Month: June 2008

Netgear dumps trash with Open Source

Dana Blankenhorn is excited about Netgear’s announcement that it’s fully supporting a router intended to run open source software, but he’s off on the relevance of the hardware: MyOpenRouter offers developers a comprehensive user guide, applications forums and downloads. Best of all this isn’t a stinky would-not-sell-otherwise router. It’s got an internal diversity antenna to … Continue reading “Netgear dumps trash with Open Source”

Dana Blankenhorn is excited about Netgear’s announcement that it’s fully supporting a router intended to run open source software, but he’s off on the relevance of the hardware:

MyOpenRouter offers developers a comprehensive user guide, applications forums and downloads. Best of all this isn’t a stinky would-not-sell-otherwise router. It’s got an internal diversity antenna to improve performance, and supports WPS.

Actually, that’s not at all impressive.Every Wi-Fi router built in the last three years supports diversity and WPS, but the relevant ones also support 802.11n. This is simply an obsolete b/g router that Netgear is dumping, probably to reduce inventory. Wake me up when you see an open source router supporting 802.11n, I’ll buy one in a heartbeat.

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Does Google want to nationalize the Internet?

This is pretty damn amazing. At the Personal Democracy Forum, Vint Cerf declared that the government should own and control the Internet: Should the Internet be owned and maintained by the government, just like the highways? Vint Cerf, the “father of the Internet” and Google’s Internet evangelist, made this radical suggestion while he was sitting … Continue reading “Does Google want to nationalize the Internet?”

This is pretty damn amazing. At the Personal Democracy Forum, Vint Cerf declared that the government should own and control the Internet:

Should the Internet be owned and maintained by the government, just like the highways? Vint Cerf, the “father of the Internet” and Google’s Internet evangelist, made this radical suggestion while he was sitting next to me on a panel yesterday about national tech policy at the Personal Democracy Forum.

This is extremely bizarre at many levels. The net neutrality juggernaut started as a campaign to protect free speech, and now it comes all the way around to ceding control of the Internet to the government? Like the government of China?

For Cerf, this is the greatest of all possible flip-flops. While working for WorldCom in 2002, Cerf wrote RFC 3271, warning of the dangers of government involvement in the Internet:

“Internet is for everyone – but it won’t be if Governments restrict access to it, so we must dedicate ourselves to keeping the network unrestricted, unfettered and unregulated. We must have the freedom to speak and the freedom to hear.”

How quickly they forget.

H/T Jim Harper at TLF.

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Hyperventilating in New York

As one would expect, the New York Times editorial page is not happy with the Supreme Court’s decision upholding the right to keep arms. But the language of their editorial is quite a bit over the top: This is a decision that will cost innocent lives, cause immeasurable pain and suffering and turn America into … Continue reading “Hyperventilating in New York”

As one would expect, the New York Times editorial page is not happy with the Supreme Court’s decision upholding the right to keep arms. But the language of their editorial is quite a bit over the top:

This is a decision that will cost innocent lives, cause immeasurable pain and suffering and turn America into a more dangerous country. It will also diminish our standing in the world, sending yet another message that the United States values gun rights over human life.

I doubt that the effects of this decision will be that far-reaching. It’s mainly just a slap in the face to jurisdictions that practice a particularly paternalistic form of government, where incomes are high, crime is low, and symbolism trumps substance. Criminals still commit most of the crime, and the criminal’s relationship with his weapon isn’t altered by the law.

For a more sensible analysis, see the Sacramento Bee’s Gun ban reversal has limited reach:

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Supreme Court’s historic decision Thursday on the right to bear arms was a sweeping pronouncement of constitutional principles that will nonetheless have little practical impact in most of the country, legal experts said.

Now that’s more like it.

And a pony for you…

I need to expain why this is bad in some detail, but for now enjoy Julian Sanchez’ Internet for Everyone campaign aims to bridge digital divide: Legal scholars Jonathan Zittrain and Tim Wu stressed what Zittrain called the “weird” economics of providing high-speed Internet. Initially, said Zittrain, cost increases are commensurate with the scale of … Continue reading “And a pony for you…”

I need to expain why this is bad in some detail, but for now enjoy Julian Sanchez’ Internet for Everyone campaign aims to bridge digital divide:

Legal scholars Jonathan Zittrain and Tim Wu stressed what Zittrain called the “weird” economics of providing high-speed Internet. Initially, said Zittrain, cost increases are commensurate with the scale of the network, until “suddenly it’s free, because you’re peering.” But in practice, said Wu, drawing an analogy to the energy crisis, broadband in the U.S. is “controlled by a tiny cartel.” Nevertheless, Vint Cerf—who in addition to being known as the “father of the Internet” authored the manifesto “The Internet Is for Everyone”—stressed that the new rules for broadband should not resemble “the vertical regulation of the past.”

All this may have a whiff of “and a pony” about it: Nobody is going to oppose universal, cheap, fast Internet access—but how long will this motley crew speak with a unified voice when it comes to the nitty-gritty of policymaking? I put the question to Zittrain after the press conference, and he allowed that consensus is less likely the further one gets from these pleasing generalities. The coalition’s role, he suggested, will primarily consist of focusing public attention on the issue—and on instances of telecom rent-seeking that might otherwise slide under the radar.

Everybody likes free stuff, until the strings become evident.

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Seoul Declaration

The Seoul Declaration For the Future of the Internet Economy signed by OECD ministers isn’t half bad. There’s no wacky net neutrality language in it, and plenty of commitment to protect privacy and intellectual property. This must have taken a lot of work, as the forces of evil were in full tilt to corrupt this … Continue reading “Seoul Declaration”

The Seoul Declaration For the Future of the Internet Economy signed by OECD ministers isn’t half bad. There’s no wacky net neutrality language in it, and plenty of commitment to protect privacy and intellectual property. This must have taken a lot of work, as the forces of evil were in full tilt to corrupt this document. But it’s OK.

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Vuze Shows True Colors

Vuze is the Palo Alto peer-to-peer indexer that helped bring the net neutrality circus to the FCC with their publicity stunt of a complaint against Comcast. They’ve maintained their business was nothing to do with piracy, and all about innovative delivery of legal content. It turns out it’s mainly piracy after all: This month, Vuze … Continue reading “Vuze Shows True Colors”

Vuze is the Palo Alto peer-to-peer indexer that helped bring the net neutrality circus to the FCC with their publicity stunt of a complaint against Comcast. They’ve maintained their business was nothing to do with piracy, and all about innovative delivery of legal content. It turns out it’s mainly piracy after all:

This month, Vuze did an about-face. Unleashing the software’s search engine, it enabled users to find and retrieve content indexed by some of the world’s most popular BitTorrent search engines. These include Mininova, an index site in the Netherlands now under legal assault from Dutch anti-piracy authorities. As a result, users don’t have to fire up a second file-sharing program to find free, pirated versions of the titles Vuze offers on a pay-per-view basis. They can do it through Vuze’s search engine.

Mininova is all about piracy, and if Vuze is searching it, so are they. It can’t be long until Hollywood and the studios terminate their agreements with Vuze and relegate them to their ultimate destiny as the Google of piracy. Except they’ll have lots of fun competition. For one, the reigning Google of piracy is actually Google.

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Battling Carriers

Do we have meaningful competition among broadband carriers? See the Verizon PolicyBlog comments for an example of what the competition looks like. Here are Verizon VP Tom Taulke’s comments on retention marketing: First, should consumers have information from all providers before choosing a carrier for voice or video services . . . or a package … Continue reading “Battling Carriers”

Do we have meaningful competition among broadband carriers? See the Verizon PolicyBlog comments for an example of what the competition looks like. Here are Verizon VP Tom Taulke’s comments on retention marketing:

First, should consumers have information from all providers before choosing a carrier for voice or video services . . . or a package of services? Of course. That seems like a no-brainer. Information – the much-touted concept of transparency – is both the consumer’s and competition’s best friend. How can consumers know if they’re getting the best deal if one of the service providers can’t give them information before they’ve made the purchase?

Second, should competitors in the wireline communications marketplace operate by the same rules? Again, a no-brainer. Policymakers love to talk about “competition” and the proverbial “level playing field.” Today, cable is fully engaged in “win-back” marketing directed toward any customer who decides to switch to Verizon’s FIOS video. Yet, this complaint is designed to prohibit Verizon from marketing – or even providing information — to a customer who decides to switch from Verizon to cable-provided voice service.

Kyle McSlarrow of the cable industry comments.

Here is what is really going on. For the first time in history, Verizon’s entrenched incumbent position in the phone marketplace is being challenged successfully by cable competitors providing digital phone service, a relatively new marketplace development that gives consumers more choice, better value, and — according to J.D. Power and Associates — provides consumers greater satisfaction in every region of the United States. Not to put too fine a point on it: Verizon is losing customers.

Naturally, you’ll do everything you can to retain them. I get that. But, the law is very clear: Verizon can market to its heart’s content 362 days of the year to its customers. However, when customers make a decision to leave you, you are obligated to honor their decision to request that their phone number be transferred to their new provider, and respect their privacy by porting their current number within 4 days without harassing them with marketing retention calls. Congress, on a bipartisan basis, and the FCC have previously recognized that integrity in the number porting process is essential for true competition to flourish.

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Supernova 2008 Wrap-up

Supernova was an interesting experience. It’s not my usual crowd, more a Web 2.0/Social Networking scene than my hard-core networking and tech policy people, but there was a fair bit of overlap. I met some people whose blog work I’ve read for years – Steve Gillmor, J. D. Lasica, Kevin Marks, Susan Crawford, and Kevin … Continue reading “Supernova 2008 Wrap-up”

Supernova was an interesting experience. It’s not my usual crowd, more a Web 2.0/Social Networking scene than my hard-core networking and tech policy people, but there was a fair bit of overlap. I met some people whose blog work I’ve read for years – Steve Gillmor, J. D. Lasica, Kevin Marks, Susan Crawford, and Kevin Werbach, the organizer. Some other people I’ve discussed and debated things with over the years, such as Joi Ito, were also there, but I didn’t have a chance to talk to them in the general rush of events and what-not, and Doc Searls was unfortunately too ill to attend. Doc and I have been missing each other at conferences for years now, so the tradition may as well continue.

While most of the discussion was about monetizing social networks, there were excursions into network policy and technology at several junctures, and Kevin committed to making these themes larger in next year’s show. The hard-core telecom guys were in Vegas for NXTComm, but they wouldn’t have contributed all that much anyway.

Regarding “monetizing,” it strikes me as odd to build a social networking site, get a million members, and only then start to think about making money from it. You’d think that any smart business would begin with a “revenue model” and then design a service around it, but this is a different world. There are only about four ways to make money from the Internet anyway:

1. Sell subscriptions
2. Sell ads
3. Sell stuff
4. Facilitate some sort of financial transaction and take a cut.

If I were in that business, I’d market exclusivity because there are just too many hooligans and ruffians on the Internet. Toss Metcalfe’s Law out the window and adopt Bennett’s Law, that the value of a network is the mean of the value of the individual members. If I want to mix with street people, I’ll go downtown. But that’s just weird thinking.

Several of the speakers declared Google the new Evil Empire, which is quite realistic and on-point, and the tussle between the search and ads monopoly and poor little Facebook featured prominently in one panel.

I explained that the Internet as we know it today – IPv4 with TCP and UDP – isn’t actually the be-all and end-all of innovation nurture. It permits experimentation among applications with limited requirements for bandwidth and delay, and a whole new set of applications will show up as soon as we have a network that can deliver more data with less delay.

Conveying that one point to an audience of eager innovators was worth the hassle of getting up at 6:30 in the morning, although it didn’t seem so until I caught up on my sleep.

Kevin is a great host, and the conference was well-organized and smooth. I hope to do it next year, when (real) networking is a bigger theme.
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IT Examiner coverage of Innovation ’08

John Oram of IT Examiner does a fair write-up on the Innovation ’08 panel in IT Examiner: Richard Bennett said he is opposed to Net Neutrality regulations because they shut down engineering options that are going to be needed for the Internet to become the one, true, general-purpose network. Today on his blog, Richard adds … Continue reading “IT Examiner coverage of Innovation ’08”

John Oram of IT Examiner does a fair write-up on the Innovation ’08 panel in IT Examiner:

Richard Bennett said he is opposed to Net Neutrality regulations because they shut down engineering options that are going to be needed for the Internet to become the one, true, general-purpose network. Today on his blog, Richard adds “Google has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in server farms to put its content, chiefly YouTube, in an Internet fast lane, and it fought for the first incarnation in order to protect its high-priority access to your ISP.”

Richard continued: “Now that we’re in a second phase that’s all about empowering P2P, Google has been much less vocal, because it can only lose in this fight. Good P2P takes Google out of the video game, as there’s no way for them to insert advertising into P2P streams. So this is why they want P2P to suck. The new tools will simply try to convince consumers to stick with Google and leave that raunchy old P2P to the pirates.”

It’s much more balanced and diligent coverage than the article in The Register.