Ok lets get something straight. We here at ThirdPipe are FOR a Net Neutrality requirement for carriers. But the current ‘Net Neutrality’ option winding its way thru the halls of the FCC is NOT Net Neutrality. Its nothing but a power grab by the Beltway Bandits to squelch dissent.

Oh but it gets worse. The economics of its do not bode well either —

The study, authored by Charles Davidson and Bret Swanson, forecasts that the nation would hemorrhage 500,000 jobs in a best-case scenario were broadband reclassified as a Title II telecommunications service. That just so happens to be an objective currently under pursuit by members of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) with support from backers of “net neutrality” policy.

The forecasted job losses are likely to make for unpleasant headlines for the FCC at a time when jobs and the economy remain paramount in the minds of most voters and legislators.

“Especially at time when the national economy is attempting to recover from a major and enduring downturn and private sector job creation remains a concern, the destabilizing impacts of the FCC’s proposals place the nation’s economy at even greater risk,” the study reads.

Telecommunications companies have for months now warned that a formal adoption of the FCC’s reclassification proposal could hamper innovation and infrastructure investment, and observers say this study could provide them with fresh ammunition in the fight against reclassification and net neutrality.

“If this Title II regulation looks imminent, we have to re-evaluate whether we put shovels int he ground,” AT&T chief executive Randall Stephenson said earlier this month in an interview with the Wall Street Journal.

From 2003 to 2009, broadband service providers invested, on average, an annual $30 billion for deployment, which created or sustained some 431,000 jobs. Were that level of investment to dip by a conservative 10 percent in the wake of reclassification, 502,000 jobs would disappear and the nation’s GDP would shrink $62 billion. At 30 percent, the study projects the U.S. GDP would drop by $80 billion, for a loss of 602,000 jobs.

Following suit of their Republican colleagues, a growing chorus of senior Democrats have in recent weeks expressed opposition to the FCC’s regulatory rewrite, asking they instead pursue a legislative solution. Cross-chamber whip counts reveal at least 285 legislators disapprove of the measure.

Flush 500k jobs? Sure could. Do the major Telcos have that many jobs? No. But what is not known by many in the beltway crowd is that a large percentage of the Outside Plant work is today done by contract firms. They would be the first to be laid off on the street if the current proposals are adopted. But even at the Telcos there would be follow on layoffs in the management ranks. Why keep an outside plant manager or a facility supervisor if nobody is laying any FIOS cable? They too would be on the street.

The Net Neutrality move is as bad as the DISCLOCE Act in many ways. But to lose a half a million jobs to boot? Somebody get a broom. The FCC needs sweeping out.

The white paper is located here.

Alcatel is pondering the development of a 100mbps over copper technology. Its possible for 100mpbs over 1KM. It is DSL after all –

Alcatel-Lucent has developed a prototype technology that could dramatically increase the speed of data communications over the copper wires that make up the majority of the world’s telephone infrastructure. The technology combines three existing techniques, known as bonding, vectoring, and DSL phantom mode. It can reach speeds of 300 megabits per second at a distance of 400 meters from a communications hub, and 100 megabits per second at one kilometer.

Squeezing more speed out of copper connections is an important goal for telecommunications companies in the United States. They want to compete with the 50-megabit-per-second speeds offered by cable providers, but DSL connections transmit data through telephone lines–a fundamentally different technology from that used by cable companies. Alcatel-Lucent’s technology could help these companies extend high-speed Internet access before next-generation fiber-optic networks become widely available.

The first two components of the prototype system, vectoring and bonding, are standard ways to increase the speed of DSL broadband connections: vectoring cancels out noise in a DSL line, and bonding treats multiple lines as if they were a single cable, which increases bandwidth by a multiple almost equal to the number of cables involved. Neither technique is widely used in the United States, but they are deployed to a limited extent in both Asia and Europe, where high urban density makes them more economical.

source

Intriguing yes? Here’s the rub. In many areas of the US, from a remote CO to a end user can be 20 miles. Worst case being that in some cases its over barbed wire. (Yes Mildred, that still exists in some locales.) So for grins lets say that as a DSL service this scales to 10mbps at 10 miles end user to remote CO.

Given that assumption is this worthwhile? Yes in reason. Obviously the Telcos would wish to offer this in high density areas as they could compete with FIOS without the attendant cost of new outside plant installs. Keep in mind that AT&T tried something very similar with a copper based Uverse that did not work out so well.

In practice where does this fit? High density, natch though the market in the urban centers is getting very competitive. The even better fit is the existing suburban neighborhoods where the copper is already in the ground. The issue is price. Would the public see the value of a 10mbps service at say $30/month? Could the Telcos provide it at that price and have margin? That’s where the rubber meets the road.

Previously we had pointed out that the Telcos can take care of their own. They have a revenue stream (well used to, it is getting a little frayed), that is mostly never ending. The resource is finite but better than what anyone else has. So why do they want to do this to their more lesser mortal peers? —

In the dead of night, just before the latest draft of the Stevens bill came out, a helpful Telco lobbyist inserted a little provision to stack the deck in the case of judicial review. Section 1004 of the Stevens draft now places exclusive jurisdiction for all decisions by the FCC in the D.C. Circuit. This includes not just network neutrality, but media ownership, CALEA, wireless issues, anything.

Why would anyone do that you ask? Because the D.C. Cir. is, without doubt, the most activist court in the land when it comes to pressing its vision of media and telecom policy. More than any other court, the D.C. Cir. can be credited with destroying hope of telecom competition in the United States by perpetually reversing and remanding the FCC’s efforts at rulemaking and enforcement until the FCC finally gave up and effectively deregulated. The D.C. Cir. is also responsible for vacating (eliminating by judicial fiat) the rule preventing cable companies from owning television stations where they have cable systems, and overturning much of the FCC’s cable and broadcast ownership limits. Finally, through the legal doctrine known as “standing”, the D.C. Crcuit has done its best to make it impossible for regular people to challenge FCC decisions or bring individual cases on antitrust grounds.

Source: WetMachine

Why? Well to make it more costly to litigate telecom policy. So if you are a small coop outside to Duluth and are being destroyed by some arcane rule your choice would be under this suggestion having to hire a high priced heavy weight from Georgetown.

There is something else that bothers me about this that has nothing to do with Telecom. Consistency. In the history of this country we have applied the mindset that one tries a case in the jurisdiction of either the defendant or the place where the infraction occurred. Even at appellate, you remand to the closest circuit district from which the original case issued. And NOW we are going to turn this on its ear? The system as envisioned has worked reasonably well, there is no need to change it at this late date.

This provision needs to be removed. Verizon can afford to get on a damn airplane like anybody else.

In this case its Verizon again. The name of the game is a Titanic shuffle of their data rate plan. May sound like small potatoes till you see the hurdle before you as a customer –

First, the details: Verizon has introduced a new data tier at $9.99 per month with a 25MB cap—this is the cheapest data plan now offered by the company and by most US wireless carriers, and applies to all 3G devices. Why does this equate to “upping” the data charges? Because the company is ditching its $19.99 per month plan with a 75MB cap altogether—you must either go with the $9.99 plan for a third of the data or or the $29.99 smartphone plan that applies to WinMo, Android, or BlackBerry devices.

This in a sense is a variant of the give the lantern away but charge for the oil dearly. Only this is charge minimally for low oil but if you want to use the lamp every night you has to pay!

Why can’t stuff be simple? Just charge .001¢ per kilobyte and be done with it. Equitable, quick and customers can check their bills quickly. But then that would not justify the marketees salary would it?

Linky.

As is give the Telco monopoly a run for their money in the voice only space. Today, Google officially announced that they acquired Gizmo5 the internet smart phone service for ~$30m. –

It’s a potent recipe — take Gizmo5’s open standards-based online calling system. Add to it the new ability to route calls on Google’s massive network of cheap fiber. Toss in Google Voice’s free phone number, which will ring your mobile phone, your home phone and your Gizmo5 client on your laptop.


Meanwhile you can use Gizmo5 to make ultracheap outgoing calls to domestic and international phone numbers, and free calls to Skype, Google Talk, Yahoo and AIM users. You could make and receive calls that bypass the per-minute billing on your smartphone.

Then layer on deluxe phone services like free SMS, voicemail transcription, customized call routing, free conference calls and voicemails sent as recordings to your e-mail account, and you have a phone service that competes with Skype, landlines and the internet telephone offerings from Vonage and cable companies.

That’s not just pie in-the-sky dreaming.

Google could pull it off. Combined with their existing Google Voice offering, a GV-Gizmo5 combo might give the Telcos the heebes. Like how about a serious integrated message stack? Its been implemented for years as a per supplier proprietary service. But till now, as an open available anywhere service? Just hasn’t happened. But Google has the tools/network/talent to pull it off. Oh and they have the customer base to go from nothing to the most dominant intgrated message stack on the planet.

Bank on it.

Linky.

Above all, though, Weigman is still a teenager. While he expresses remorse over his swatting attacks, he takes giddy pleasure in recounting his other exploits — whether punking celebrities or playing the phone companies like an Xbox. “The phone system and infrastructure is just weak,” he says. “I had access to the entire AT&T and Verizon networks at times. I could have shut down an entire area.” Then he segues into an earnest pitch for a future job. “I’d love to work for a phone company, just doing what I do legally,” he says. “It’s not about power. I know the phone and telecommunication systems and can be a crucial part of any company.”

This is one graph out of a very interesting phreaking story here. Most that read this board probably know what a phreak is — someone who manipulates the PSTN network for fun. Please do read the whole thing, its interesting.

But the sobering side shows just how vulnerable our telecommunications on PSTN is at two levels. A) That it can be socially engineered around. B) That the infrastructure itself is very naive.

The latter first. Back in the 60’s two things happened. The Bells figured out how to design a computer that could operate like the old mechanical stepper CO switches without all the support issues. The second was the development of FSK keying better know to the public as touchtone. Both developments design at a time when shall we say the world that America operated in was one of innocence. The thoughts were, why would anybody muck with the phone systems? Its dull boring stuff that even those in the companies found only peripherally interesting. It never occurred to anyone that Bell could represent a ‘respectable’ challenge to manipulate.

Consider touchtone® its basically a two tone modulated signaling system. Barely a step up from Morse code. Its weak link is that it is in the human audio range. From a security perspective probably the worst set of choices one could make. Tones can be recorded. Tones can be generated to overcome the system (a blue box.) Compared to systems to day, its a security nightmare.

Then there are the companies themselves. For years, even while I was there, if you were ‘in the Bell loop’ you were a trusted entity. The companies are vast and diverse. If you work there you live on the phone, conduct most business via long distance and for the most part rarely if ever physically meet the people you interoperate with on a daily basis. It worked quite well so long as parties worked on the knowledge that their peers could be trusted. And why not? You were an employee!

That breaks down when outsiders can mimic the technobabble that is used in the industry. Even though employees are trained to spot interlopers, a 10% failure rate in that regard opens a large bundle of opportunity. Security training is required yearly at most Telcos. They still do it. But here is the interesting thing. To my knowledge none of them have implemented the simplest of measures for providing secure lines for fraud, security, and collection departments. Its one of the prime reasons that phreaking works.

Still sound droll, even with a possible threat of a swatting attack going wrong? Well then think about this before you go to bed tonight — What could Weigman have done had he been hired by terrorists?

Significant numbers of cell phone users have been moving to lower cost prepaid plans pushing revenue per subscriber down for the wireless cartel. The Telcos have relied on over priced and quota limited mobile data to pick up the slack in keeping stratospheric profit margins in place.  The cable guys may be getting ready to upset the apple cart as thier own revenues from pay TV are beginning to decline.

Comcast is offering two combo plans: a metro service that combines home broadband and WiMAX mobile broadband for $49.99 for 12 months (after which the price jumps to $72.95), and a nationwide service that combines cable broadband with WiMAX and Sprint’s 3G network for $69.99 for the first year (it then jumps to $92.95). Clearwire, which Comcast has an investment in, is providing the WiMAX service. Considering that Sprint charges people $60 a month for mobile broadband and Comcast charges about $42 a month for its lowest tier, this second option is a great deal for the first year, and still offers savings over the long term. Think of the fast WiMAX speeds for local mobile broadband as a nice bonus. (GigaOM)

BT is bringing call centre jobs back to Blighty from India.

The move was revealed in an answer to a shareholder at BT’s annual general meeting yesterday.

Ian Livingstone, chief executive at the telco, was asked, to huge applause, when he would close the firm’s Indian call centres.

In response he said he would move about 2,000 jobs back to Blighty. The telco employs about 5,500 customer service staff in India and could eventually shift as many as 2,750, back to the UK.

Looks like as the global economy teeters the outsourcing price shift is occurring too. Outsourcing to India was very favorable when MBA’s could be had for $4/hr. Well those days are over. Couple that with changing tax rules, concerns about IP security and cultural differences, if you can’t work out a 33% disparity then it is probably not worth the move.

So what is to happen long term? Call center and mid management functions will probably come back to the host countries. Specialized skills will probably remain where they are. Engineers familiar with FPGA has almost become an Indian specialty not many in the US know how to program them.

The wheel turns again.

Linky.

In the world of FOSS FSF has a track record of not losing. That track record stays intact with their only case to go to court. Upon getting their it appears Cisco had an epiphany of the first order –

The question we asked in January about whether Cisco would make it to court against a Free Software Foundation (FSF) GPL violation suit has been answered.

The answer was no.

The settlement announced Wednesday is everything open source could have wished. Cisco will ride herd on its Linksys subsidiary, where these violations have been taking place, it will notify customers of their rights, it will release the relevant source code, and it will make an unspecified “contribution” to the FSF.

A blog post on the settlement emphasized that compliance, not cash, was and remains the FSF’s goal in these suits.

This was the first time the FSF went to court over a GPL violation, the blog post noted, adding:

When the violator admits that there’s been a mistake and demonstrates they want to fix it, we take it as a sign that we can cooperative productively, instead of an opportunity to pounce.

“We’re not out to wreck businesses or make lots of money. We just want compliance,” the post concluded.

For Cisco this means something more than they (thru the Linksys sub) just goofed. It also means that there will be a flood of knockoffs coming both at the software level but at the hardware level as well. So to a point, the bottom is falling out of pricepoints for the consumer grade market at Linksys. All a geek has to know is that the outside of the box says “MRT54G” compatible and the rest is history.

There is one other aspect to this that is significant as well. Cisco as a company is in many ways like Google. They let you peek, but they don’t really give away the deep secrets. Been operating that way for years. So the question has to be asked how much of their enterprise grade equipment is also using FOSS software? That too will be exposed.

Can you imagine ‘Tomato’ on a Cisco 7301 router?

Linky.

A 13yo teenager has racked up 14k+ text messages for the month on an AT&T bill. The saving grace was the parents had a $30 unlimited text plan. Thank goodness –

It works out to 484 text messages a day, or one every two minutes of every waking hour.

“Then I thought maybe AT&T made some mistake on the bill,” said Hardesty, of Silverado Canyon.

The reporter for the Orange County Register grilled his daughter on her texting habit - by text message, of course.

“Who are you texting, anyway? Your entire school?” he asked.

“Well, a lot of my friends have unlimited texting. I just text them pretty much all the time,” she explained.

She messages a core of “four obsessive texters” - all girls between the ages of 12 and 13 - on her LG phone.

Reina had a karaoke birthday party, and while other people were singing, she was texting her best friend sitting right next to her.

This is a case of insufficient parental supervision. Not only that but if the teen is texting every 2 minutes what the heck. She is doing it during school too? How are her grades and is she a nuisance in class?

Answer — Find–something–else–to–do!

Linky.