Why Exempt Wireless Carriers (Net Neutrality Rules)

I’ve spent a little more time reading about the newly passed FCC rules for internet neutrality and I’ll have more comments over the next week or two, but the first thing that jumped out at me was the FCC’s decision to exempt Wireless carriers from the provisions of the rule. It seems extremely strange to me that they would choose to focus only on the legacy fixed-line carriers for the new regulation.

According to the FCC statement after the vote:

“Mobile broadband presents special considerations that suggest differences in how and when open Internet protections should apply. Mobile broadband is an earlier-stage platform than fixed broadband, and it is rapidly evolving.”

While the facts in this statement are true, I question the ultimate conclusion that the infancy of mobile broadband suggests a lesser standard of regulation. Mobile broadband is currently the fastest growing segment of the internet.  A Fortune Magazine article suggests that a half a billion smart phones could be sold next year. That’s 500,000,0oo more people accessing the wireless web. For many people, especially those in the lower income brackets, wireless is the only method to access the internet. In the very near future, wireless broadband may end up the primary way we all access the internet. Why would Chairman Genachowski choose to focus on the tired legacy technology instead of getting ahead of the curve with wireless?

If mobile/wireless is going to take off as much as most experts predict we run the serious risk of developing competing internets with vastly different standards. While legacy fixed-line carriers will be subject to strict standards and will look to throttling, metered access and other solutions, the wireless providers will face little in the way of regulation and thus may grow up with a completely different model. This would require consumers to adapt to two different forms of the web and it would web development much more difficult. It would seem to me that such a duopolistic model will stifle innovation and hamper those who are trying to build tomorrow’s great web apps/services.

The wireless broadband experience already has enough obstacles for most users. Things like interoperability of handsets across networks (think iPhone on Verizon) or early termination fees or sharing networks. By failing to impose the tougher standards of net neutrality on the wireless providers, the FCC and Chairman Genachowski missed an opportunity to help remove some of these obstacles.

So, why did this all come about? I think another quote might put things into stark relief:

“[We] recognize that wireless broadband is different from the traditional wireline world, in part because the mobile marketplace is more competitive and changing rapidly. In recognition of the still-nascent nature of the wireless broadband marketplace, under this proposal we would not now apply most of the wireline principles to wireless, except for the transparency requirement.”

This comes from a joint Google/Verizon statement issued in August. Compare the wording of this statement with the wording of the FCC statement above. It would appear that Google and Verizon’s heavy lobbying has paid off tremendously with the FCC’s ruling. (If you’re wondering why Google has a vested interest in wireless, it’s due to the huge potential of mobile advertising they see. In the future they are hoping to generate a substantial part of their revenue from ads delivered to mobile devices. As a clear indicator of this potential one needs to look no further than Google’s acquisition of AdMob for $750Million in May).

Please note that I’m assuming a certain philosophical acceptance of net neutrality as a general principle  that is far from black and white – my point is just that if the FCC is going to impose net neutrality standards, why would they exempt the segment that might be most beneficial to consumers?

I’ll have more on the new FCC rules in the coming weeks.

Good Talk,
Tom
[Sources: http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2010/12/net_neutrality, http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/12/22/2011-will-be-the-year-android-explodes/, http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/weve-officially-acquired-admob.html]

Blinking Office Lights More Than An Annoyance…

We’ve all most likely been annoyed by blinking florescent lights in an office building. It seems those stark, harsh lights are designed to drive us all to migraines and make work even more frustrating. But the city of St. Cloud, Minnesota is looking to turn those lights into the next generation of wireless networks.

St. Cloud municipal offices will pilot a new technology from LVX that uses LED lights to transmit signals to special modems attached to the computers below. These modems interpret the blinking (much like a tonal modem interprets dial-tones) and then sends back messages from the computer to the lights, which are equipped with a receiver as well. Current tests show that this system can achieve speeds comparable to home DSL service (roughly 3 Megabits per second). While this performance seems to suggest that Wi-Fi would be a better fit, the point of these LED based networks is to work in Tandem with Wi-Fi to reduce the congestion on over-crowded office networks.

The really cool thing about these LED network systems is that they may actually make it cheaper to light your office. Because LEDs are so much more energy efficient than traditional office lighting. Additionally, add-ons are available to sense ambient light and dim the LEDs to save more energy. You could also change the color to direct people around the office (i.e. “Follow the green lights to the xyz meeting”). That seems pretty cool.
But what about headaches? Constantly blinking lights (blinking in code no less) sounds like a recipe for seizures and migraines. But, remember, current CFL lighting blinks at a much lower rate (about 60 times per second). These lights will blink much faster, meaning you should actually be less likely to notice the blinking (and therefore less likely to be bothered by it).

I think it’s awesome that we’re looking at different ways to communicate beyond Wi-Fi.

Good Talk,
Tom
[Sources: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101227/ap_on_hi_te/us_tec_internet_via_lighting, http://dvice.com/archives/2010/12/flickering-offi.php]

Net Neutrality Becomes a Reality

Yesterday (12/21) the FCC voted 3-2 to impose net neutrality standards on ISPs. I’ve talked a lot about net neutrality on this blog and I’m pretty happy to see the FCC taking some action (though I’d have much preferred that some body of elected officials taken action). I have not yet had a chance to fully digest the specifics of the ruling (it’s been a busy few days at work…).

I’ll comment in full in the near future, but for now here is the announcement and some links to reactions/commentary/etc.

Official FCC Announcement:
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-303745A1.doc
Chairman Genachowski’s statement:
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-303745A1.doc
Steve Wozniak weighs in:
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2010/12/an-open-letter-to-the-fcc-regarding-net-neutrality/68294/
Likelihood of a Republican Congressing Overturning:
http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/134817-analyst-congress-unlikely-to-overturn-net-neutrality
Kevin Fogerty of IT World:
http://www.itworld.com/government/131583/what-you-lost-fccs-net-neutrality-ruling
Mashable:
http://mashable.com/2010/12/21/fcc-passes-net-neutrality/
MG from TechCrunch:
http://techcrunch.com/2010/12/21/verizon-google-fcc-net-neutrality/
Alexia from TechCrunch:
http://techcrunch.com/2010/12/21/fcc-net-neutrality-vote-is-just-the-beginning/

That’s all for now. That’s plenty of reading (some of it I haven’t gotten all the way through yet) that should give you a pretty good idea of the reaction. I’ll provide my own analysis soon.

Good Talk,
Tom

Brad Burnham and USV Weigh in on Net Neutrality

I’ve written quite a bit about net neutrality over the last couple of months. I’ve learned a lot about the issue while reading and writing about it. I’ve gotten a few things right, and a couple wrong, but hopefully I’ve at least highlighted the importance of the issue. This evening I was reading a few of the blogs I regularly read when I came across a post by Brad Burnham from Union Square Ventures that talks specifically about the changes the FCC will take up on December 21. The crux of Brad’s proposal is based on language suggested by Barbara van Schewick, a professor at the Stanford Law School:

A non-discrimination rule that bans all application-specific discrimination (i.e. discrimination based on applications or classes of applications), but allows application-agnostic discrimination.

The great thing about this approach is that it seems to answer the big objection of the ISPs to any net neutrality rule. ISPs can still regulate bandwidth to protect the health of their infrastructure. They can still throttle networks to handle demand, and they can still charge more for faster/better service. But they can not discriminate based on the application or type of application. In other words, an ISP could not slow only video traffic or any iTunes traffic. This should – and I emphasize “should” – prevent ISPs from stifling start ups and new innovation.


I encourage you to read Brad’s post in it’s entirety here. You can also see a video of Barbara van Schewick talking about net neutrality here. (warning: it’s almost 2 hours long). I would love to hear other thoughts on this proposed idea. It makes a lot of sense to me, but, like any proposed rules, there are sure to unintended consequences that I’m not seeing.

Good Talk,
Tom

YouTube Offers Paid Rentals? Will It Work?

I’m apparently a bit behind the curve on this one. I was just messing around on YouTube (it’s 1AM, what else should I be doing?) when I noticed the sidebar offered the ability to rent Reservoir Dogs. I was pretty shocked, as I’d never before considered paying for something on YouTube and didn’t realize they were experimenting with different revenue streams. So, I did what anyone in my generation would do: I Googled it. (Side note: Firefox does not recognize Google as a verb…I feel like that should change).

Well, it turns out that this little experiment started a couple years ago (apparently quite quietly). Google opened a store at www.YouTube.com/store that is accessible only in the United States. YouTube offers users the opportunity to rent movies for 24 hours for a fee of anywhere from $1.99 to $4.99 (at least that’s what I saw in the few minutes I spent on the site). So, while this was news to me, it wasn’t exactly shocking. It’s been clear for a long time that if Google hoped to make any money off it’s YouTube deal it would need to find new ways to monetize content and new streams of revenue. This appears to be experiment aimed at doing just that.

So, what do I think: First off, the site navigation is TERRIBLE. In fact, the entire customer experience (at least up to the point of sale, where I stopped) is aweful. Navigation is just too complicated. Filtering sucks, the search feature is not good (this is a Google company, remember), there’s no customer reviews, no suggestion/recommendation engine, no favorites, there’s preview available. It just strikes me as what an online movie rental site would look like it was launched in 1999. From same people that brought you Gmail and, more importantly, the original YouTube, this is hugely disappointing.

I’m wondering if part of the problem is the way we shop for movies vs the way we (and by “we” I mean “I”) use YouTube. For me, most of the fun of YouTube is the serendipitous discovery made possible by clicking through link after link of the suggestions panel. Beyond the video that caused me to go to YouTube in the first place, I never have an expectation to what I might find. This is completely different from the way I search for a movie to watch. While I might not know the exact movie, or even the movie type, I don’t want to allow serendipity to play as large a role. When I’m committing a couple hours and a couple bucks, the decision process is much different that when I’m investing no money and only a few minutes. In other words, I’m more risk averse and thus in need of better guidance from the tools employed to help me out. So that’s a big reason why I think the interface/customer experience feels so wrong for the YouTube store.

I also think it’s a tough market for YouTube to break into. Between Netflix, Redbox, your local video store, set-top boxes, Hulu etc I have a hard time seeing a niche for a YouTube store. (I’ll admit that Google TV could be a game changer, but I’m not familiar enough with it to comment, so I’m going to pretend it doesn’t exist…) When I want to rent a movie I go to Netflix and watch one. Or, if I’m not a Netflix subscriber (or they don’t stream the movie I want) I open up iTunes and rent it there. Given that my top of mind impression of YouTube (from years of experience) is grainy, shaky, homemade videos of people doing ridiculous things, I just don’t see myself ever using the service. (not to mention the buffering of flash videos compared to silverlight). I can’t imagine a time when I’d skip Netflix and iTunes (and Hulu and Comcast on Demand) for the YouTube store. Also, I’ve heard (can’t confirm or find a reputable enough source to quote) that the average age of YouTube users in under 16. These are people that have grown up on free video, torrent sites, etc. Add to the fact that they don’t have credit cards and seems like a tough sell. Seems unlikely that they will suddenly decide to pay for content. Lastly, the online video on demand market is still comparably small.

Now, the other side of the coin: GoogleTv is coming. Getting videos off the computer screen and onto the TV could make a huge difference (something Netflix noted when it rolled out streaming to your TV). I think with a major site redesign, lots of help from Google TV, the ability to stream onto an iPad (maybe wit 3/4G), YouTube could turn this into a winner. With YouTube revenue estimates ranging between $450Million and $1Billion this year, the company can afford to support the store until it catches on.

While I’m two years late to notice, I will be watching to see how this plays out. Until then, I’m keeping my Netflix subscription.
Good Talk,
Tom

Video: Leading with IT

Below is an interesting video of an MIT class being led through a case study. It's a long video, but Q&A starts at minute 22. Personally, I think it's worth watching as it touches on a number of important points relevant to IT and business professionals, not the least of which is to understand what hidden resources you have available and how technology can help capitalize/cash in on these resources.

Cloud Computing, Flexibility, Security and Wikileaks

I read two interesting articles in the past 10 days that highlight the security benefits corporations can gain by embracing the cloud. It's somewhat ironic how the first article involved Wikileaks, the infamous website known best for leaking classified US and foreign government documents, seeking refuge in the cloud by moving onto Amazon's E2C cloud computing service while the second article explains how Amazon's ability to scale was instrumental in protecting it from attack by supporters of Wikileaks.

Some back story might be in order: On November 28, 2010 Wikileaks, already well known for leaking classified cables of Foreign governments, released the first in a series of leaks or US government documents. There was a near immediate uproar in America and two clear sides emerged rapidly. On one side were those who believed the leaking was at a minimum, harmful to the US and in poor taste, and many even going so far as to call it treasonous. On the other side of the issue were those who defended Wikileaks and who believe that open dissemination of information will ultimately lead to a healthier society.

As the battle raged in the media, hackers tried taking matters into their own hands. Within a matter of days Wikileaks servers were overwhelmed by a Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attack. Wikileaks quickly moved there server a couple times, but each time were taken offline by the DDOS attack. Eventually Wikileaks settled on Amazon's E2C cloud computer service. The attacks against this new host were entirely unsuccessful as Amazon was able to add capacity rapidly to counteract the spike in traffic from the DDOS attack. On December 2, 2010, however, Amazon, bowing to public pressure and the threat of a boycott, removed Wikileaks from their servers and refused to host the site.  (Around the same time, MasterCard and Visa froze Wikileaks accounts and stopped processing donations/payments to the company).

In response to Wikileaks being booted from Amazon servers, hackers who supported Wikileaks embarked upon a campaign of retribution. On December 8, 2010, Visa and Mastercard websites were attacked and temporarily taken offline by supports of Wikileaks in response to those companies ceasing to work with Wikileaks. Amazon was similarly attacked, however, the web giant was largely unaffected. One anonymous hacker tweeted "We can not attach Amazon, currently. The previous schedule was to do so, but we don’t have enough forces." It seems that no matter how much traffic they sent to Amazon's servers, the company was able to respond with additional capacity to counter the attack. 

This episode shows the incredible flexibility available with cloud computing (as well as Amazon E2C's resilience).  As more companies move into the cloud, I would expect to see the effectiveness of DDOS attacks abate somewhat.

Good Talk,
Tom 

[Sources: http://centerstance.wordpress.com/2010/12/11/cloud-computing-security-and-amazon-why-elasticity-matters/, http://www.infoworld.com/d/cloud-computing/can-cloud-computing-save-you-ddos-attacks-306, Wikipedia.com]