhere!
And this just seems appropriate for the event...
Liberia President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf
I'm involved in a project that is focused on figuring out ICT's role in the post-conflict rebuilding of Liberia. There is a lot to be done, and I'm excited to have a chance to visit Monrovia in several weeks.
Through much effort on Mike Best's part, we were able to host the President of Liberia recently on Tech's campus. She has a daunting task ahead of her, but it was inspiring to hear her talk about the opportunities for a fresh start and moving the country forward.
This was one of the first time she has given a speech focused on ICT's role in development in Liberia. After the public event, we were able to spend some time at lunch with her and her staff.
Then came a working meeting with a number of agencies, private entities, and academia to try to layout some of the issues and roles that the different parties can/should play in Liberia.
For my part, I'm hoping to help establish a baseline understanding of the current capabilities and the beginnings of a needs assessment and policy roadmap.
Some additional information about her visit made it online:
Through much effort on Mike Best's part, we were able to host the President of Liberia recently on Tech's campus. She has a daunting task ahead of her, but it was inspiring to hear her talk about the opportunities for a fresh start and moving the country forward.
This was one of the first time she has given a speech focused on ICT's role in development in Liberia. After the public event, we were able to spend some time at lunch with her and her staff.
Then came a working meeting with a number of agencies, private entities, and academia to try to layout some of the issues and roles that the different parties can/should play in Liberia.
For my part, I'm hoping to help establish a baseline understanding of the current capabilities and the beginnings of a needs assessment and policy roadmap.
Some additional information about her visit made it online:
- AJC
- College of Computing (where I actually get a mention!)
- mp3 of the President's speech (14.3MB)
- AllAfrica coverage
Monday, August 14, 2006
Google in ATL
I caught this on Google's blog and thought folk might have an
interest in knowing about the growth of Google's presence in Atlanta.
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/08/google-in-atl.html
Kipp
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Liberia and the world
I may be working on a project to map the ICT infrastructure in Liberia this fall. Some of my friends and family were asking a bit about Liberia. It has quite the storied past and is now trying to work its way out of a 14 year civil war that pretty much devastated all aspects of the country. The following is a bit of info that I dug up due to our discussion:
I caught a recent article on electricity in the capital of Liberia: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/liberia_electricity_dc
Also a bit of background if you are interested... https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/li.html
And for Pammy (who asked if we were to evenly redistribute the income in the world to each man, woman and child, what would the averarge income be?), the world currently has an estimated 6,530,757,077 people (http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html). In 2004, the world GPD (Gross Domestic Product) was estimated at $51,410,000,000,000 (http://www.photius.com/rankings/economy/gdp_2004_0.html) leading me to believe that an average per capita for each person in the world would be about $7,871.98.
So, on average, a family of 4 would bring in $31,487/year...of course this is all based on GDP which is not necessarily the full picture regarding income, but since I'm no economist I use it here as an approximate proxy.
What is interesting is about 1/5 of the world's population lives on less than $1/day (considered extreme poverty) -- about 1.1 billion people (http://earthtrends.wri.org/updates/node/6 and http://devdata.worldbank.org/wdi2005/Section1_1_1.htm). Good news is, they estimate this number will be down to around 858 million by 2015...
If we take the 1/5 of the population out of the the equation (and their $1/day), the remaining 4/5 take in about $9,748.73 -- about $26.71 per day per person...
Hope this clears up all of your questions for the day!
Kipp
I caught a recent article on electricity in the capital of Liberia: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/liberia_electricity_dc
Also a bit of background if you are interested... https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/li.html
And for Pammy (who asked if we were to evenly redistribute the income in the world to each man, woman and child, what would the averarge income be?), the world currently has an estimated 6,530,757,077 people (http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html). In 2004, the world GPD (Gross Domestic Product) was estimated at $51,410,000,000,000 (http://www.photius.com/rankings/economy/gdp_2004_0.html) leading me to believe that an average per capita for each person in the world would be about $7,871.98.
So, on average, a family of 4 would bring in $31,487/year...of course this is all based on GDP which is not necessarily the full picture regarding income, but since I'm no economist I use it here as an approximate proxy.
What is interesting is about 1/5 of the world's population lives on less than $1/day (considered extreme poverty) -- about 1.1 billion people (http://earthtrends.wri.org/updates/node/6 and http://devdata.worldbank.org/wdi2005/Section1_1_1.htm). Good news is, they estimate this number will be down to around 858 million by 2015...
If we take the 1/5 of the population out of the the equation (and their $1/day), the remaining 4/5 take in about $9,748.73 -- about $26.71 per day per person...
Hope this clears up all of your questions for the day!
Kipp
One MegaBit Per Child/Community
It appears that the One Laptop Per Child (aka $100 laptop) continues to push forward. I think it is a great idea and the effort is likely to push the limits of technology and costs to a point where it will at least become more accessible.
However I tend to agree with the comments on ZDNet (http://comment.zdnet.co.uk/other/0,39020682,39257951,00.htm) regrading the fact that it's not necessarily the best place to start. I'm starting to get a better understanding of the dynamics, and adding a hand crank to a laptop will not solve the issues for everybody who wants a laptop. As the author notes, "one power socket per village and one megabit per community are much surer foundations for building a future."
Infrastructure is stil a critical issue in making these devices useful, and while the FAQ on OLPC (http://www.laptop.org/faq.en_US.html) declares:
What about connectivity? Aren't telecommunications services expensive in the developing world?
When these machines pop out of the box, they will make a mesh network of their own, peer-to-peer. This is something initially developed at MIT and the Media Lab. We are also exploring ways to connect them to the backbone of the Internet at very low cost.
Good thought, and I think mesh networks will play an important role -- necessary but insufficient. These islands of mesh-pods still need to make it to the outside world. and while local networks without international connectivity can have some interesting applications, I don't think it is sufficient to have only local access without full Internet connectivity.
Concurrent with the deployment of devices, we need deployment of network infrastructure and power. How far can wireless mesh networks take the developing world? Is the premise that we need power and network infrastructure true? What density of deployment is needed for the mesh network to become fully connected? Is it even feasible and what happens to people until it does happen?
I think there's a lot more work to do than relying on the fact that mesh-networking between the laptops will solve it...
Kipp
However I tend to agree with the comments on ZDNet (http://comment.zdnet.co.uk/other/0,39020682,39257951,00.htm) regrading the fact that it's not necessarily the best place to start. I'm starting to get a better understanding of the dynamics, and adding a hand crank to a laptop will not solve the issues for everybody who wants a laptop. As the author notes, "one power socket per village and one megabit per community are much surer foundations for building a future."
Infrastructure is stil a critical issue in making these devices useful, and while the FAQ on OLPC (http://www.laptop.org/faq.en_US.html) declares:
What about connectivity? Aren't telecommunications services expensive in the developing world?
When these machines pop out of the box, they will make a mesh network of their own, peer-to-peer. This is something initially developed at MIT and the Media Lab. We are also exploring ways to connect them to the backbone of the Internet at very low cost.
Good thought, and I think mesh networks will play an important role -- necessary but insufficient. These islands of mesh-pods still need to make it to the outside world. and while local networks without international connectivity can have some interesting applications, I don't think it is sufficient to have only local access without full Internet connectivity.
Concurrent with the deployment of devices, we need deployment of network infrastructure and power. How far can wireless mesh networks take the developing world? Is the premise that we need power and network infrastructure true? What density of deployment is needed for the mesh network to become fully connected? Is it even feasible and what happens to people until it does happen?
I think there's a lot more work to do than relying on the fact that mesh-networking between the laptops will solve it...
Kipp
Monday, July 17, 2006
FON_ wifi
I'm wondering if this is the proper configuration for a network -- I'm pretty sure the interference is better if you stack all 3 routers together, right?
So I received my $5 (actually something like $13) Linksys router from FON today (it's the one on top with the cool sticker). It's a standard Linksys WRT54GS router with the special FON firmware pre-installed.
Just a couple of details from my 15 minutes of installation:
- SSID: FON_linksys
- Channel: 6
The router was shipped from FON US INC, 1001 Technology Way, LIbertyvill, IL 60048.
I have earned nothing as yet, but I'll be watching closely. I also found out you can change your splash screen, even sending incoming users to a different web site.
I also updated my SSID, but it hasn't updated my router just yet...We should be able to see how many FON routers are out there, it appears that you can't change the FON_ prefix on the SSID...in fact, it appears that we only have 34 FON APs in our database right now. There are several other self named fon aps, these are likely named by somebody who downloaded and installed the firmware on their own box, but that's just a guess.
Right now, we are showing .0003% of the access points are FON, however the frequency of them is beginning to increase.
I'll keep playing with it and see what it looks like as somebody else..
UPDATE: Using the wife's computer, I connected to the FON network (after I rebooted the router, it now shows up as FON_kippster). The modified splash screen shows up whereby I can navigate to the one URL that I was able to specify in the FON interface. This provides some information to a user, even if they don't have/want a FON account. I had given my wife a guest account, so using that infromation, I logged in and was able to surf enough to verify that it really does work.
I was unable to view any other network resources once connected to the FON network, which is a good thing!
So I received my $5 (actually something like $13) Linksys router from FON today (it's the one on top with the cool sticker). It's a standard Linksys WRT54GS router with the special FON firmware pre-installed.
Just a couple of details from my 15 minutes of installation:
- SSID: FON_linksys
- Channel: 6
The router was shipped from FON US INC, 1001 Technology Way, LIbertyvill, IL 60048.
I have earned nothing as yet, but I'll be watching closely. I also found out you can change your splash screen, even sending incoming users to a different web site.
I also updated my SSID, but it hasn't updated my router just yet...We should be able to see how many FON routers are out there, it appears that you can't change the FON_ prefix on the SSID...in fact, it appears that we only have 34 FON APs in our database right now. There are several other self named fon aps, these are likely named by somebody who downloaded and installed the firmware on their own box, but that's just a guess.
Right now, we are showing .0003% of the access points are FON, however the frequency of them is beginning to increase.
I'll keep playing with it and see what it looks like as somebody else..
UPDATE: Using the wife's computer, I connected to the FON network (after I rebooted the router, it now shows up as FON_kippster). The modified splash screen shows up whereby I can navigate to the one URL that I was able to specify in the FON interface. This provides some information to a user, even if they don't have/want a FON account. I had given my wife a guest account, so using that infromation, I logged in and was able to surf enough to verify that it really does work.
I was unable to view any other network resources once connected to the FON network, which is a good thing!
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Atlanta Wifi
Atlanta recently published their RFP for a metro-scale broadband wireless network.
This is a very extensive RFP and I'm eagerly watching what and who comes out to respond.
In the meantime, this is a look at the existing wifi infrastructure in Atlanta. This image shows the over 100,000 public/private wifi access points that exist (and are mapped) in the ATL region.
As part of my WhatWhereWi project, I'm exploring how this infastructure is evolving.
Kipp
This is a very extensive RFP and I'm eagerly watching what and who comes out to respond.
In the meantime, this is a look at the existing wifi infrastructure in Atlanta. This image shows the over 100,000 public/private wifi access points that exist (and are mapped) in the ATL region.
As part of my WhatWhereWi project, I'm exploring how this infastructure is evolving.
Kipp
Last resort
In the vein of competition and changing landscape for networks, I caught an article in the AJC this morning (http://www.ajc.com/business/content/business/stories/0711bizbellsouth.html) that discusses how BellSouth is attempting to get out of its obligations as 'provider of last resort'.
According to the article, the encumbent provider currently has a responsibility to provide service to any one who wants it regardless of the economic viability of said service. This, I believe, is intended to ensure universal coverage and not 'cherry picking' service to the wealthy. But with the increase in competition for these 'cherries' BellSouth is finding it may not have the advantages it once enjoyed and now has to deal with other companies that may not have the last resort encumberance.
BellSouth is particularly fighting as new developments (apartments, planned cities, 'hoods, etc.) are at the forefront of the battle for new subscribers and developers are negotiating up front deals for their developments. If BellSouth doesn't become the prefered provider, it is arguing that it shouldn't have the last resort requirement in that area.
It appears that their first line of attack has been to throw a bit of FUD directly at the developers, as the article notes regarding one letter sent out by BellSouth: "Please be aware that the presence of these types of arrangements with alternate communications providers or infrastructure providers may affect BellSouth's provision of service."
Apparently a law in Florida (supported by BellSouth) passed this year that provides an out for the encumbent in certain circumstances. I'd bet we'll see more of these bills being introduced around the states in the near future...
Kipp
According to the article, the encumbent provider currently has a responsibility to provide service to any one who wants it regardless of the economic viability of said service. This, I believe, is intended to ensure universal coverage and not 'cherry picking' service to the wealthy. But with the increase in competition for these 'cherries' BellSouth is finding it may not have the advantages it once enjoyed and now has to deal with other companies that may not have the last resort encumberance.
BellSouth is particularly fighting as new developments (apartments, planned cities, 'hoods, etc.) are at the forefront of the battle for new subscribers and developers are negotiating up front deals for their developments. If BellSouth doesn't become the prefered provider, it is arguing that it shouldn't have the last resort requirement in that area.
It appears that their first line of attack has been to throw a bit of FUD directly at the developers, as the article notes regarding one letter sent out by BellSouth: "Please be aware that the presence of these types of arrangements with alternate communications providers or infrastructure providers may affect BellSouth's provision of service."
Apparently a law in Florida (supported by BellSouth) passed this year that provides an out for the encumbent in certain circumstances. I'd bet we'll see more of these bills being introduced around the states in the near future...
Kipp
Monday, July 10, 2006
FON vs Phone
I've been continuing to analyze the skyhook data, looking at the existing US wifi infrastructure to see what else could be done with it, what problems it represents, how it could be better, what issues might it represent (security, privacy, etc.) and how we could use the technology to reach ever more people.
One company that is utilizing this infrastructure is FON (www.fon.com), a Spanish company that has set out to change the way our existing (and growing) wifi networks provide access by building a community that shares their wifi connections. They now state that they have over 68,000 'foneros' -- people who have enabled their wifi routers (either upgraded their firmware or purchased a fon router). 68,000, not a bad start, but definitely on the right track.
Now, there are issues with their plan, but it could work. In fact this was something that was contemplated by a colleague of mine several years ago, but we couldn't see a way to get past the ISPs in the US -- It looks like it was easier to start in Europe and move into the US than to start here -- that or they just have bigger Euros than we did...
But clearly there is a lot of infrastructure that is being underutliized -- I think of this similar to the SETI@Home effort -- how to put to use all of those wasted bandwidths, only in this case the idea is if you give a little, you get a little, rather than just for the sake of finding errant signals in the sky. Hmm...I guess it is more similar than I thought, as both are looking for particular signals...okay that may be a stretch....
Nonetheless, I find it interesting to think about the various wifi networks that we are building -- home, shared, municipal, community, business, region, public transport, airport, etc. and how all of these are related and/or different. If we were going to do it from scratch, is this really the way we would do it? Is there a better way? What would it look like? And where should we (personal, community, metro, international) be investing to provide better access to everybody?
Getting back to FON, should this mode of operation be promoted or controlled? Currently, it is likely against all ISP providers' rules to actually join FON and open your DSL or other broadband connection to 'outsiders'. Most agreements forbid such behavior (remember when they specified a single computer -- and even what type of computer could be connected to the network?!? My first cable modem provider (Cablevision) had some silly notion along those lines back in '98).
How should metro-scale wifi networks be regulated, promoted, stopped, changed, directed? What is going to happen with our spectrum and how do these millions of APs affect each other. At what density do they detract from service? How do we know if an area is ready for metro-scale wifi networks? What applications will drive adoption? How does wifi help those who can't afford a computer? How does WiMAX play with wifi? How does/should the wifi/cellular relationship play out?
And that's just a couple of questions that are bouncing around. Maybe I'll continue this with a bit more on the technical side next...
Kipp
One company that is utilizing this infrastructure is FON (www.fon.com), a Spanish company that has set out to change the way our existing (and growing) wifi networks provide access by building a community that shares their wifi connections. They now state that they have over 68,000 'foneros' -- people who have enabled their wifi routers (either upgraded their firmware or purchased a fon router). 68,000, not a bad start, but definitely on the right track.
Now, there are issues with their plan, but it could work. In fact this was something that was contemplated by a colleague of mine several years ago, but we couldn't see a way to get past the ISPs in the US -- It looks like it was easier to start in Europe and move into the US than to start here -- that or they just have bigger Euros than we did...
But clearly there is a lot of infrastructure that is being underutliized -- I think of this similar to the SETI@Home effort -- how to put to use all of those wasted bandwidths, only in this case the idea is if you give a little, you get a little, rather than just for the sake of finding errant signals in the sky. Hmm...I guess it is more similar than I thought, as both are looking for particular signals...okay that may be a stretch....
Nonetheless, I find it interesting to think about the various wifi networks that we are building -- home, shared, municipal, community, business, region, public transport, airport, etc. and how all of these are related and/or different. If we were going to do it from scratch, is this really the way we would do it? Is there a better way? What would it look like? And where should we (personal, community, metro, international) be investing to provide better access to everybody?
Getting back to FON, should this mode of operation be promoted or controlled? Currently, it is likely against all ISP providers' rules to actually join FON and open your DSL or other broadband connection to 'outsiders'. Most agreements forbid such behavior (remember when they specified a single computer -- and even what type of computer could be connected to the network?!? My first cable modem provider (Cablevision) had some silly notion along those lines back in '98).
How should metro-scale wifi networks be regulated, promoted, stopped, changed, directed? What is going to happen with our spectrum and how do these millions of APs affect each other. At what density do they detract from service? How do we know if an area is ready for metro-scale wifi networks? What applications will drive adoption? How does wifi help those who can't afford a computer? How does WiMAX play with wifi? How does/should the wifi/cellular relationship play out?
And that's just a couple of questions that are bouncing around. Maybe I'll continue this with a bit more on the technical side next...
Kipp
Monday, June 19, 2006
30 mile WiMax
Wi-SKY Networks and Proxim Wireless Achieve WiMAX Connections With Vessels at Sea and in Air (http://www.bbwexchange.com/publications/page1423-154340.asp)
According to this article, they've been able to achieve continuous operation over distances up to 30 miles and altitudes up to 10,000 feet and speeds up to 145 MPH. Pretty darn impressive...
According to this article, they've been able to achieve continuous operation over distances up to 30 miles and altitudes up to 10,000 feet and speeds up to 145 MPH. Pretty darn impressive...
Sunday, June 18, 2006
Rural Broadband
Article in the AJC today discussed the options for rural broadband (http://www.ajc.com/search/content/business/stories/0618rural.html) discussed how the demand for broadband has picked up in rural areas but supply has not been there to support the demand. DSL won't get there, cable is slow to build out, satellite is not the best option...
But wireless networks, which don't get a lot of coverage in the article are finding new ways to reach the rural areas. They do mention hot spots as means of gaining access, but that's just one means.
A couple of items they mention that I wanted to track include:
- US Dept. of Agriculture - Rural Utilities Service
- Georgia Tech - TechSmart
- GA Broadband Rural Initiative to Develop Georgia's Economy fund (BRIDGE) - $5M fund
- Roswell based Camvera Networks
- WildBlue Communications from Denver (satellite)
UPDATE: It turns out that Carl Peede, the President and CEO of Camvera Networks was once the COO for HomeCom Communications. Interesting historical note, I worked for Harvey Sax (CEO of HomeCom) when he initially started the company, helping establish the first set of customers and the initial network. If I recall, that was December of 1994...
But wireless networks, which don't get a lot of coverage in the article are finding new ways to reach the rural areas. They do mention hot spots as means of gaining access, but that's just one means.
A couple of items they mention that I wanted to track include:
- US Dept. of Agriculture - Rural Utilities Service
- Georgia Tech - TechSmart
- GA Broadband Rural Initiative to Develop Georgia's Economy fund (BRIDGE) - $5M fund
- Roswell based Camvera Networks
- WildBlue Communications from Denver (satellite)
UPDATE: It turns out that Carl Peede, the President and CEO of Camvera Networks was once the COO for HomeCom Communications. Interesting historical note, I worked for Harvey Sax (CEO of HomeCom) when he initially started the company, helping establish the first set of customers and the initial network. If I recall, that was December of 1994...
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
Freedom to Connect - F2C
Okay, so after having several more weeks to take a deeper look and having had several arguments presented, I'm definitely coming to the conclusion that legislation for network neutrality is a bad idea. I do think the fervor over the topic has done a good job of raising the awareness within the public, private and gov't sectors, at least letting people know that it is something that we should be concerned about, that we should pay attention to the workings of the network and providers, and that there are alternatives.
I think the best soliloquy on the subject that I've seen comes from Martin Geddes on his Telepocalypse blog. Most of the arguments stem from the idea that we want to allow for emergent behaviors (networks, usage, business models, technology, payment, etc.) and anything we do to try to control that will actually damage our ability to experiment and create new and innovative techniques to reach everybody in the way that they want to be reached.
His post is a long version of a speech he gave at the F2C Conference which looks like a very interesting place to be.
I guess I shouldn't complain though, I'm hanging out at the ICDE conference (International Conference on Data Engineering) which has its share of interesting talks and personalities, just a bit different layer on the stack.
Kipp
I think the best soliloquy on the subject that I've seen comes from Martin Geddes on his Telepocalypse blog. Most of the arguments stem from the idea that we want to allow for emergent behaviors (networks, usage, business models, technology, payment, etc.) and anything we do to try to control that will actually damage our ability to experiment and create new and innovative techniques to reach everybody in the way that they want to be reached.
His post is a long version of a speech he gave at the F2C Conference which looks like a very interesting place to be.
I guess I shouldn't complain though, I'm hanging out at the ICDE conference (International Conference on Data Engineering) which has its share of interesting talks and personalities, just a bit different layer on the stack.
Kipp
Saturday, April 01, 2006
Georgia Tech CS doctoral moves up in bubble sort
The College of Computing doctoral program continues to move up in the national ranking, according to the U.S News & World Report, we are now ranked 11th (tied with Cal Tech). Last ranking in 2002, we were 12th.
I'm not sure what the rest of the field above us is, except for 4 tied for first which are:
- MIT
- Berkeley
- CMU
- Stanford
Oh, and found Texas to be 9th in CS. Anybody know the other 5?
Check out the article "The College of Computing Grad Program Ranks Among the Best in the Nation" for more info, or if you are interested in the overall Georgia Tech rankings including, get this, the 16th straight number 1 ranking for your ISyE program, there is an article on the GT main site.
I know rankings aren't everything, but it's still kind of cool...
Kipp
I'm not sure what the rest of the field above us is, except for 4 tied for first which are:
- MIT
- Berkeley
- CMU
- Stanford
Oh, and found Texas to be 9th in CS. Anybody know the other 5?
Check out the article "The College of Computing Grad Program Ranks Among the Best in the Nation" for more info, or if you are interested in the overall Georgia Tech rankings including, get this, the 16th straight number 1 ranking for your ISyE program, there is an article on the GT main site.
I know rankings aren't everything, but it's still kind of cool...
Kipp
Thursday, March 30, 2006
Google Foundation kicks it up a notch
I like to see this type of activity, I hope we see much more of this, as it sounds like a neat way to build capacity, business capability, innovation and make it happen from the inside out.
Google Foundation has really started to kick into gear with a number of committments. They recently had one of their funded agencies post on the Google blog with an article entitled "TechnoServe update: New program in Ghana". TechnoServe is one of the agencies supported by Google, they focus on helping entreprenuers in developing regions -- apparently they are after my own heart!
I'm definitely going to do some more research on both of these organizations. I had noticed Google Foundation earlier when they hired Larry Brilliant as the Executive Director back in February, but TechnoServe is new to me (well, I'm actually rather new to this area, so there is a whole lot that is new to me!).
Kipp
Google Foundation has really started to kick into gear with a number of committments. They recently had one of their funded agencies post on the Google blog with an article entitled "TechnoServe update: New program in Ghana". TechnoServe is one of the agencies supported by Google, they focus on helping entreprenuers in developing regions -- apparently they are after my own heart!
I'm definitely going to do some more research on both of these organizations. I had noticed Google Foundation earlier when they hired Larry Brilliant as the Executive Director back in February, but TechnoServe is new to me (well, I'm actually rather new to this area, so there is a whole lot that is new to me!).
Kipp
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
FON and Google
So now that a couple of patent applications from Google (and more) have surfaced around user access/behavior at hot spots, how do you think that plays together with their investment in FON?
Suppose providers are able to somehow participate in the game through a shared advertising model in which the access point provider received something (discount?) and the network provider also shared in the loot. Google wins through getting more users and uses online (and perhaps through its FON investment). Can community access combined with ad shaping help. Certainly through access points you will be able to do a heck of a job with location (especially if you add something like WPS to your total package). Ads based on location (and perhaps user preferences, behavior, etc.) would seem to be an attractive idea for advertisers...
The actual patents are (courtesy of a CNET article):
On a similar topic, I recently reviewed an academic paper entitled "Global Growth of Open Access Networks: from WarChalking and Connection Sharing to Sustainable Business" by Roberto Battiti, Renato Lo Cigno, Fredrik Orava, and Bjorn Peherson. This paper, published in 2003 discussed some alternatives and issues with creating a more open access network in which the infrastructure could be provided by multiple parties and the services that layer on top could be from multiple different providers. They certainly did not bring the concept of advertising as a method for solving the economic puzzle, but did a fairly good job of outlining many of the issues: technical, business, economic, and cultural.
It almost look like some combination of these models could help extend the reach of wifi and still make it a business for operators and service providers...I guess we'll see soon enough!
Kipp
Suppose providers are able to somehow participate in the game through a shared advertising model in which the access point provider received something (discount?) and the network provider also shared in the loot. Google wins through getting more users and uses online (and perhaps through its FON investment). Can community access combined with ad shaping help. Certainly through access points you will be able to do a heck of a job with location (especially if you add something like WPS to your total package). Ads based on location (and perhaps user preferences, behavior, etc.) would seem to be an attractive idea for advertisers...
The actual patents are (courtesy of a CNET article):
- 20060058019 - Method and system for dynamically modifying the appearance of browser screens on a client device
- 20060059044 - Method and system to provide advertisements based on wireless access points
- 20060059043 - Method and system to provide wireless access at a reduced rate
On a similar topic, I recently reviewed an academic paper entitled "Global Growth of Open Access Networks: from WarChalking and Connection Sharing to Sustainable Business" by Roberto Battiti, Renato Lo Cigno, Fredrik Orava, and Bjorn Peherson. This paper, published in 2003 discussed some alternatives and issues with creating a more open access network in which the infrastructure could be provided by multiple parties and the services that layer on top could be from multiple different providers. They certainly did not bring the concept of advertising as a method for solving the economic puzzle, but did a fairly good job of outlining many of the issues: technical, business, economic, and cultural.
It almost look like some combination of these models could help extend the reach of wifi and still make it a business for operators and service providers...I guess we'll see soon enough!
Kipp
Saturday, March 25, 2006
No piggybacking in Illinois
So, I guess you shouldn't hang around in your car with a laptop...A man in Illinois just plead guilty to using someone else's network without permission. $250 and a year of court supervision should teach him!
I wonder how this would have played out in an Open Access Network world? Is it possible to create a model in which someone like FON can open up the last mile to provide more complete coverage? It doesn't feel like the big providers will willingly give up their lock on this, but perhaps there's a business model that will eventually emerge that makes sense to them...
Meanwhile over in WiMAX world, the WiMAX Forum just certified some more products in the 3.5Ghz spectrum for fixed wireless, pushing the standard towards further deployment with their "Plugfest". We should see WiMAX starting to make an impact this year with the rollout of these interoperable products.
Kipp
I wonder how this would have played out in an Open Access Network world? Is it possible to create a model in which someone like FON can open up the last mile to provide more complete coverage? It doesn't feel like the big providers will willingly give up their lock on this, but perhaps there's a business model that will eventually emerge that makes sense to them...
Meanwhile over in WiMAX world, the WiMAX Forum just certified some more products in the 3.5Ghz spectrum for fixed wireless, pushing the standard towards further deployment with their "Plugfest". We should see WiMAX starting to make an impact this year with the rollout of these interoperable products.
Kipp
Friday, March 24, 2006
Location, location, loki
Disclaimer: I consult for Skyhook Wireless so consider my bias (although I wasn't paid to write this)!
Location based services continue to garner interest among users, businesses, search engines, advertisers and entrepreneurs. I've been fortunate enough to have worked closely with a company that just got included in Gartner's "Cool Vendors in Mobile and Wireless, 2006" publication (ID Number: G00138458). I can't actually post the info or I'd get strung up, but it is cool!
The problem? It's hard to give location information if you don't know (more specifically, if your computing device doesn't know) where you are. The more precise the location, the better services are able to provide location specific information back to you/your computing device. We're all familiar with GPS, and some are likely familiar with Enhanced Observed Time Difference (EOTD) and Assisted GPS (A-GPS), but Skyhook has attaked the problem by using the ever growing infrastructure that is created by the wifi networks.
Rather than relying on satellites for positioning, the system utilizes wifi access points to provide location information. All that is needed is a lightweight client and a device that supports wifi (and in general, a connection to the Internet -- although this is not strictly required it sorta makes sense).
Wireless Positioning Service (WPS) is not a cure all, clearly it needs a certain density of wireless access points in order to do its job accurately. This, as of now, relegates the service to urban (and indoor) settings in which wifi radio waves are bouncing all over the place. Interestingly, this is also where GPS sometimes has a harder time. It's also handy in that no additional hardware is necessary, if you have a wifi interface, you can use the service.
They recently went Beta with a browser toolbar (pretty soon, there will be no room in my browser for actual content, all I'll have is a stack of toolbars!) called Loki. I personally think the toolbar cool and useful, but I'll let others that aren't as biased explain:
There are probably others, but this seems like a good list to start things off...
I'm just bummed that there isn't a mac version out yet!
Kipp
Location based services continue to garner interest among users, businesses, search engines, advertisers and entrepreneurs. I've been fortunate enough to have worked closely with a company that just got included in Gartner's "Cool Vendors in Mobile and Wireless, 2006" publication (ID Number: G00138458). I can't actually post the info or I'd get strung up, but it is cool!The problem? It's hard to give location information if you don't know (more specifically, if your computing device doesn't know) where you are. The more precise the location, the better services are able to provide location specific information back to you/your computing device. We're all familiar with GPS, and some are likely familiar with Enhanced Observed Time Difference (EOTD) and Assisted GPS (A-GPS), but Skyhook has attaked the problem by using the ever growing infrastructure that is created by the wifi networks.
Rather than relying on satellites for positioning, the system utilizes wifi access points to provide location information. All that is needed is a lightweight client and a device that supports wifi (and in general, a connection to the Internet -- although this is not strictly required it sorta makes sense).
Wireless Positioning Service (WPS) is not a cure all, clearly it needs a certain density of wireless access points in order to do its job accurately. This, as of now, relegates the service to urban (and indoor) settings in which wifi radio waves are bouncing all over the place. Interestingly, this is also where GPS sometimes has a harder time. It's also handy in that no additional hardware is necessary, if you have a wifi interface, you can use the service.
They recently went Beta with a browser toolbar (pretty soon, there will be no room in my browser for actual content, all I'll have is a stack of toolbars!) called Loki. I personally think the toolbar cool and useful, but I'll let others that aren't as biased explain:
Lookie at Loki: Wi-Fi Begets Latitude, Longitude
JiWire's Weekly Guide to Wi-Fi (Friday, March 24) (sorry, no link)
- Loki turns your Wi-Fi laptop into a GPS
- Turns Laptop into GPS with Loki
- Loki will tell you where to go - on your laptop
- Loki Local Search Toolbar from Skyhook Wireless
- Free Loki (Wi-Fi location solution)
- Loki: Location-Based Internet Search & Navigation
- Loki Local Search Toolbar from Skyhook Wireless
- Loki Local Search Toolbar from Skyhook Wireless
- Skyhook Wireless Offers Loki Local Toolbar
- Software Which Turns Laptops Into GPS
- Loki turns your Wi-Fi laptop into a GPS
- Loki Tells Where You Are
There are probably others, but this seems like a good list to start things off...
I'm just bummed that there isn't a mac version out yet!
Kipp
Thursday, March 23, 2006
Ireland versus Warcraft
John Paczkowski of SiliconValley.com caught my eye with this quote:
If subscribers to "World of Warcraft," the most widely played massively multiplayer online game in the world, were to form a country, it would be bigger than Ireland.
Ireland now has some 4,015,676 people according to the CIA...that's a lot of online players!
Cognitive Radio
There is a cool trend happening where our wireless interfaces are getting smarter and smarter. This has been coined Cognitive Radio (this is related to Software Defined Radio and Dynamic Spectrum Access Networks ).
A recent highlight from MIT Technology Review's emerging technologies takes us to some research being done in UC Santa Barbara by Heather Zeng on the topic.
I was first introduced to this about a year ago on a campus visit to the University of Colorado at Boulder. One of the profs there, Douglas Sicker had been working on the SDR side of things for a bit of time and appears to still be working in that direction.
It hit me again last fall in a talk given by Benny Bing on the topic of "Broadband Wireless Access - The Next Wireless Revolution". Here is one of his slides as an example.
My understanding is fairly limited, but the idea is to move the radio and management of the radio further up the stack allow software to modify and shape the radio output (modulation, demodulation, signal processing, etc.). This allows really nifty things like frequency and power shifting to the software layer based on feedback and monitoring of the spectrum. So SDR refers to the radio side of things, better/smarter hardware, while Cognitive Radio is the software that takes advantage of this shape shifting hardware and is taking some shape in the 802.22 standard. Wikipedia offers some good info on Cognitive Radio including the claim that the term was first officially presented by Joseph Mitolla III and Gerald Q. Maguire, Jr. in an IEEE article in 1999.
Of course this represents some interesting challenges for the policy, certification and enforcement sides of things. It also has some interesting challenges on the technical side, which is what the MIT article represents -- the use of game theory to determine what spectrum to use...
This certainly has impact on urban zones where spectrum is heavily used, especially with the release (at some point) of the existing TV bandwidth as we move to HD. I'm wondering if this helps in rural and developing areas. I can see advantages as far as being able to make equipment compliant to spectrum policies at a software level rather than at a hardware level. And hypothetically, they would be more future proof, as spectrum opened up, the systems could be switched to take advantage of the new spectrum without hardware replacement.
This also could have some impact on RFID and sensor networks, especially as things move from region to region in which frequency and power specifications/requirements are different.
Kipp
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Tech's Tiger Teams
Just caught this on /. and couldn't pass it up...the original article is called Finding security's next 'American Idol'.
The basic idea is to have a competition to search for security technology that is simple to use and easy to understand. Congratulations to the three Tiger Team winners!
The article includes some sound bytes from Keith Edwards
(one of my colleagues at Tech the first time I went through and is now a prof.) and Mustaque Ahamad 
one of my past and present professors and the head of the Information Security Center at Tech.
Some of the comments on slashdot are rather humorous... I like this one:
And this one:
Kipp
The basic idea is to have a competition to search for security technology that is simple to use and easy to understand. Congratulations to the three Tiger Team winners!
The article includes some sound bytes from Keith Edwards
(one of my colleagues at Tech the first time I went through and is now a prof.) and Mustaque Ahamad one of my past and present professors and the head of the Information Security Center at Tech.Some of the comments on slashdot are rather humorous... I like this one:
At 69 cents for the 'good' Ramen (Maruchian), $50K would buy 72463 grad student meals. That's enough to feed 66 grad students 3 meals a day for a year!!
And this one:
Georgia Tech College of Computing, Information Security Center and Graphics, Visualization and Usability Center
what's that, the GTCOCISCGVUC
... geeks, learn to be succinct!
Kipp
GT: Innovating Here and Now
Well, for all of you who missed this, the Georgia Tech Alumni Association put on a very interesting talk last night.
Three quite distinguished faculty presented some exciting work that is going on at Tech. The first, Dr. Roger Webb (ECE), discussed the Strategic Energy Initiative in which Tech is working to try to help out on the energy crisis. 2 key things, a feasability study with Georgia Southern using a wind farm off the coast of Savanah, and experimentation with using soft wood pulp to generate ethanol. These will certainly not solve the issue, but could help ease the problems on both the electricity and the vehicle fuel issues.
The second presentation was by Dr. David Parekh, Deputy Director of GTRI. GTRI now has over 1,200 folk with about a $140 million annual budget. He spent some time on two fascinating developments.
The first you may have caught in the news, the Ultra AP (Armored Patrol) vehicle which was featured in many publications including Fortune and Rolling Stone among others. A couple of innovative features of the vehicle:
The second GTRI development is the creation of an International Applied Research Institute in Ireleand. This new development will focus on 4 key things:
The last speaker was Dr. Don P. Giddens, Dean of the College of Engineering. He focused on the collaboration with Emory in the Winship Cancer Institute. Fascinating work on engineering chemicals and delivery agents to attack cancer cells while leaving the rest of the body in good health. Quantum dots, docking molecules, all sorts of whacky things going on. They have very good funding and are currently working on getting designated as a Comprehensive Cancer Center of which there are fewer than 50 in the states and none currently in Georgia.
----
It's clear that Tech is making lots of progress locally, nationally, and internationally as the interdisciplinary collaborations and activities seem to be reaching a fevered pitch. Exciting stuff to be associated with, and research that is working on some problems that will have huge impacts worldwide.
Three quite distinguished faculty presented some exciting work that is going on at Tech. The first, Dr. Roger Webb (ECE), discussed the Strategic Energy Initiative in which Tech is working to try to help out on the energy crisis. 2 key things, a feasability study with Georgia Southern using a wind farm off the coast of Savanah, and experimentation with using soft wood pulp to generate ethanol. These will certainly not solve the issue, but could help ease the problems on both the electricity and the vehicle fuel issues.
The second presentation was by Dr. David Parekh, Deputy Director of GTRI. GTRI now has over 1,200 folk with about a $140 million annual budget. He spent some time on two fascinating developments.
The first you may have caught in the news, the Ultra AP (Armored Patrol) vehicle which was featured in many publications including Fortune and Rolling Stone among others. A couple of innovative features of the vehicle: - Built on COTS parts as much as possible starting with an F-350 chassis.
- Introduces the 'blast bucket' which is built to protect the people, not the vehicle. They consulted with NASCAR folk to learn what safety features they had developed and added some new things as well.
- 360-degree seating. The passengers sit around the center facing out -- giving visibility and protection on all sides of the vehicle. It also ends up being better for communications as the heads of the people are closer together.
- Lighter weight armor. Some compound they built which is much lighter than the steel armor currently employed saves weight and thus the vehicles can actually get decent fuel efficiency.
- From initial 'napkin' drawing to prototype vehicle in 1 year.
The second GTRI development is the creation of an International Applied Research Institute in Ireleand. This new development will focus on 4 key things:
- IPTV
- RFID
- Biotechnology
- Sustainable Energy
The last speaker was Dr. Don P. Giddens, Dean of the College of Engineering. He focused on the collaboration with Emory in the Winship Cancer Institute. Fascinating work on engineering chemicals and delivery agents to attack cancer cells while leaving the rest of the body in good health. Quantum dots, docking molecules, all sorts of whacky things going on. They have very good funding and are currently working on getting designated as a Comprehensive Cancer Center of which there are fewer than 50 in the states and none currently in Georgia.
----
It's clear that Tech is making lots of progress locally, nationally, and internationally as the interdisciplinary collaborations and activities seem to be reaching a fevered pitch. Exciting stuff to be associated with, and research that is working on some problems that will have huge impacts worldwide.
Monday, March 20, 2006
Hurricanes and Tech
As I mentioned in my Political Edge post, Judith Curry at Georgia Tech was doing some research on the hurricane frequency and it's now been reported in ScientificAmerican.com. According to the report about the increase in hurricanes and their strength, a "new statistical analysis shows that only this sea surface temperature increase explains this trend."
This article was really just a summary of the real article which is in the March 13th edition of Science online, check out the abstract. According to the abstract (I didn't buy the article, and it doesn't seem to be available via my GT library account), the researchers "use a methodology based on information theory, isolating the trend from the shorter term natural modes of variability. Results show that the increasing trend in number of category 4 and 5 hurricanes for the period 1970-2004 is directly linked to the trend in SST." Here, SST means Sea Surface Temperature.
Tech released some additional info on the research, but still no article. An earlier article is available though. I'll keep digging to get the full article...
Religious history and public school
While I'm expanding my blog...first politics and now religion...I thought I'd share some thoughts on a bill that is going through Geogria's legislature right now. Senate Bill 79 provides for the introduction of a couple of elective courses within the public schools. In particular, these are courses based on history as presented in the Bible. Apparently, this bill passed our Senate with a vote of 50-1, and is currently under consideration by our House.
The bill provides for 2 elective courses:
My guess is that since we've successfully (so far) kept religion out of the science classes, we are trying to find other ways into the classroom, and this happens to be a convenient path. I don't like it one bit given that it is exclusionary, which I believe is the root of all evil.
My letter to my state representative, Jan Jones:
p.s. I used Congress.org to get my message through...
The bill provides for 2 elective courses:
- History and Literature of the Old Testament Era
- History and Literature of the New Testament Era
The courses provided for in this Code section shall:(B) excludes any other religious texts from being introduced, taught or discussed. Holy cow, wouldn't it be better if we did a more comprehensive introduction to the various religious texts that different religions are based on, rather than having Bible Study? Let's teach our kids that the world (shrinking as it is) has many different beliefs and, by the way, here are some of the texts on which these beliefs are based on. Then, if you are so inclined, you can delve deeper into the particulars of your religious beliefs, but it's not only helpful to know the history of the Bible, but also the history, differences, and similarities with other religious beliefs.
(A) Be taught in an objective and nondevotional manner with no attempt made to indoctrinate students as to either the truth or falsity of the biblical materials or texts from other religious or cultural traditions;
(B) Not include teaching of religious doctrine or sectarian interpretation of the Bible or of texts from other religious or cultural traditions; and
(C) Not disparage or encourage a commitment to a set of religious beliefs.
My guess is that since we've successfully (so far) kept religion out of the science classes, we are trying to find other ways into the classroom, and this happens to be a convenient path. I don't like it one bit given that it is exclusionary, which I believe is the root of all evil.
My letter to my state representative, Jan Jones:
I understand there is a Senate Bill 79 which provides for the state funding of an elective in History and Literature of the Old Testament Era and an elective course in the History and Literature of the New Testament Era.
I would urge you to vote against this bill. While I agree that students should learn about the stories in the Bible as they are in general good stories and have basis in history, I strongly object to this being the only and exclusive religious based history that is taught in our public schools.
I would back a bill that would introduce and teach students about the various and diverse religious texts, writings, and learnings, but I believe it is a gross misuse of public funds to teach an exclusively Bible based religious history. I feel that an introduction to the broader world of religious history would be useful and feel that teachings on a single religious text should be the job of the church.
Thank you,
Kipp Jones
p.s. I used Congress.org to get my message through...
At the speed of Blog
Apparently the speed with which new (correct and misinformation) travels can leave some great gaps and provide ample opportunity for misquotes to be propagated and expanded like the waves of a tsunami. Such was the case with Andrew McLauglin's comment purportedly stating that the "FCC Sucks". As noted by Om, Andrew attempted to clear up the misquote informing us that his statement was taken completely out of context. Andrew's full response is online, but to paraphrase (rather than quote), he was stating one of the 5 arguments used by libertarian opponents of 'Net Neutrality', not his opinion.
So, if I get this straight, Andrew is saying that we can and should regulate for Net Neutrality and that the FCC is fully capable of handling this task? Hey, I'm all for net neutrality, as I really don't see good coming from having the industry tax content based on their desires to get their content out first/best, and there is some logic for a bidding war on the bandwidth, but don't both consumers and companies already pay the telcos for access to this bandwidth? And when has 'unlimited' mean only as much as they want you to use?
I can see some pricing plans that limit the bandwidth (haven't they tried these?), but I don't expect the public to sit idly by and have the telcos decide which services the customer should get high quality of service and which ones should get poor quality.
And what ever happened to 'bandwidth is free'???
Kipp
p.s. Andrew is the Senior Policy Counsel for Google, not the General Counsel as previously posted.
So, if I get this straight, Andrew is saying that we can and should regulate for Net Neutrality and that the FCC is fully capable of handling this task? Hey, I'm all for net neutrality, as I really don't see good coming from having the industry tax content based on their desires to get their content out first/best, and there is some logic for a bidding war on the bandwidth, but don't both consumers and companies already pay the telcos for access to this bandwidth? And when has 'unlimited' mean only as much as they want you to use?
I can see some pricing plans that limit the bandwidth (haven't they tried these?), but I don't expect the public to sit idly by and have the telcos decide which services the customer should get high quality of service and which ones should get poor quality.
And what ever happened to 'bandwidth is free'???
Kipp
p.s. Andrew is the Senior Policy Counsel for Google, not the General Counsel as previously posted.
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