CEDX

Is this OFDM/OFDMA tutorial worth $295?

I ran across this sponsored link in my gmail box:  OFDM OFDMA AV Tutorial for WiFi and WiMAX.  Does anybody have an opinion on this tutorial?  Please leave it in the comments.
Thanks.

Seth, Seams, and wi-fi hotspots

The human artesian well of advice, Seth Godin, makes a good observation about seams, the kind where you can slip in a message.  Regarding this week's muni-wifi panic, I think it is time that people realize that wi-fi is a seam filler, not a blanket.  Wi-Fi works to fill the gaps where wired broadband is not available, and the empty spaces where people wait.  But wi-fi hotspots also create the kinds of seams that Seth is talking about.  He's all about permission marketing, but a hotspot is a place to bring somebody something useful, and with a slight interruption, show them a message about the person, place or thing that is bringing them this service that they find so valuable.  Make your hotspot seam work for you.

iPhone as Game Changer

Open, schmopen, who cares?  Only Jeff, Fred, and Esme, evidently.  The iPhone is a game changer.  It is the first multiple radio device with a decent music player app and user interface to sell a measurable number of units.  The initial surge of users was probably the folks that wanted to combine their phone and iPod so they could carry one device.  The game changing thing about the iPhone is the unfettered wi-fi radio in it, and the full featured safari browser.  Esme might moan and groan about handheld devices having to login to hotspots with browsers,  but if the vision of ad-supported wi-fi is to become more than that,  the hotspot network operator needs to talk to a browser to advertise.  Besides, the browser is the default web user interface, why shouldn't devices have it.  I sprung for the Opera Browser for my kids' DSes.  I do agree that the user interface to the hotspot should be more flexible and open, where you could use a browser interface to provision other devices that you have that don't have browsers, but people use the web through them, and are comfortable with the interface.

The people who spend $600 on an iPhone do it because they love the device and the UI, it's love-in not lock-in. The carrier the iPhone comes with is immaterial to them. Why do people by MacBooks for $1000 when you can get a laptop for $399, it's love-in, not lock-in.  My friend John Vincenzo says it's the first time he feels comfortable traveling without his laptop, because of the full featured Safari browser and the Mac integration.  Dropped his Blackberry like a hot potato. The first time was because it got water damage, and he switched to an E62, but the Blackberry had Entourage integration, E62 no Mac integration at all, and it was difficult to move his contacts onto the E62.  The iPhone is completely integrated with the Mac. He can now do something useful with attachments, instead of having to have a laptop with him. They have a superior product, and AT&T was the smart one for adopting the iPhone, although it allows you to get around the carrier's walled garden, ultimately it may be a bargain with the devil for AT&T.  It's only a matter of a short time before a VoIP app gets on the iPhone, talks over the wi-fi, and then boom, watch the minute counts drop.

To truly be freeing, you need two radios in a handheld device because wi-fi is not widespread enough nor reliable enough to completely use it as your only means to connect to the rest of the world. An unlocked GSM radio goes in, because you can buy cheap SIMs and only have to use cell minutes when you are not connected to a wi-fi network. Soon enough, devices that follow the iPhone's lead will be bringing us a much better handheld internet experience.

Here's why WISPs and MTU ISPs have a chance against incumbents

CEDX is the IT consulting practice that provides the bulk of revenue for me, and I have Verizon to thank for the latest chunk.  It seems that over the weekend, VZ reprovisioned some aspect of their Manhattan DSL network, and unprovisioned one of my clients in the Shmata business, cutting them off from the world and their VPN tunnel.  Forthwith is an account of my tech's troubleshooting day:

This is a short summary of the Verizon hell I went through.....

I arrived at the client around 10:30.   I verified that the DSL light was on and steady, then rebooted the DSL modem and router.  From the router I could not ping the Verizon gateway on the WAN side. 

I called tech support who told me the line was configured for PPPoE dynamic.  I told tech support that it was supposed to be static.  After being transferred around I spoke to someone at order status who told me that the line was converted from static to dynamic on 1/31/2007 (this circuit has been working as a static circuit for over a year - Craig)  .  I again said that it was working up until last Friday as static.  She offered to xfer me to sales to convert to static.  I went through tech support and got the PPPoE username and password. 

 

After speaking with the IT manager in California he OK'ed me to get a cheap Linksys and configure it as PPPoE.  I tried and PPPoE was not connecting.  I called Verizon tech support again.  This time I was told that "this is impossible" the line is configured for both static and dynamic.  One system was telling him dynamic while another system was saying the line was static.  There is no record of the static IP from the original config. ( A behemoth collapsing under its own weight. ) 

 

This last tech support person I spoke with put me on hold and setup and internal ticket to another group to straighten out the confusion.  At this point there was nothing else I could do, the DSL line will not work until Verizon gets it's internal provisioning correct. 

 

I gave the ticket number to the IT manager in California, he is the primary contact that Verizon will call.  When the DSL line is up it will likely have a different static IP address so the VPN router will need to be updated. 

 

Just a couple of "gems" from Verizon tech support. 

"You are being billed for 7MB dynamic"  I verified with the IT manager that the bill says 3MB static.

 

I asked to be escalated to a higher level of tech support. The response from the Verizon tech was that there was a premier support but I would have to pay for it!!!!  Even Microsoft is not that bad

 

There's a market in Manhattan for doing deals with building management and offering reliable, responsive ISP services that are plus T-1 speeds, either static or dynamic, and making a decent living at it.  If you're a building manager losing tenants or you have tenants that are frustrated at their internet connection options, give us a call and we can help you retain customers and build up some better ones, making your building more attractive.  631-462-0821

Newsday Details some of Long Island Wi-Fi challenges

One of the nice things about blogging is that you can expand upon some of the things that you see in print and the articles you are mentioned in.  It's also good to be included as the local expert among the company of Glenn Fleishman, Esme Vos, and Chuck Haas, noted authorities in the space.  Rich Dalton of Newsday writes an extensive piece about the prospects for the Long Island Wi-Fi project.  We had a wide-ranging conversation during his research for the piece, but the one quote that made it in there was the one about e-path facing a tough time acquiring customers.  This will be true, as there's a tiny market for outdoor wi-fi networks on the bulk of Long Island.  Outdoor networks in general are pretty low percentage shots in terms of getting your money back.  Weather is a huge factor, and so are the trees.  The density required to compensate for foliage is cost prohibitive.  I do think that e-path can be successful if they know the local landscape well and can find the seams where cable has not penetrated and follow that path toward buildout.  The performance of Verizon's DSL has been less than stellar, and customers can be grabbed from them, but reliability and performance of the network, plus getting customers with regular payment habits will be key for their success.  It will be difficult, but not impossible.  Of course, acquiring an existing provider with an established customer base, and then using the mounting assets that come with their award to expand might also be a good way to go.

San Francisco Wi-Fi is free, but...

"San Francisco is forty-nine square miles, surrounded by reality", Paul Kantner, Jefferson Airplane.  I understand a little better now, about the cult of free wi-fi that is so prevalent in that town.  Recently, I served as arm candy for my wife on one of her business trips to the city by the bay, and I managed to see some friends at Sputnik, Placecast, and even got a few minutes with the ever elusive Mr. Rafer.  The town was full of free wi-fi signals, but also full of signs like the one here.  San Francisco is for sure unique, in a galaxy of ways, but the presence of these signs is a reminder that the tragedy of the commons is upon us nation-wide in terms of unfettered wi-fi usage in venues.  San Franciscans are of a more altruistic and community-minded sort than the rest of us, so the signs pleading for an additional purchase or giving up your table may be oft-times heeded.  Since I was ostensibly on vacation, I didn't conduct a survey. 

In my beloved New York, getting over on somebody is pretty much the local sport.  People feel entitled, and to nurse a cup of coffee for an hour while taking a table that could be turned four times in that hour drives a venue owner crazy, and makes the table hog smug.  No wonder they are turning off the wi-fi.

Artesian wi-fi, the open access point with the SSID set to "coffeeshop" is a missed opportunity to do some marketing and advertising to the venue's customers, and for those venues in a good position, to collect some extra revenue from somebody nursing that cup of coffee.  One of my locations occasionally hits four figures per month collected from wi-fi users.  Nothing to sneeze at or ignore.  Since I'm from New York, I really don't care if you call me greedy, but it's supply and demand, baby.  In SF, the supply of wi-fi is such that the competitive landscape drove the price down to zero very quickly, but in other cities and towns, this isn't the case, and if you price the access reasonably, people don't mind paying for a day or even a month subscription.

If your venue's economic situation dictates it, you should offer free wi-fi, but use it as an opportunity to market your own goods and services, or some of your partners' goods and services through the welcome page interaction.  You don't have to collect email addresses or other personal info, You can advertise on complimentary cards with access codes, and on the web pages themselves.  This is a perfect vehicle for a Business Improvement District or a Chamber of Commerce to help merchants in an area market themselves, and the businesses that aren't venues for wi-fi users ( like hardware stores ) can advertise themselves to the users sitting in cafes, moving people from store to store, and fostering repeat visits.  You can't really do that with a plain vanilla linksys router.

LIBizBlog catches up with me

Henry Powderly of Long Island Business News picks up on my post about the local tech feeling on the Long Island Wi-Fi award.  I think that there are many ways that wi-fi on Long Island can work, but as I said last year, that I didn't think that a blanket approach would work.  Using wi-fi to try to approach the functionality of the existing cellular networks over a large area is a bridge too far.  Wi-Fi access points replace the functionality of wired 4 to 48 port hubs ( not switches ), and that is what they are best at.  Seamless mobile roaming demands another technology for it to be useful and adopted by subscribers, and wi-fi will not get there before a competing technology does.  If the price of cellular carrier provided connectivity drops, then there's really no point in trying to make wi-fi work in that mode, and you're left with a white elephant.

Where wi-fi works is infill coverage and indoor hotspots, and that's where it should be used.  If e-path is smart, they will find the local spots that are not served by cable/dsl or the existing wireless providers like myself, and start building there, and work with local development agencies to find grants to build out infrastructure for the underserved communities on the wrong side of the digital divide and get those going.  Finding community apps to tie together these ponds of connectivity and promote local businesses will help the effort also.  Promoting less expensive communication via unlocked dual-mode handsets that have prepaid cellular SIMs and a SIP + IM client could develop into a nice little business among this constituency.

Some answers to questions about the Long Island Wi-Fi project

Carol, Esme and Joe on the MuniWireless website have been posting some questions on why e-Path was picked for the Long Island Wi-Fi project.  Rich Dalton of Newsday has written a followup piece.

The history of the electric utility on Long Island is a twisted path of exorbitant rates and political intrigue.  The Powerplants, and the Transmission and Distribution (T&D) network, aka the real property, is owned by a quasi-public entity called LIPA, which was formed to buy out the private utility, Long Island Lighting Company.  This buy out came about when the utility was forced to scrap their plans for a nuke plant in Shoreham.  Richie Kessel, the affable, self-effacing community activist that drove the charge against Shoreham, is the CEO of LIPA.  He has actually managed to put a friendly face on what was a hated utility.  His path from gadfly to ultimate player, has to be book material.

So LIPA owns the property, and the billing relationship with the customers, and the maintenance of the T & D network, including the maintenance and operation of the powerplants was contracted out to Keyspan, which is in the process of being sold to National Grid.  LIPA buys elecricity from Keyspan, and sells it to the customers. Keyspan has strung some fiber on Long Island, and sells that fiber to ISPs and other folks. 

e-Path would be a customer for for the fiber.   LIPA owns the poles, so e-Path has to rent space on the poles.  If e-Path powers it's nodes from photocell connections on the streetlights, then e-Path has to make agreements with the dozens of lighting districts on Long Island.  If it buys the power from LIPA, it has to make power connections at each pole mounted.  All this will be ridiculously expensive, and Keyspan's fiber network is not particularly extensive, especially on the east end of long island.

The ROI for automated meter reading in Long Island has been estimated by LIPA internal folks at 10-15 years, because of the size and density of the region.  In my opinion, there are much more pressing needs for that kind of investment, such as converting the power plants to combined cycle units and increasing transmission interconnections to our local grid.  I have no idea on what the ROI was or will be on the Corpus Christi AMR network.  Maybe Corpus Christi has a lot more people that need to have their power turned on and off because of payment/non-payment cycles.  Meter reading itself is not a large labor cost, hence the long ROI projected.

The local business community is pretty much pissed off that nobody local was picked, but I think everybody in this business locally was sure that the RFP as written wasn't financially viable.

Long Island Wi-Fi Project Stuck to, um, I mean, Awarded to

So e-path is the winner of the Long Island Wi-Fi project.  Good luck to them finding the capital to build it out and the subscriber base to return the capital, cover operating expenses, ( pole rental, electricity, plus management ) plus profit.  I am presuming that they were selected almost by attrition, as Earthlink and Metro-Fi probably pulled their bids during the process, and the other bids were sensible and wanted some kind of revenue commitment.  I will gasp in amazement if they are able to pull it off.  Time will tell, and I wish them luck.  It will be interesting, because one of the first phases will be to secure mounting rights ( leases ) to county property, and once those are signed, they become very valuable, even if the company goes belly up, because they should be able to be transferred to an acquiring or successor company.  It will also be interesting when the business model proves to be unsustainable, will there be a new RFP process, or will e-path's acquirer be able to hang on to the exclusivity and move forward with a different approach?
Newsday says
Glenn Says

The Times Says

Will the Bug breed?

I went to the Bug+BLANK gathering tonight, and learned a bit more about what Bug Labs is gestating.  A Bug is a small, diskless, fanless, single board computer with Linux preloaded onto it, and a standardized peripheral interface.  It comes with some standardized I/O built into it, USB, Ethernet, WiFi, Serial, and Bluetooth.  Rather than Lego Mindstorms for the masses, it reminds me of the old Altair 8800 built around the S100 bus.  Where back in the day you had to get down to the bit level to make an Altair and its peripherals work, Bug Labs brings back the open-ness and creativity of that era, but raises the abstraction level to Java as its first shipping software interface, and Linux as the OS. Please correct me in the comments if I am wrong. 

The peripherals you can attach to a Bug connect via the four ports on the Bug module, they hope to develop an ecosystem of peripherals that other people design and publish APIs for, so you can develop new gadgets.  Currently, you'd have to take a PC and find PCI based boards that perform the functions that you want.  In the picture, Jeremy is holding a Bug with a video camera and motion detector modules plugged in.  In theory, you could develop your own peripheral that does something, most likely a gateway module to another hardware interface, such as line level audio in or out, HDMI video, or perhaps some custom instrumentation to measure temperature, pressure, or whatever your heart desires.

Even though Bug Labs is touting this as Open Source Hardware, it doesn't seem any more open than any of the system buses that have been around forever.  A Bug is like a motherboard, it may have a standard bus attached, but it is a one of a kind animal. Bug Labs looks like it will make its money by selling Bugs and a set of core peripherals at the beginning.  The peripheral interface is the key here, as that's what is proprietary about it. If  Bugs start to breed, it will be interesting to see what happens when Bug clones come along.  If they do, this will have been a good thing for Bug Labs, in that they will have created a popular platform.

It's a quantum leap forward in the ability to build hardware things in a smaller form factor than the PC, certainly at a higher level of abstraction, and less cumbersome.  If they debut with a set of useful peripherals and some easy examples of how to put a useful gadget together, I am optimistic that they will succeed in creating a new generation of networked computers, where it will be feasible to construct a device like an Apple TV, or an IP based set-top box, taking innovation to a new level.

I'm sure I have oversimplified some and left out many of the concepts  of the Bug and Bug Labs, but it was a short time to get to know this exciting new device and company.  I hope to get my hands on some  product in the fall and see whether this is the real deal or not.