Spectrum of Greed

Slip slidin' away.... to 19th place now!

A Fast Company blog by Chris Dannon today highlighted the depressing fact that the US has recently dropped to 19th in a recent study on global internet broadband connectivity.  I found it on Digg.  The article was an interview with Emily Green, CEO of the Yankee Group, a Boston-based consultancy that specializes in connectivity.  (continue reading…)

The Aussies will have wifi in cars way before us.

Dedicated Short Range Communications, or DSRC for those who like initials, is a wireless technology hybrid of WIFI and GPS.  This new technology, that will allow any car operating on Australia’s motorways (at least the ones that are not burning) to be a high speed wireless data node on a universal internet network.  This innovative development was the result of a University of Southern Australia think tank called the Institute for Telecommunications Research.  ReadWriteWeb has a great article on it, providing lots of links and detail on how the system will work not only for the sharing of high speed internet data, but also will allow real time communications between vehicles allowing more effective management of congestion, accident avoidance, and numerous other improvements over today’s ‘driving blind’ lack of communications.  (continue reading…)

It's tough to buck the system - Ask Cool Hand Luke

“What we’ve got here is failure to communicate,” the Cap’n tells the prison population about the recently recaptured Cool Hand Luke.  Dressed in his southern white suit, he pronounces sentence on the rebellious inmate that threatens the orderly status quo of his prison.  I would say we can repeat that phrase to the FCC today.  According to a recent news article from Arstechnica.com, we have a very confused former FCC Chair that is defending the orderly but hopelessly antiquated status quo of our wireless (and wired) network management framework, while courts reviewing a decision on predatory customer retention practices calls foul.

At the heart of the confusion is the definition of what the FCC is in control of.  They think in boxes labeled, phone, internet, wired, wireless, broadcast, media, etc…  What has evaded their recognition so far is the massive convergence of these separately born technologies.  What we citizens of the world today refer to as the ‘Net’.  We can do anything over the net today - watch media, listen to media, make calls, move data - you name it.  So all of these little boxes that the FCC is trying to manage have become a terrible set of stumbling blocks that they can’t get themselves out of.  They are like a hopelessly out of shape middle aged man caught in the middle of a torturous obstacle course.  (continue reading…)

What's wrong with this picture? Nothing! It is just what we asked for.

An amazing post on the history of South Korea’s internet has been all but unobserved by most of the internet community in the US.  This information should be part of the body of knowledge that is reviewed as a part of defining a strategic plan to get us where we need to be as a country for internet access.  Based on current projections, we are already 13 years behind South Korea, as their first generation plan to get their country online was originally conceived and execution begun back in 1995.  Fast forward to today, and they are already on Internet - generation II, while the US still sits on it’s thumbs, hoping that somehow if we keep doing what we have been doing that everything will be better.  The problem is a fundamental one:  Korea has a target of connecting their citizens to the world, and to be number one at it.  The US has a goal as well:  to provide support to existing companies that have built our internet infrastructure and hope that they do what is necessary to connect the citizens of the US.  The one complicating factor is that the companies in control of this roadmap in the US have a different motivation than getting the best connectivity for all citizens - it is called making a profit.

An excerpt from the article:

How and why did South Korea become an overlord in Internet speed? In short; the South Korean government introduced a number of policy instruments to stimulate technological learning, aimed to strengthen international competitiveness of the economy. The government launched a five-year plan to create a ubiquitous networked world in 1995, meaning that the country developed a stunning 1.5 billion dollar wireless network to stimulate the use of the Internet.

(continue reading…)