Have you read about using utility computing and how it offers scalable flexibility over traditional server architecture? IT conversations recently interviewed Scalr’s Sebastian Stadil who demystifies the cloud and talks up his open source cloud resource manager.

 

 ITC.TM-SebastianStadil-2010.06.14 [40:45m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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.

Much of the wireless industry has been resisting pretty strongly the idea of giving up the voice channel as a revenue stream. Fact what they are resisting is the concept that voice is just another piece of data. For example, almost a year ago Apple disapproved a Google app that permitted VoIP on the iPhone at the insistence of their AT&T transport partner.

Ok, but then what can you do about this? –

More time laughing with friends.
Less time in front of a computer.
Take free, unlimited Skype-to-Skype calls and IM on the go with your BlackBerry® or Android™ 3G smartphone from Verizon Wireless.

Yeah, its a shill quote right off the Skype site. But that is not what matters here. What is, is the fact that Skype/Verizon are putting a shot across the bow of every other vendor out there as it relates to voice minute charges.

Now of course there is a down side. That Skype call is now a data rated call. Which if you look at Verizon’s data rate plans is not a bargain in comparison. So for the consumer it is not a block buster cost saver. But this opens the door that voice is just another chunk of data. I would be inclined to look at T-Moble’s unlimited data plan for this Skype service. Get one of their Android phones and see what happens….

But the door is opening. Might take a year or two for folks to catch on but eventually there will be a data rate war in the wireless arena as voice channel services are dropped by consumers.

Well shucks I have been saying for quite some time that Femtocell was a total rip. But folks say I am a lone voice in the wilderness on the issue. Well no more –

Even if I’m willing to pay $150 to extend AT&T’s shitty 3G network, it will only be accessible to 10 lines, and it will almost certainly be a pain in the ass to add or remove lines. So, when my iPhone toting friends are down to play Rock Band, they too can enjoy getting 5 voice mails the moment they leave the house, each from a call that never rang inside the AT&T black hole that is my home. There is one spot of good news here though, buried at the end of the paragraph: AT&T has decided graciously not to charge me a monthly fee for the privilege of fixing its network. But wait, that sentence right before it, about the minutes? Does that mean I’m still going to be charged for minutes, even when dialing out over my broadband connection instead of AT&T’s spendy wireless network? Are they fucking kidding me?

In addition, AT&T will offer a companion rate plan option for MicroCell customers – especially customers on Family Talk plans — who want to supplement their existing voice plans. For $19.99 a month, individual or Family Talk customers can make unlimited calls through a 3G MicroCell, without using minutes in their monthly wireless voice plan.

Oh I get it now. This is a revenue opportunity. You know, for AT&T. For $150 down, I can use my broadband connection to extend AT&T’s shitty network, but if I don’t want those calls to eat my minutes I have to pay ANOTHER $20 a month? This is extortion.

So what is the problem? Well I think the blog entry at Tested lays it out pretty well. Link.

But in every grey cloud could be a silver lining. Somebody, anybody get hold of one of those microcells and lets dig into the internals. If we could reverse engineer it, chances are we could turn the tables. AT&T would not have much incentive to deploy this if they knew that with just a .BIN file upload you could have your cell phone operating for free!

Think about it.

Yawn? Surely you jest. Oh I know that multihead conferencing has been around. Most of it corporate using dedicated circuits and equipment. Or public services like WebEx. But what makes VuRoom is that is does not require a lot of specific gear. If your PC can run the latest version of Skype it can run VuRoom.

SUNNYVALE, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–ViVu, Inc. (www.vivu.tv), an emerging leader in creating innovative and easy-to-use solutions for live video participation, today released VuRoom – a ViVu-powered plug-in for Skype, the popular software that enables the world’s conversations. VuRoom is built on the Skype platform to provide customers with instant multi-user video conferencing – an exciting new breakthrough previously unavailable to Skype users. Along with its presentation and desktop sharing functionalities, VuRoom is designed to help remote business users collaborate in real-time, while also saving valuable time and money.

“Having experienced the technology, I believe that ViVu is well positioned to deliver on the video collaboration needs of SMB and enterprise customers. In particular, I see strong potential for ViVu’s new Skype plug-in.”

“Our recent research studies predict a big year for global growth in the web conferencing market,” said Krithi Rao, an analyst in the Information & Communication Technologies Practice at Frost & Sullivan. “Now more than ever, enterprises are looking for cost-effective communication and collaboration solutions to help them succeed.”

Demo here.

Now why the tither Dog? The price. The problem with most of the other services is they run $30-40/month. That can run into some serious coin on a 10 person team every month. This is running $10/seat. A fourth the price. At that price point if using the software for the entire team replaced but one airline ticket a month it paid for itself and then some.

The fact that it is on Skype provides for a very ubiquitous platform. One could add external input sources as needed into the video conversations with little cost or set up charges. The real question is does it last in its current biz plan form. Skype with there latest release now provide P2P video on the three major OS platforms. That is probably 60% of all the Skype usage out there. Couple that with some geek will pull this off as a freebie somewhere as well. Time will tell.

But while it lasts VuRoom lowers the bar on multihead video.

Linky.

Yes Dear Reader a little TCO analysis can save you money. We have been saying for years that the shell game of free phone, payback is a b!@#$ thru the contract is a bear. It also hurts your wallet. –

He’s considering buying a data-only plan from T-Mobile and relying primarily on SkypeOut purchases, with a backup of free Gizmo5 calls through Google Voice, although new Gizmo5 sign-ups are currently suspended. That means little to no mobile calling (unless you used the free Guava app). Then again, Ben sees some significant savings by the end of what would be a two-year contract, and considers himself a “near-total” dependent on Google services. Could you imagine making the data-only jump?

Just go over to the lifehacker article and see for yourself. Keep in mind that the author is considering only going with a data only plan, 2yr contact. There are other considerations one can also employ. For instance, does your spouse have a phone with a carrier who does a Friend and Family deal? Why not punch the Google voice into the loop? Then the calls to her are free. And if perchance one has a small VoIP server then a VoIP app on the Nexus might avoid all the Gizmodo fiddling as well.

While we are on the subject. The Nexus Launch. A captured live blog feed is here with pics. Initial take — very iPhonish. But that seems to be where the jive is at the moment. The wise move being made? You can buy the phone separate and go with any vendor you wish. That’s a damn smart move, especially for the consumer.

I just hope the carriers are prepared for the bandwidth assault. This phone screams — Songbird App. But your data store staying on the home server and streamed to the Nexus as an audio terminal. Oh and anybody out there developing a multiparty audio remix app for the Nexus. It would sell.

We have projected for 2 years that it was time for unbundling the phone. We would have expected it to happen before the smartphones took hold. But I guess it takes the extra functionality of the smartphone to force the issue on the carriers. Hope I am right but wrong.

Nexus one analysis.

Kurzweil, is there anything this guy can’t do? His book the Singularity is Near has spawned a whole new way of thinking about the future. He is a prolific inventor past and present. So what’s he go an do? Well remedy the bland existence of eReaders that’s what! —

One of Blio’s major advantages over current e-book readers is that the software offers a full color experience. E Ink, which is the black-and-white display used currently in almost all e-readers, works best for text, and even then most e-books still look ugly, thanks to design limitations in the readers.

Blio actually lays out the “pages” as they would be seen on paper, with typography and illustrations copied across. It also supports video and animation. In some ways, it’s reminiscent of the interactive magazine applications (also meant for upcoming tablet devices) shown off by the likes of Time Warner, Popular Science publisher Bonnier and Wired’s parent company Conde Nast.

Add to that some nifty features such as text-to-speech and the ability to synchronize things (like bookmarks, highlights and the page you last read) across multiple devices, and it makes for an interesting e-reader.

“We can take a PDF and an audio book and merge the two to get a combination such that you can hear the audio book and see the words highlighted on the PDF at the same time,” says Peter Chapman, an executive at Kurzweil Technologies.

For publishers, says Kurzweil the advantage is that Blio preserves the original book’s format, including typsetting, layout, fonts and pagination.

Wired goes on to mention stiff competition, etc. My guess is maybe not. First this has the attributes that most any student or researcher keeps in the stachel — marker, highlighter, sticky notes, etc. Then it supports color. Of course that’s more a hardware restriction than anything. But still color will probably be what separates the have nots from the haves in the ebook market very quickly once power issues are corralled.

What’s not to like? Well format for one. Got too many right now. Many non-Amazon systems were starting to gravitate around the ePub format. This will delay that for awhile.

Now the hardware makers need to step up. The merge of tablet and eReader will continue. Somebody will come out with a 8.5×11 formatted screen and the rest will be history. Whoever does it will have the same impact that IBM did when they introduced their laptop line oh so many years ago.

Linky.

It what has to be a positive move the FCC has released a query for suppliers for a database platform and service that will be part of the whole infrastructure. —

On November 4, 2008, the Commission adopted a Second Report and Order and Memorandum Opinion and Order (Second Report and Order) in ET Docket 04-186 that established rules to allow new, sophisticated, unlicensed wireless devices to operate in broadcast television spectrum at locations where that spectrum is unused by licensed services.1 This unused TV spectrum is commonly referred to as television “white spaces.” The rules will allow for the use of unlicensed TV band devices in the unused spectrum to provide broadband data and other services for consumers and businesses.

To prevent interference to authorized users of the TV bands, TV band devices must include a geo-location capability and the capability to access a database that identifies incumbent users entitled to interference protection, including, for example, full power and low power TV stations, broadcast auxiliary point-to-point facilities, PLMRS/CMRS operations on channels 14-20, and the Offshore Radiotelephone Service. 2 The database will tell a TV band device which TV channels are vacant and can be used at its location. 3 The database also will be used to register the locations of fixed TV band devices and protected locations and channels of incumbent services that are not recorded in Commission databases.4 The Commission decided in the Second Report and Order to designate one or more database administrators from the private sector to create and operate TV band database(s), which will be a privately owned and operated service. Database administrators may charge fees to register fixed TV band devices and temporary broadcast auxiliary fixed links and to provide lists of available channels to TV band devices.

Why a database is needed for a broadband low power spread spectrum channel? Well multiuse. The band(s) in some cases will have public service users in some areas. So any smart device must be able to discern that they reside in the same locale with say a fire dept siting on the open band between formerly CH 10-11. With that knowledge a smart device can map around and use other channels.

Its good news though. It means that finally the FCC is looking to see that white space systems are brought online. Personally I hope the Hams get in the act. We could see some wonderfully weird devices using the airwaves that might show commercial usage.

Linky.

Carla Schroder writes in Linux Today —

As much as we warn about privacy, security, and reliability problems in cloud computing, it’s coming and we can’t stop it. So do we join the cloud party? Heck no.

…

Well here we are on the threshold of this very thing, and now the geeks are complaining and warning against it. Why? Because we like to be perverse? Well maybe that is part of it. But for me the biggest problem is trust. I don’t trust many tech vendors because they haven’t given me any reasons to trust them, and plenty of reasons to not trust them. Over and over and over and over and over and over and over.

Why would I entrust them with my data when they do not respect my privacy or the privacy of my data? In the US personal privacy is not protected, and vendors who mangle and lose your personal or business data pay no penalty or recourse, other than bearing the brunt of your peeve. Marketers are all about privacy invasion, as much as they can get away with, and collecting, mining, and buying and selling us. Even worse, service providers roll over at the slightest “boo”, releasing customer records at toothless DMCA takedown requests, and caving in to law enforcement without even making them go through due process. Where are all those attack lawyers when they can do some good for a change?

Carla has a point, and many times I have the same sentiment. But we should not cloud the Cloud as a technology vs that of a business practice using the Cloud. If Skype or Google has an outage it is from this observers point of view little from technology loss as simple human error. Small consequence, but an important one overall.

Any company today has little excuse not to consider internalizing the Cloud. That is bring the Cloud in house. If you have a half dozen servers or more then the company can pull it off. Start with a simple virtualization effort sufficient to free up 2-3 servers. Then consider a Cloud service like Eucalyptus. (There are others as well.) Get those nodes working then port some of those virtualized services over to your own private Cloud.

Trust issues disappear. Or they should, otherwise you have personnel problems larger than your considerations of a Cloud provider. Your results on your level of Nines you require is limited by your pocketbook. Your ability to keep working is also limited to your local networking maintenance if you are in a single location.

But Clouds don’t stop at the company door. Dual core PC’s are generally the norm walking out the door even for individuals. We are almost on the cusp of that happening to the 4 core chips as the price curve continues to drop away on the Intel and AMD product lines. At that point a Cloud in a box is a reality for individuals as well. It won’t be quite as Nines capable as a couple of discrete machines due to single point of failure issues. But a micro Cloud would permit higher levels of service, SOA type backup/restore becomes possible, and harnessing 3-4 cpu’s to a single task is simpler.

So as always, there are means to the madness.

Linky.

Apple and AT&T have an agreement in principle that neither party would partake of supporting anything that injuries the other party in any material fashion. AT&T is concerned about users foregoing the voice components on iPhone and using the data component via VoIP. Google then shows up with an application for the iStore to do exactly what AT&T does not want. Is it rejected? Welllll, not exactly, but then you can’t download it either –

AT&T and Apple told the FCC that they did have an agreement that Apple would not help iPhone owners use VOIP calling services like Skype on the iPhone. VOIP calls use the data, rather than the voice plan, and would cut into the companies profits. Thus, Apple and AT&T agreed to cripple the Skype iPhone app so that it would only work when the iPhone used a WiFi connection.

The companies say they also agree not to let apps that stream live television, which AT&T says would strain its network.

As for Google and its app store?

Its FCC filing emphasizes that Android phone users can get apps from outside the store — unlike iPhone users. (Users can “jailbreak” their iPhones to do so, but this invalidates the warranty.)

It says only one percent of apps in its online marketplace have been rejected, mostly due to copyright or obscenity reasons.

Google did not, however, mention that it too crippled mobile apps at the request of a telecom.

T-Mobile asked Google to remove apps that let customers use their phone as a modem for a laptop, a practice known as tethering, and Google complied. T-Mobile, like all of the U.S.’s largest carriers, charges customers extra for that service. Google later re-allowed the app, but not for T-Mobile customers.

Is Google the unvarnished victim in this? The maiden for her prince to open the gates? Well not exactly either. Google is doing the same thing for T-Mobile on Android platforms. Google you can pucker up, but wash your shoes first, they reek of BS.

All this jockeying and “where’s the pea” is going for naught too. Wimax is continuing to rollout. The following cities are targeted this year — Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Fort Worth, Honolulu, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, Portland, Seattle. Wimax is already in Atlanta, NYC, Los Angeles and the outskirt of WashDC. So many of the mass market areas are in coverage. The upshot is the Wimax providers are not freaking out that VoIP will traverse their network. Fact some providers are offering bundles that include VoIP. So the cat’s already out of the bag. Fact some are considering using a “netbook-as-phone”.

By the way Who if on first and What is on second and Google is in the outfield. Google still has not understood how damaging their lack of 700mhz ownership means to them over the long haul.

Linky.