Recently in Broadband Technology Category
The Federal Communications Commission is now tasked with developing a National Broadband Plan for the United States of America.
For most of the pundits, advocates, socialists and clowns, this will mean another opportunity to shriek at the Commission for heavier regulation, stealing the infrastrucutre that broadband companies have built to give to newcomers and charlatans, and demands for legislation on "network neutrality," whatever that term means this week.
The data calls for something else. A commitment to a national effort at Digital Inclusion.
Through the first decade of the 21st Century, much of the focus on the nation's broadband Internet capability has been on the infrastructure -- the technological platforms, wireline and wireless access, and last-mile buildout.
As we progress in the industry's life cycle, however, we are rapidly approaching the point at which deployment of broadband to consumers will become less important to continued growth than adoption of broadband by consumers. That is to say, the major impediment to achievement of the goal of ubiquitous broadband for all Americans will not be the buildout of infrastructure but rather finding a means to bring online the estimated 25 percent of Americans who presently choose not to have access. In addition, it will be more critical that we begin to move the nine percent of Americans still using dialup Internet connections up to broadband. (Figures based on Pew Internet data from late 2007 and mid-2008)
It is true that in some parts of the country, covering some 8-9 percent of the population, network infrastructure is not robust enough to provide acceptable levels of broadband service. For the most part, the population density in these areas is so low as to make it difficult to justify the investment in infrastructure. Those areas may require specially targeted approaches to provide the needed infrastructure, as appears to be the intent of the new broadband grants programs from the Obama administration.
But it is time we stop believing that our broadband problems are infrastructure problems, or somehow the fault of evil cable and telephone companies.
Perhaps the simplest measure of the problem is this: while the 2008 Global Information Technology Report rates the US broadband infrastructure 4th in the world and improving, the OECD data that tracks the percentage of consumers adopting broadband estimates the US to be in 15th place. The conclusion is clear - the infrastructure deployment rate is good and improving; the consumer adoption rate is less so and stagnant.
In spite of this, broadband policy in the past decade has focused almost exclusively on issues of infrastructure -- open access, competition, network neutrality, Internet governance and network management. Scant attention has been paid to the more critical issue of Digital Inclusion -- bringing online the one-third of the American population that chooses not to use broadband Internet today.
There is a sound basis for focusing on Digital Inclusion rather than flogging the failed ideas of the last century. Helping to bring this one-third of the population online will yield specific benefits:
• Stimulation of adoption rates, creating demand that can economically justify the further buildout and operation of infrastructure. This is particularly true of adoption rates among low income populations and rural populations (see the Pew data at http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Broadband%20Barriers.pdf).
• Amortization of total network costs across a larger consumer base, lowering the basic cost of broadband for all consumers and further stimulating adoption among Americans for whom the price of broadband remains an issue.
• Stimulation of new products, services and applications, in order to meet the specific needs of Americans who have not used broadband because they do not find it relevant to their lives.
This does not suggest that we that infrastructure development should cease. The continued development of new and more efficient platforms for the delivery of broadband is essential to maintain and enhance service levels and to support continuing growth in the demand for additional capacity to support new, bandwidth-hungry Internet applications . But it does suggest that additional attention and resources are required for programs to stimulate Digital Inclusion.
That's where we will get the biggest "bang for the buck" -- bringing online the current one-third of Americans who don't have, don't want, and don't use broadband.
And that's exactly what I will suggest to the FCC as they start their consideration of a National Broadband Plan.
President-elect Obama has been largely silent on who and what this new position of Chief Technology Officer for the government will be, but the basic idea is a good one.
Unlikely to be a cabinet-level post, the Federal CTO is also unlikely to be a policy-making position -- the federal government already has plenty of policy wonks within the Department of Commerce and the Federal Communications Commission, and there is little evidence that these are not sufficient to the task of setting policy and regulation. Where these are not enough, there are always the committees in the House and Senate to fill the gap.
Where the CTO would be a welcome addition to the Administration and to the Federal Government will be in four specific areas:
- Advancing the security of government technologies. The last decade has been an unending litany of failures and gaffes in this arena -- failing grades on cyber-security, lost laptops, security breaches, and more. Someone needs to bring a greater measure of consistency and security to the computer and telecommunications systems of the entire Federal government, and the CTO is a logical candidate for the job.
- Advancing the cause of eGovernment. President-elect Obama has correctly identified a problem in how information about our government is consistently and transparently communicated to Americans via the Internet. If you don't believe that, try using the FCC's search system to find a document on any subject at all. Try to find out from the Department of State how much liquor you can legally bring into the US from an overseas trip (answer: it depends...). Or find the hearing schedule for Congress on any given day (hint: skip the Congressional pages and go to C-Span's web site). The people deserve better than this, but it will take planning, commitment, and a steady CTO to achieve it.
- Bringing order to the government technology procurement system. Letting every agency choose what they want has left the government with a series of expensive, proprietary solutions that often don't work. From the new computer system for the FBI to the antique systems in the Treausry Department, there needs to be a better job of procurement policy and oversight throughout the government.
- FInally, assessing the technologies and issue technical guidance so those within the government who are not geeks by nature will have some idea what is out here in the real world and how it can be used. Keeping pace with evolving technology is a full-time job, and most servants of the people just don't have time to keep on top of it while still doing their full-time jobs. A CTO could help.
All that being said, neither the president nor the American people will be well-served if the person selected to become the government's CTO is simply another political hack with an agenda. If you want the position to be effective, it has to be clean. Or at least as clean as any federal appointment can be.
That automatically rules out just about any of the executives from Google, Microsoft, the major telecom companies, the major cable companies or Cisco Systems. Fortunately, there are still lots of excellent choices available from within the ranks of technology who won't come to Washington with an axe to grind or an agenda to push.
Personally, I would opt for someone who is a little skeptical of the current wars over Internet governance. Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, for example. Or Declan McCullough over at CNet. Or even David Young at Verizon. None of these would want to take the job, which is another reason why they would be well suited for the task.
Whoever is chosen as the government's CTO, and whatever the final job description, I wish them Godspeed and good luck. It's a tough job that desperately needs doing.
For more than a decade, "untethering" was the core mantra of technology geeks.
We cut the landlines for telephone service, opting instead for the better features and lower costs of mobile phones.
We made Wi-Fi a national obsession, left behind the limitations of Ethernet cables and power cords for laptops that could be used in places as obscure as airplanes and city parks, and replaced wires with Bluetooth for personal headsets and microphones.
All of which makes it curious that I, like millions of other geeks worldwide, are busy getting tethered again.
Not in the old sense of tying oneself down to a stationary cable. But by replacing Wi-Fi connections with a high-speed data connection through a cell phone or card. All of the major cell phone providers are now offering an option to "tether" your data-enabled phone to your computer as a means of getting broadband service. Using a USB cable, the data-enabled cell phone becomes a "modem" through which a PC or laptop can access the Internet.
This "tethering" arrangement isn't yet all that it could be. After all, EVDO version A - the dominant form of data transmission for CDMA cell phones - transfers data at a relatively anemic rate of less than 500 Kbps.
That's about one-third of the standard DSL or cable transmission rate. HSDPA, the data transmission favored by GSM providers in the US, isn't appreciably better.
And the cost is higher than simply using Wi-Fi, since you must pay for an unlimited data service plus a monthly tethering fee of about $15.
Still, there are some excellent reasons why broadband users may want to take a second look at this "Cell-Fi" service over Wi-Fi or the someday-may-actually-arrive WiMAX for their wireless Internet service:
It's more secure. Wi-Fi, as you will note from my many scathing references to it, is somewhat less safe than playing with scorpions. Any time you make a Wi-Fi connection, you place yourself, your company and your friends at serious risk. Cell-Fi, by contrast, has built-in security capabilities that are far superior. In fact, for the average hacker a cellular data transmission is virtually impossible to hack.
It's more available. Let's face it, Wi-Fi's limitations are extreme. It won't penetrate buildings. Or trees. Or much of anything else. Even without obstacles, the signal doesn't penetrate very far. And trying to find a signal and connection even in "hot spots" can be daunting unless you are prepared to pay handsomely.
It's more reliable than satellite. Living in the country, I use a satellite as my primary Internet connection. It's an acceptable broadband service, unless the weather is very bad or some jerk is tying up the uplink trying to swap video files on a peer-to-peer network. Then the service can range from very slow to non-existent. On the other hand, I can tether at speeds only slightly lower than satellite and with substantially less lag time.<
I'm not the only broadband geek getting into tethering. A report from Infonetics Research predicts the mobile data market will quadruple in size over the next three years, with more than 144 million subscribers by 2011.
That growth will be driven by upgrades to HSDPA and EVDO to deliver download speeds of 1.5 Mbps or better over the next two years. And further reductions in pricing that will make the use of either a tethered cell phone or an "air card" more attractive to mainstream consumers
Broadband via cell phone is still a work in progress, and it will be a few years before there is enough movement in both price and performance to make it feasible for the masses. But for selected applications and locations, getting tethered may be a welcome trend in broadband access.
To the Commissioners:
I, Dave McClure, on behalf of myself and the more than 200 million Americans who subsribe to Internet services in the United States, request that the Commission issue a Declaratory Ruling that would require Internet Service Providers to adopt resonable and best practices for the management of their networks in a manner that does not permit discrimination by some Internet applications and users to reduce, block, degrade or otherwise lessen the integrity of my Internet and online experience.
Specifically, I submit the following:
- The principles adopted by the Commission do not pertain exclusively to network operators, but do state that I and other network subscribers have the right to access the content of my choice using the devices and applications of my choice. It is therefore reasonable to assume that these rules must likewise pertain to individuals and applications that limit, reduce or block my ability to do so.
- As noted by Peter Svensson of the Associated Press, "In the basic configuration, each cable serves about 500 households, which share about 40 megabits per second of download capacity. If each household gets Internet service with a maximum download speed of 10 mbps, that means four of them downloading at full speed can saturate the connection." DSL does not use a similar shared network, but suffers degradation when even a small minority of users elect downloads that saturate the capacity of the networks. This degradation is even more significant on optical wireless and satellite Internet connections that are common in rural settings. This means that a small number of users may therefore reduce my ability to download due to their excessive use of the Internet -- even though I am paying the same rate for my connection. This is ipso facto discrimination against my ability to access and use the applications of my choice over the Internet, a violation of the principles adopted by the Commission by individual users who over-consume.
- These over-consuming users and applications likewise degrade my ability to use specific applications that include security systems, Voice-over-IP telephony and E-911 services, as well as the communications of Emergency First Response teams, law enforcement, fire and safety crews and others who utilize the public Internet. They therefore represent a clear, present and quantified danger to the public safety and my personal well-being.
- The Internet was not ever and is not today designed to handle the demands of predatory applications, such as peer-to-peer networking applications, that use "supernode" configurations and other means to utilize a disproportionate amount of bandwidth. Such applications are specifically designed to reduce and limit my ability to utilize the Internet as stated in the principles noted previously by intentionally permitting and encouraging other users of the Internet to discriminate against my use by taking a disproprtionate portion of our jointly allocated bandwidth.
- Merely adding capacity to the network is an unfair and discriminatory solution to this problem because the costs associated with the additional capacity are to be paid by me and by other subscribers with no guarantee that the additional capacity will not simply be consumed by rogue users and applications as it is today. Additionally, the requirement to simply add capacity to lessen the demands of the over-users and rogue applications will reduce the investment dollars available for network build-out and enhancements, particularly in rural areas such as the one in which I reside. This would therefore represent a secondary level of discrimination against my rightful use of the Internet.
- Adding capacity to satisfy the users and applications who are discriminating against me and other users today would unfairly target working families, lower-income Americans, rural Americans, senior citizens and others who cannot afford the financial burden of paying for the use of those who choose to discriminate against us. To put it more simply, why should lower-income Americans be forced to pay for the excessive abuses of the minority of Internet users who consume disproportionate bandwidth?
I therefore petition the Commission to issue the following as Declaratory Rulings:
- That the protections specified in the Principles adopted by the FCC with regard to my right for non-discriminatory access to Internet content using the applications and devices of my choosing be clarified to extend to users and applications that actively discriminate against me by using a disproportionate percentage of the available shared bandwidth on my network.
- That network operators be required to implement reasonable practices to ensure that this discriminatory behavior does not occur, and that the Internet access and use of any one subscriber is not unfairly diminished, degraded or blocked by the actions of any other user or application.
Regards,
Dave McClure
ReasonedResponse.Com
Over on the GigaOm blog today is a teriific piece by Martin Geddes, chief analyst at STL Partners, which is responsible for the Telco 2.0 Initiative. In it he lays out some basics of the future of broadband.
He touches on the problems of network management, and how a minority of users can utilize a disproportionate amount of bandwidth. He notes how demand is shifting with the requirements of today's more-connected consumer -- the shift to services in which issues such as copyright become moot because the cost of online services and applications is all-inclusive. And he spends a fair amount of ink talking about the changing business model for Internet Service Providers as they evolve to meet consumer requirements.
It is, all in all, one of the more thoughtful posts on the future of broadband I have seen in a long time, and one that today's generation of ISPs should be paying close attention to.
Heck, it's so well done I wish I had written it.
A study just published in the Australasian Journal of Clinical Environmental Medicine links the rise in Wi-Fi use to the global rise in autism among children.
But before you flee in terror, let's note that the Wall Street Journal carried a piece last September from a leading researcher that says that most reported research today is flat wrong. Add to that the fact that most science and medical journals around the globe lack the peer review and documentation requirements that are considered necessary by US journals, and the claim of a Wi-Fi/autism link seems less credible.
Finally, it may be important to remember that the study's author, one Dr. George Carlo, has also spent the last decade claiming that autism is caused by cell phone usage - a claim supported by no other credible research. We don't know what causes autism or why the incidence of autism is growing, but ascribing it to the growth of Wi-Fi just because both occur in the same time period smacks of witch doctoring at its worst.
Why this sudden rash of anti-technology stories in the media? Well, they are hardly sudden. The same kind of claims have been made about the telegraph, radio, television (remember how the radiation from color TV tubes was linked to brain cancer back in the '60s?) and computers. Usually, these stories are just an over-reaction to the disruption and change that technologies bring. It would be sad, however, if the Wi-Fi industry would have to endure the decade of junk science and bad claims that have dogged the cell phone industry for the past two decades.
