Category: Blogging

I said on Facebook the other day that tech blogging is more like “infotainment” than journalism. The confusion around this subject is behind the reaction to the Michael Arrington VC fund and Arianna Huffington’s desire for editorial control over TechCrunch. Here’s a quote from Robert Scoble that should clarify the issue:

Several years ago Arrington and I were headed to some conference and I asked him about how he sees himself. Did he consider himself a blogger or a journalist, I asked. His answer stuck with me all this time: “I’m an entertainer.”

You can say the same thing about John Dvorak (as I have) and any number of other media figures who blog about technology.

I hope this helps with the general understanding.

This is old news to those of you who read the other sources of broadband politics news on the new-fangled world wide computernet, but the esteemed Saul Hansell (a sometime reader of this blog) has released the second part of his analysis of American broadband, addressing the pricing issue. Broadband is cheaper in other countries due to subsidies and differences in demographics, but also because of unbundling, the practice of requiring carriers to offer wholesale access to their customers:

Unbundling can be seen as a slightly disguised form of price regulation. Profits dropped. Many of the new entrants have found it difficult to build sustainable businesses, while margins for the incumbent phone companies have been squeezed as well.

It’s not exactly clear, however, that this approach is in the public’s long-term interest. Phone companies have less incentive to invest and upgrade their networks if they are going to be forced to share their networks.

Some argue that this is the main reason that there is little investment in bringing fiber to homes in Europe. “Investing in fiber is a huge risk,” Kalyan Dasgupta, a London-based consultant with LECG, wrote me in an e-mail, “and the prospect of taking that risk alone, but having to ’share’ the rewards with other players, is not a prospect that most rational businesses would consider.”

Britain, which has been the biggest proponent of line sharing, has decided to deregulate the wholesale price BT can charge for fiber, so long as it doesn’t favor its own brand of Internet service.

Like any form of price control, unbundling produces short-term gains in access diversity at the expense of long-term investment. Adopting this approach ultimately requires the government to bear the cost of infrastructure improvements, as it ceases to be a rational use of investor dollars to build out enhancements that don’t produce substantial returns in a non-monopoly market. Many of the folks seeking net neutrality regard broadband as a utility, and this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. If we treat it that way, that’s that it becomes.

Just as our electric utility networks include less-efficient generating plants that belch excessive amounts of CO2 into the air because the regulators won’t approve rate hikes to pay replacement costs, so too will price-capping broadband stifle innovation in transport networks.

networks, regulation, net neutrality

Today we learn, via Saul Hansell at Bits Blog, that the US isn’t as far behind the Rest of the World with broadband as was previously thought:

Even without any change in government policies, Internet speeds in the United States are getting faster. Verizon is wiring half its territory with its FiOS service, which strings fiber optic cable to people’s homes. FiOS now offers 50 Mbps service and has the capacity to offer much faster speeds. As of the end of 2008, 4.1 million homes in the United States had fiber service, which puts the United States right behind Japan, which has brought fiber directly to 8.2 million homes, according to the Fiber to the Home Council. Much of what is called fiber broadband in Korea, Sweden and until recently Japan, only brings the fiber to the basement of apartment buildings or street-corner switch boxes.

Actual download speeds are more important that raw signaling rates: The United States has an average speed of 5.2 Mbps, Japan is 16.7 Mbps, Sweden was 8.8 Mbps, and Korea averaged 7.2 Mbps. There’s a gap alright, but it’s not nearly as large as we’ve been lead to believe.

In fact, the gap is entirely consistent with population density and the extent of government subsidies.

I’ll be speaking at the eComm2009: Emerging Communications Conference in San Francisco next week:

The world’s leading-edge telecom, Internet communications and mobile innovation event built to both showcase and accelerate innovation; and to explore radical new opportunities – together.

eComm deals with the Telco 2.0 world in which telephony is software and networks are multi-purpose and agile. A lot of great minds and influential movers and shakers will be converging in this space, including Martin Geddes, Doc Searls, Brough Turner, Brad Templeton, and Rick Whitt, so I highly recommend it.

Brough is moderating my panel, called Spectrum 2.0, on the move to release more unlicensed spectrum. I suspect we’ll touch on the 802.11y-style spectrum sharing etiquettes since Peter Ecclesine is on the panel, and the White Spaces issue since Whitt will be there as well.

The following post is from our new co-blogger, Brett Glass. Brett and I first crossed paths when we were working on the “Skywalker” token-ring project at Texas Instruments in the early 80s. Brett was part of the team in Houston doing the chipset, and I worked on a team on Austin doing a terminal server application for it. We both spoke at an ITIF event in Washington, DC, last spring on network management. He’s been a valuable commenter here for a while, and I’m very happy to have him contributing posts as well. Here’s his bio: Continue reading “Welcome Brett Glass”

Via Andy Sullivan, I found a service that analyzes and types blog content, Typealyzer. Here’s what it says about my blog:

The long-range thinking and individualistic type. They are especially good at looking at almost anything and figuring out a way of improving it – often with a highly creative and imaginative touch. They are intellectually curious and daring, but might be pshysically hesitant to try new things.

The Scientists enjoy theoretical work that allows them to use their strong minds and bold creativity. Since they tend to be so abstract and theoretical in their communication they often have a problem communcating their visions to other people and need to learn patience and use conrete examples. Since they are extremly good at concentrating they often have no trouble working alone.

Sounds about right, but they do need some spell-checking.

Technology Liberation Front is the same type, but Harold Feld’s Wetmachine post on the FCC’s cable inquiry is an INTP:

The logical and analytical type. They are especialy attuned to difficult creative and intellectual challenges and always look for something more complex to dig into. They are great at finding subtle connections between things and imagine far-reaching implications.

They enjoy working with complex things using a lot of concepts and imaginative models of reality. Since they are not very good at seeing and understanding the needs of other people, they might come across as arrogant, impatient and insensitive to people that need some time to understand what they are talking about.

Again, about right.

UPDATE: Harold’s Tales of the Sausage Factory is, in general, INTJ.

Obama transition team member Susan Crawford is ENTJ:

The direct and assertive type. They are especially attuned to the big picture and how to get things done. They are talented strategic planners, but might come off as insensitive to others needs and appear arrogant. They like to be where the action is and like making bold and sweeping changes in complex situations.

The Executives are happy when their work let them learn and improve themselves and how things work around them. Not beeing very shy about expressing their ideas and often very outgoing they often make excellent public speakers.

That public speaker thing is obviously correct; I met her when we were both speaking on the future of broadband at Kevin Werbach’s Supernova. Kevin, the other Obama FCC transitioner, is INTP.