Big news in the content world: Viacom has made some of its shows available on Hulu.com, the joint venture between major TV networks to offer full-length TV shows online.

In particular for me, two of my favorite shows are both now available on Hulu, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report.

But this isn't a story about how a show I like is available elsewhere. Instead it's a tale of the internal dynamics of the business of online video delivery.

To frame this, I've been watching full episodes of these shows for a while on ComedyCentral.com. In fact, they've been online as long as pretty much any first-run TV show.

But watching them was always an exercise in frustration. The reason for this was the placement of ad breaks. Not only were there ads during the natural commercial breaks, but they'd often appear after every comedic bit rather than after every segment.

Making matters worse was the haphazard nature of the ad breaks. I can't tell you how many times the punchline of a joke gets cut off while watching on ComedyCentral.com.

Now, trying to squeeze more ads in make some sense, but it always felt awkward and forced. It just didn't make any sense why Comedy Central was sabotaging the online viewing experience of these shows.

Until I read an interesting tidbit somewhere a couple of weeks ago: Viacom had made the decision to cut everything up into short clips so as not to upset cable operators.

It's important to understand that the current cable TV system is setup so that your cable TV provider is paying a fee to carry channels like Comedy Central. Needless to say, when media companies make that same video available for free online it doesn't make the cable guys all that happy. In fact, some are starting to wonder why they're paying for content that's being given away elsewhere.

By cutting shows into short clips, the thought was it would help placate these concerns.

But something's changed--my guess is the financial success of Hulu.com--and now you can watch full-length episodes of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report on Hulu.com in their original form with their original ad breaks.

This is a big win for consumers, especially those like me who have foregone paying for cable when so much video's available online for free.

Where this all leaves us I'm not entirely sure. Content owners realize that if they don't get in the game online they're likely to be left behind. But by doing so they're calling into question their relationships with cable TV operators.

The final variable in all this to consider is the financial model of delivering content. On cable TV, content owners are getting paid to have their shows distributed. But online, content owners have to pay to deliver their show. Additionally, on TV they're able to run 6-8 minutes of ads for every half hour show whereas online at best it's 3-4 minutes, so less revenue.

A great piece to read about these conundrums was written by Mark Cuban a few weeks back.

The old model of media distribution is rapidly breaking down, and while I'm happy to report that at least in the battle over The Colbert Report that we, the viewers, have won, the future is entirely uncertain.

Posted by Geoff Daily on June 11, 2008 9:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Andrew Odlyzko is the leading researcher of demand for bandwidth on the Internet. While some have been talking about explosive growth, he's quietly and continually shown through his research that while at one point the Internet was doubling, that at this point it's growth is pegged closer to 50%.

I just came across another article about him and his presentation at a recent conference where he shared that in a place like Hong Kong, where a lot of people are subscribed to ultrafast broadband connections, that while users consume six times the bandwidth as we do in the US, that their growth rate is less than 20%.

That's an interesting thought to consider as it suggests that the presence of big pipes alone will not drive exponential growth in demand for bandwidth.

One question it raises is whether or not these lower growth rates are upper end limits or merely temporary plateaus.

Of course, some of this has to be attributed to the fact that the higher the overall demand the harder it is to realize a high percentage growth rate.

But even still I find the position we're in kind of odd. There's no denying that demand for bandwidth is growing. Yet Odlyzko's studies show that perhaps it's not expanding as fast as we first thought.

But then there's the reality that there are a host of high bandwidth applications on the horizon. Plus the fact that most Internet users today don't use high bandwidth applications. So the possibilities are there to ignite another round of exponential growth.

Not only that, but that growth in demand seems almost inevitable given the presence of ever-larger pipes and increasingly powerful applications.

For example, when a user goes from watching a YouTube video to watching a full-length episode of Lost in HD, that's not just a doubling in demand for bandwidth, it can be a tripling or quadrupling.

Or what happens when we start moving from small window videocalls to fullscreen? That again is an order of magnitude more bandwidth, say from 200Kbps to 1Mbps, and I'm not even talking yet about HD or uncompressed HD.

And the reality is we might end up having capacity run ahead of demand, so once more users start waking up to the possibilities of rich media Internet applications they may skip YouTube and go straight to HD; they may bypass small-screen videocalls for full-screen if for no other reason than they can.

Yet at the same time, a theme I consistently hear is that while getting the early adopters on board is easy, convincing the next group of people to join in the broadband revolution takes a lot more work. So even though we've got more people going online and getting broadband every day, equipping them to take advantage of high bandwidth applications won't be easy.

But yet again there's a potential for explosive growth as I'm a firm believer that if you can just sit down and show someone what's possible, a light bulb will go on and they'll start transitioning into the mindset of a power user.

So here we are, in a position where the reality doesn't match up to the promise and an uncertain future lies ahead. What would happen if a bunch of celebrities or politicians started pushing the benefits of video-on-demand online and videocalls? It's quite easy to imagine a tidal wave of interest crashing onto the Internet.

The reality is that any upsurge in demand can take down individual servers quite easily and could even threaten large swathes of networks as everyone who knows about this will tell you that the Internet can't yet support TV-sized audiences.

But at the same time, all trends point to modest growth that will gradually increase over time.

The scary thing is that ultimately we have no control over this. Part of me wants to encourage this huge upswell in interest as that's ultimately one of my big goals, to get everyone engaged with using the Internet to better their lives. But another part of me worries about what might happen if I'm successful in that goal as not only are the networks today not capable of handling unlimited demand but the long-term trends in demand that are driving investment don't suggest the near-term need for all that much more capacity than we have today, making it less likely the networks will be there to support a significant uptake in demand should it materialize.

What troubles me most about all this is that this issue totally frames the decisions being made in how much to increase capacity, and yet there seems to be a giant gap between the reality and the potential, and what's so uncertain is how quickly we're going to reach that potential. Will it be slow and steady growth from here on out? Or will something happen to ignite a firestorm of demand?

Fundamentally I'm a big believer that the demand for bandwidth is there it's just bottled up in the fact that most people don't understand today what broadband can mean for their lives. And I do believe we can realize a future soon where it's not just the early adopters using high bandwidth applications.

But the most worrisome part is we really don't know what the future will hold. Some predict even less than 50% growth, but what if the opposite is true?

What happens when someone decides to put the Super Bowl online and everyone shows up at the same time?

What happens during the next big national emergency and everyone's going online to find out more information?

Will the Internet be able to support these surges in demand? The truth of the matter is no one knows.

And unfortunately the only way we're likely to find out is to have a surge that overwhelms the Internet, leaving us without its power potentially during a key time.

I wish there were a way around this but I'm not sure there is. But I do know that unless we can decide where we're at, either riding a rising tide or poised on the precipice of a crashing wave, we can't properly prepare to survive the aftermath.

And it's part of my life's work to prove that the wave is not only cresting but it's ready to crash in many splendid directions as we all start to realize the full power of broadband in our lives.

Posted by Geoff Daily on June 10, 2008 7:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Here's a neat tool from the New York Times that breaks down how demographics broke down in the recent Democratic primary.

Click on categories or arrows to switch views. Rollover individual states to get their specific numbers.

Not only is this tool informative, it's also kind of cool in the way boxes fly around as you switch from one stat to another.

It's a terrific example of how computers and the Internet are expanding the ways we can visualize information. Just think of how you used to have to look at info like this before: a long list of boring numbers.

Now that info can be presented in a way that's visually appealing and that makes digging down into it easier than ever.

Posted by Geoff Daily on June 9, 2008 2:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In reading about the ongoing battle over P2P piracy, I can't help but draw analogies between this devolving situation and Iraq.

First off, both are now littered with hired guns. Iraq has Blackwater, Hollywood has MediaDefender, "the leading provider of anti-piracy solutions in the emerging Internet-Piracy-Prevention industry," according to their site.

Instead of guns, MediaDefender maintains 2000 servers and a 9Gbps connection that they use to seed fake files into illegal torrent tracking sites. These trackers are what help P2P users find illegally distributed content. It's MediaDefender's intent to both frustrate users by introducing fake files as well as to bring down the tracking sites by overwhelming them with denial of service attacks.

But like in Iraq, sometimes innocent bystanders are getting caught in the crossfire of mercenaries, as happened over Memorial Day weekend when MediaDefender's system brought down the website, RSS server, and internal corporate email of Revision3, a legitimate content producer that legally distributes their content via BitTorrent.

Read the article linked to above as the situation was a bit more complicated than this, but the gist is that these overzealous mercenaries attacked a site simply because of the company it kept.

But these Iraq analogies just got deeper in a disturbing way. Researchers at the University of Washington have recently shown that the efforts by content owners to identify pirates may be fundamentally flawed as any user can be framed for copyright infringement today even if they didn't do anything. Even without being explicitly framed or even having ever used P2P software, users can attract attention from these systems. And to top it all off, it's not just users that have to be wary, even things like networked printers have been shown to trigger a response from the systems searching for pirates.

Here too the analogy to Iraq stands, where our armed forces are having trouble separating the terrorists from the average law-abiding citizens.

So in Iraq we have an overwhelmed system of enforcement (the military) that's had to rely on bringing in mercenaries but which can't properly identify the real targets and in turn is resulting in innocent bystanders getting caught up in the crossfire.

Drawing this analogy even further, you've got a prevailing sense amongst those in power (the government and content owners) that regardless of whether or not these policies are misguided, if they were to be abandoned now that withdrawing the troops would cause utter chaos to ensue.

And while the analogy breaks down somewhat when discussing solutions, the spirit seems to be the same, namely that we need to find a way where we don't turn everyone into criminals and where law-abiding citizens can get what they need legally.

My apologies to anyone with family in Iraq or the military if this analogy seems flippant as obviously the issues being dealt with over there are matters of life-and-death as opposed to an industry geared towards creating fantasy worlds to help people escape from the horrors of these real-world situations.

But the analogy still stands, and with both I feel the same sense that there's got to be a better way than staying the course. That we need to find a way to step beyond this status quo and start finding real solutions that not only protect the rights of both consumers and content owners but that are also sustainable over time.

Otherwise I worry that the efforts to fight the threat of piracy will continue to mirror that of our attempts to defeat terrorism, leaving us stuck in quagmires and not focused on directing all our energy towards making the world a better place for everyone.

Posted by Geoff Daily on June 9, 2008 8:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I just read this Washington Post interview with Steve Ballmer head of Microsoft.

At one point he stated his belief that within the next 10 years all media will be delivered over the Internet.

While I agree with this generalization in general, he didn't go on to address the fact that a few other things have to happen first.

The biggest of which has nothing to do with the Internet and new media distribution models. The only way we're ever going to replace paper is by enabling a display technology that mimics paper, a concept generally referred to as epaper.

The simple truth is that consumers like the feel of opening up a newspaper and holding a book. And despite promises of the Internet and computers getting rid of the need for paper, the opposite has been true as they've arguably created more paper usage than ever before. Why? Because people like paper.

I think sometimes we online advocates suffer from a bit of conceit, assuming that since the Internet is so wonderful that it can cure all ills. But the truth is that there are almost always other pieces to this complex tapestry that need to be resolved first before we're able to take full advantage of the distribution possibilities of online delivery.

All this being said, even though Ballmer's citing of 10 years is kind of generic and almost a cop out, at the same time within the next 10 years epaper should be a reality.

Already technologies are on the market like the Amazon Kind ebook reader, and working prototypes exist for bendable screens that can roll up inside of a cell phone, as well as epaper screens capable of displaying color and video.

Eventually epaper promises to be produced almost as cheaply as regular paper, so much so that we're going to start seeing these screens everywhere, from cereal boxes to pill bottles to posters to fruit labels.

We can't just say that the Internet will replace a traditional form of media without acknowledging the role of enabling technologies like epaper, otherwise we risk sounding like we're repeating the over-hyped promises of the Internet that led to the bubble a decade ago.

Posted by Geoff Daily on June 6, 2008 9:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

There's going to be an interesting conference starting today and running through this weekend called the National Conference for Media Reform.

They've got a number of well-known speakers talking about the challenges and opportunities of media in the 21st century.

You can tune in and watch many of the keynotes, some of the sessions, and an unknown quantity of complementary coverage by going to this page and clicking through the links found therein.

Moving forward I'm going to try and do a better job linking to live webcasts. I have to admit, I'm not a big watcher of them as they don't always make for the most compelling video, but at the same time if they're talking about things that interest you and you can't physically be at the event, then there's no better way to be able to stay informed.

Posted by Geoff Daily on June 6, 2008 9:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

On the latest edition of App-Rising.com's VidChat, you're in for a real treat as I sat down to chat with Michael Johnston, VP of IT for Jackson Energy Authority (JEA), to discuss the challenges network operators face dealing with so-called bandwidth hogs.

What's interesting is that while JEA is a municipal utility in Jackson, TN that's deployed a full fiber network, they're facing the same issues as the multi-billion dollar for-profit enterprises we normally hear from on these issues. Additionally, Michael is a dynamic speaker who in addition to understanding the technology also recently got his MBA so he can speak to the business challenges just as eloquently. Plus he's one of the nicest guys I've met.

So enjoy!

Now for the followup notes:

- Here's a link to JEA's website.

- "PON" stands for Passive Optical Network, which describes the kind of technology used in their full fiber deployment.

- He makes the good point that there are many different types of systems that aren't designed to handle the traffic of everyone showing up at the same time. If everyone picks up their phone at the same time, the system will crash. If everyone drives to work at the same time, you'll have massive traffic jams. If everyone turned on their appliances at the same time, it'll overwhelm the grid. All analogous to broadband networks, for which assumptions were made initially that not everyone would be using it fully at the same time.

- When talking about high-bandwidth users, he cuts through the clouds and firmly states that it's not gamers or YouTube that's causing strain on these networks, it's purely P2P as those apps are overwhelming the assumptions that not everyone will be using their connections all of the way all of the time.

- But he also clearly asserts that what those users are doing isn't wrong, it's just that P2P apps are at odds with the business models of network operators.

- When Michael mentioned an article of mine coming from left field, he's referring to my riff on tiered pricing from earlier this week.

- He shares the simple fact that the big for-profit service providers are dealing with the same challenges he is as a smaller non-profit entity.

- He then goes on to say that the network they've built is capable of delivering 100Mbps symmetrical to every home, but that he can't afford to deliver those speeds because of the cost of backhaul bandwidth and the fact that P2P users upset the economics of a shared network.

- I was really glad to hear him make the point that the cost of bandwidth within their access network is essentially free, but as soon as you upload a video to YouTube or participate in a global peer-to-peer network they have to pay to support delivering that traffic outside of their network.

- He also makes an interesting point when he admitted that today their only answer to these problems is to squeeze margins, which is especially painful given that they're trying to pay off the massive investment they made in building a full fiber infrastructure.

- One thought I haven't heard much before is that to start metering bandwidth requires yet another large investment and adds a lot of complexity to a system that's normally only interested in moving information through a router as quickly as possible. This makes it a challenge for smaller operators. Plus there are issues surrounding how you prove to users that they owe more money when you send them the bill. Those weren't arguments he seemed eager to get into. And even if the model's successful, it's not like they can turn this up overnight.

- I loved his reaction to my point that everyone's trying to figure out how to get people to pay for things online, which was, "Heck yeah, the network operators are trying to figure it out too."

- He went on to highlight the disparity in investment between network operators and applications developers, citing that while an application developer can put a few million into R&D and then go after a nationwide audience, JEA has had to put in $50 million to only reach 30,000 customers. While he's trying to foster innovation by providing capacity, the reality is he has a lot more invested per customer and they need to get that money paid back. And again, Michael's not talking about this through the lens of trying to drive a profit; he just wants to pay for the network.

- Paxio is a small deployer of FTTH to greenfield developments in the San Francisco area. They're a really interesting provider who I'll be trying to get onto another VidChat soon.

- In talking about net neutrality, Michael voiced strong support for letting the market decide what should happen. He pointed to the fact that the market already seems to be working in instances like the Comcast case as he's seen reports that have shown their subscriber count took a hit following the news breaking that they were interfering with P2P traffic. He's also terrified of what's going to happen once anyone tries to turn this into a law as then it'll be left up to the lawyers and the legal system to determine what the law really means, which is often a messy, expensive, drawn out process.

- You can look forward to many more conversations with Michael as I really appreciate his perspectives on these issues as someone who's in the trenches in a smaller community with a full fiber network that provides new insight into the challenges network operators face that's free from the question of how much profit motives are driving the decisions he makes and positions he takes.

Posted by Geoff Daily on June 5, 2008 9:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)
More posts about vidchat

I've been reading a lot of reactions to Time Warner's decision to test out bandwidth caps with overage charges, and there's one common thread I notice in many of the comments that isn't always included in the articles: the concept of metered bandwidth is nothing new.

You used to get dialup access by buying minutes until consumer demand was found to be greatest for the all-you-can-eat model.

And many satellite providers have daily caps that will even cut your service off entirely for the next day if you go over, though unfortunately there aren't any solutions for most of these users as the only people I know using satellite are doing so because they can't get connectivity any other way.

So while this does set a precedent in the cable world and possibly even the wireline broadband market, it's not new.

[Update: I hit publish a little too early as I just read that while this does set a precedent in the US market, internationally some countries have been using bandwidth caps for quite some time. In the UK, for example, apparently if you agree to a bandwidth cap you can pay less for service. Now that's metered bandwidth I can get behind, where caps are used to lower the cost of service rather than raise.]

Posted by Geoff Daily on June 4, 2008 2:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Sometimes I'm too critical of government and its inability to craft effective broadband legislation, so it's important that I give credit where credit's due and celebrate those times when government gets it right.

Here's just such an example: the House passed the Telework Bill, which will afford qualified government employees the opportunity to work from home and telecommute two days every two weeks.

Now the bill is not yet law, but all signs point to it becoming so soon as a similar bill has already passed through a Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs.

I love this effort for a lot of reasons. It's helping legitimize telecommuting. It's proving that the government is opening up to the possibilities of using broadband to drive new efficiencies in its operations. And by being proactive I believe government is going to set a tremendous example for the private sector, which will hopefully spur adoption there as well.

One other thought worth noting is the relevance of telecommuting to homeland security. Some might wonder how it's relevant, but there's actually a very good reason: what happens in the event of another terrorist attack, or a natural disaster, or just really bad weather? What happens when the people who help run the government can't come into work? Do the gears of government come to a grinding halt?

Not if everyone's empowered with the ability and know-how to telecommute from home.

Of course, not every government service is effectively administered from home, but if we were to have a robust, decentralized system for working it'd make us much more resilient and flexible when it comes to reacting to large-scale emergencies.

So great job, Congress! Keep up the good work in realizing the power you hold to help drive the broadband revolution.

Posted by Geoff Daily on June 4, 2008 9:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

On Thursday, everyone who signs up for broadband service from Time Warner Cable in Beaumont, TX will be subject to a new metered bandwidth policy.

Bandwidth caps will range from 5GB a month for the low-end 768Kbps service up to 40GB for anyone signing up for service at 15Mbps, with overage charges being $1 per additional GB.

There's been a fair amount of controversy surrounding this topic.

Advocates of metered bandwidth cite the need for network operators to find ways to recoup the costs associated with the heaviest users, or bandwidth hogs, which the all-you-can-eat model doesn't allow for.

Critics claim this is just another example of network operators getting greedy and that metered bandwidth has proven unpopular since the days of dialup.

I've long advocated the position that the business model of broadband does need to be reworked, but I'm hesitant to embrace models like the one described above.

First off, the cap is too low. If all you're doing is email and web surfing, than even 5GB is plenty, but as soon as you start watching, sending, or using video in any sort of intensive way, you'll be quickly butting up against those limits, even at 40GB.

As I've written about before, with my wireless connection, which doesn't have near the capacity of my cable modem, I've managed to top 1GB in a day just by watching an hour or two of TV online. No high-bandwidth P2P apps and no HD, just watching videos on websites.

But my issue isn't so much the size of the caps, it's what happens once you go over.

$1 a GB holds the potential to severely damage a number of online business models, especially those aiming to deliver high quality video.

Take Netflix, which has been pushing a new streaming service that allows you to watch movies on-demand rather than waiting for them in the mail. As of right now, there's no additional cost to watch these movies. But in a metered world, once you're over the cap, every time you watch another movie it's going to cost you at least a dollar or two.

Or any of the many online rental outlets. Renting a movie for a couple bucks may seem like a deal, but what happens if its cost doubles because of overage charges? You're not getting more value, you're just paying more money.

In some ways, this reality may bode best for download-to-own as adding a couple dollars to a $10 purchase isn't quite as painful and you end up owning what you're downloading.

That said, what happens as we move further into an HD world? Even compressed, an HD movie takes 6-8GB, meaning an extra $6-8 every time you download one after you're over your limit.

The reason this worries me so is that everyone on the Internet is already having a helluva time getting consumers to pay for anything, and now we're going to be potentially burdening them with additional charges. Even worse is that these charges apply to all traffic, whether consumers are paying for it or not. So now all of a sudden, watching videos on ABC.com or YouTube isn't free anymore.

Soon parents won't be worried about their kids talking too long on their cellphones but instead they'll have to keep an eye on how much video they're watching online.

How exactly is this going to spur innovation, adoption, and use of the Internet?

Now, I don't want to ignore the plight of network operators. They have the legitimate right to make money off of their networks, but I wonder if there might be a better way. Maybe tiered overage charges that have separate costs from speeds.

So you can get 1Mbps, 5Mbps, or 10Mbps service for $10, $30, or $50 a month.

And you can get a bandwidth cap of 10GB, 50GB, or 100GB for $10, $20, or $30 a month.

Then let consumers mix and match as they see fit.

That still leaves the question of overage charges unresolved.

Ideally instead of charging per GB what I'd like to see is a system that'll just automatically bump a user up into a higher bracket when they go over. Or alternatively they could be given the option of bumping up to a higher bracket or have their service degraded. You could even have an option to pay by the GB, but have it be an option not a mandate and offer other avenues as well.

The key is users must always know where they're at relative to the limit. Time Warner's solution is to have a meter on their website. I'm not sure if that's sufficient as I'd prefer to see them offer a widget that can reside on the desktop as a constant reminder of where you are.

My biggest fear of all about this topic is that wireline network operators will try to make these overage fees into a profit center in the same way that wireless carriers charge for going over your monthly minutes allotment.

There's no reason I should be charged a quarter per minute just because I'm over my limit other than to line the pockets of my service provider.

That can't be what this turns into.

So long as efforts at metered bandwidth are put in place simply to balance out the scales in terms of making sure light users aren't paying more to subsidize heavy users, we're going to be fine.

But if broadband providers start getting greedy, I worry that we're going to end up not only stifling innovation online but also harming people's trust in the Internet and dissuading their usage, which may ultimately lead to users not just jumping to another provider but potentially walking away from the Internet altogether.

I do believe we need some solution related to metered bandwidth, but we must be vigilant in insuring that whatever system is put in place not only addresses the needs of network operators but also puts the interests of the user at the forefront.

Posted by Geoff Daily on June 3, 2008 9:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Wow! That's the best word to describe this.

Cisco's Telepresence has always had a high wow factor, but go watch the video on the page linked above to see something really incredible: Telepresence in 3D.

Cisco partnered with Musion, a UK company that has developed a 3D projection technology, to create a version of telepresence that instead of using large HD screens projects the images of the people you're talking to in 3D.

The effect it creates on stage is fantastic. In fact, if you didn't know it was a 3D projection of a remote video stream, you might not know that the two guys on the right aren't actually physically there on stage.

They specifically refer to this demo as being intended for the stage, so I don't know how effective it is today in terms of enabling a robust dialog, but I couldn't help but be intrigued by the main speaker's comment that what we're witnessing here is the future of communications, and that the intent is to take this technology to the mass market some day.

So the promise of having a remote conversation that looks like the person's in the room with you isn't something reserved for the distant future but is already possible today.

What a world we live in!

Posted by Geoff Daily on June 2, 2008 3:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

While I've written about grid computing before, sometimes video is the best way to tell a story.

Here's a YouTube video I just found. Though it doesn't necessarily go into any great detail nor does it provide all that much new information, it's short, well-produced, and help gets some good thoughts across regarding what grid computing is and why it's significant.

Check it out!

Posted by Geoff Daily on June 2, 2008 11:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I've linked to interactive 3D panoramas before, but never one that made me hungry. That is...until now.

Check out this spread. That's one tasty looking buffet!

Also, you can click on the button in the lower righthand corner to blow it up to fullscreen. (Press "esc" to go back to the browser.)

I'm still not sure if anyone's figured out how to use this technology for anything other than creating gee-whiz demonstrations, but gosh darn it I still can't help myself from saying "Gee whiz!" every time I come across another one.

Posted by Geoff Daily on June 2, 2008 10:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I admit I'm sometimes hard on cable companies, whether it's their P2P shaping, their lack of bandwidth, or the shared nature of their networks. But I have to give credit where credit's due.

While my Comcast cable connection only promises me 768Kbps of upload, it's often been topping 2Mbps recently. In fact, I just uploaded a 50MB VidChat (here's a teaser: it's with BitTorrent about some misconceptions of P2P) in minutes with the network supporting a sustained throughput of 2Mbps+ almost the entire time.

Don't get me wrong, I still have issues with them. Too often during busy times the network feels really sluggish when downloading, let alone uploading.

But 2Mbps upstream really ain't too bad. In fact, it's better than 95% of connections out there. (OK, so I admit I just made that stat up, but the truth still holds as the vast majority of consumer broadband, be it DSL or cable, is asymmetrical, offering no more than 1.5Mbps upstream.)

Also, I've heard sporadic reports from across the country that at least in areas where someone's deploying a full fiber network that the cable companies are deploying fiber of their own to increase capacity.

Even better is that while before cable companies poo-pooed the need for fiber, now they're touting their own fiber optic networks wherever and whenever they can.

While this last part isn't my favorite thing in the world as it muddles the messaging of anyone deploying a true fiber-to-the-home network, at least we've got more people than ever evangelizing for the awesome power of fiber optics.

And I've had discussions with multiple people that point to the fact that if cable companies wanted to, they could move to an IP-based video delivery system and open up a ton of bandwidth to be used for broadband. While it doesn't seem likely they'll do so any time soon, it's still interesting to know that if some outside force pushes them enough that they are at least capable of delivering big broadband speeds.

Though whether that'll ever happen in our lifetime to even the majority of America let alone the whole country, well that's another issue entirely...

Posted by Geoff Daily on June 13, 2008 6:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A new study just came out based on a survey of 1500 technology workers that shows they'd be willing to accept up to a 10% cut in pay if it meant being able to telecommute and avoid the hassle of coming into the office.

The sarcasm in the title of this post wasn't intended to be too thick, I just find it funny how often we seem to forget the basic truth that more people than not would rather work from home than go into an office if they could.

But at the same time, the fact people are willing to take pay cuts in order to do so was eye-opening.

So what this is basically saying is that employers willing to aggressively pursue telecommuting programs are not only likely to attract more and better applicants, but those job seekers might be willing to take less pay.

But wait, there's more. With employees working from home, that means no more needing to pay for office space for them. Plus, no more leaving the office early to beat the traffic. In fact, one could argue that it's likely that employers will get more hours spent working out of telecommuting employees as they don't have to spend that time on the road.

And for the telecommuters, it means less money for gas, less wear and tear on the car, less risk of injury while on the road, and more time at home.

I mean, with all this staring us in the face, how can any company or governmental organization not want to embrace telecommuting immediately?

I know there are still issues to work out, different processes that need to be established, some assurances that people working from home are actually working, and so on. But none of these are insurmountable.

It seems to me like those companies willing to take the telecommuting plunge are going to have a leg up when it comes to attracting new hires and therefore they'll improve their competitive edge. And hopefully studies like this will start to open the eyes of companies of all shapes and sizes about the potential positive impact of adding telecommuting to their businesses.

Posted by Geoff Daily on June 13, 2008 6:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Shocking news in the world of fiber deployment: Verizon is planning to overbuild AT&T's U-Verse fiber-to-the-node network with their own fiber-to-the-home FiOS service.

The implications of this move are staggering.

First off you've got two $100 billion a year corporations fighting over the same wireline customers. While AT&T and Verizon have long battled for wireless subscribers and business customers, this is the first I've heard of them going head-to-head offering triple play services to consumers, which in and of itself is significant.

Secondly most of the rest of the country must be jealous over the fact that these communities are going to have more options than just about anywhere for broadband. I know I am.

Third it shows how competition is being encouraged by a statewide video franchises, which Texas passed and therefore enabled Verizon to do this.

Fourth it's potentially devastating for AT&T. In terms of capacity, FiOS trumps everything they're trying to market as being new and improved. It was hard enough trying to convince people that U-Verse was better than cable, now they've got to compete with the fact someone else is offering a full fiber network. Plus, once Verizon gets that fiber in the ground and a customer signed up, I think it's going to be hard for AT&T to ever get them back.

Fifth, this will be a fascinating situation to watch as it, perhaps more than any other FTTH build in the country, will demonstrate how vulnerable incumbents are to a FTTH deployment stealing their customers. I say this because everywhere else Verizon's deploying they are the incumbent, and most of the other deployments are either to greenfield developments or by municipalities, which offer an inherently different value proposition as consumer decisions are influenced at least in part by individual's trust or distrust of the government.

But in the end, I hate this news.

Why? For one simple reason: if our goal is a fully wired country, than this is an inefficient use of resources.

Don't get me wrong, I'm very excited to see more communities get wired with a full fiber network. But it's upsetting to see some communities continue to get more investment when many others aren't getting any.

Making matters worse is what is likely to happen as a result of this decision by Verizon: more investment from Time Warner (the primary incumbent cable operator) and AT&T, which will not only further the gap between the haves and have nots but may also directly divert money from being invested in less competitive communities in order to help defend the customer base in more competitive ones.

If Time Warner and AT&T don't invest in upgrading capacity, they're likely to lose customers to Verizon. But if they do, we could eventually end up in a situation where there are multiple fiber pipes running to the same home, which is totally redundant.

Fiber optics are so robust that all the world's Internet traffic can run over a single hair-thin strand. The reason we have multiple pipes today is that they were first put in for separate uses: cable TV and telephone. But once you have fiber, all you need is one pipe to the house to support all the world's video, applications, and services.

Because of this, the fact that we might see some homes get two fiber connections before so many others can't get one suggests to me that there's something very wrong with this picture.

But I have to admit, this whole line of thought has me really torn.

I always support the further deployment of fiber, especially if it's all the way to the home.

But I also can't help worrying because since wiring the country is such a massive, capital-intensive job I'm not sure we can afford to waste money allowing competitive markets to continually overbuild the most attractive neighborhoods, especially if it means leaving other communities behind.

Is it possible for a community to have too much broadband? We might soon find out.

Posted by Geoff Daily on June 13, 2008 6:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

PEG channels. Public access. Community TV. While all feature slightly different definitions, they all stem from the same idea: to enable more robust local community communication.

But like the TV medium that distributes this content, the future of local media is both uncertain and filled with unlimited promise. As I've written before, TV isn't necessarily the best distribution mechanism for local media; it's a broadcast technology being used to try and reach a narrowcast audience.

But what could PEG 2.0 mean in the 21st century? If you were given the opportunity to build a new system from the ground up in an environment rich with bandwidth, what would you do?

That's exactly the question that was posed to me yesterday by John St. Julien, a well-known pot stirrer and thought leader in Lafayette, LA, where the local utility is building a full fiber network. He's been asked to help figure out what should be done, and he came to me for advice.

The first thing I thought was how exciting a challenge this is given the nature of the opportunity. The unfortunate truth is that in most communities PEG channels are seen as a burden by the incumbent network operator, something they're forced to do in order to secure franchise agreements. In this case, though, the network operator is the local utility, and while their budget is far from overwhelming, their intent is quite simply to do everything they can to maximize the positive societal impact of the network they're putting into place.

Also worth mentioning is the fact that once built, the LUS network will have all the bandwidth a PEG system could ever want. As covered previously, every user on the network will have access to a symmetrical 100Mbps intranet.

While not an expert in the details of technology to make this happen, I wanted to share some of my initial thoughts of what PEG 2.0 can mean in a community with plenty of bandwidth and a network operator eager to cater to the needs of its constituents.

- Let PEG onto the intranet. When last I talked with Terry Huvall, the head of LUS, he shared that at least initially the intranet would be limited to consumers and small businesses. As local media is created by consumers I'm hopeful this would already be covered, but if not then this is an essential first step in order to allow for producers to reach consumers without any constraints on bandwidth.

- Enable multicast on the network. As I wrote about here, it's my understanding network operators can enable multicast on their network thereby empowering all of their users to be able to stream live from anywhere on their network to an audience of any size. This would mean that video from any live event could be made available to the community to watch without any great expense or complexity.

- Find a way for video to reach all screens. A primary part of this would be to get Internet video onto the TV through LUS's set-top boxes, but it also might include making sure video can be viewed on a cell phone.

- Get some storage for on-demand playback. Assuming you can get IP video onto the TV, then forgo the need for LUS to put the channels into their traditional TV headend and instead focus on getting some basic IP video storage that can be used to deliver video to all screens. I'm not sure exactly what's needed, but I do know that by doing this it should save some hassle while simultaneously improving functionality.

- Allow all content producers to make their video available in one fashion or another. There'll almost certainly have to be some sort of filter in order to avoid offensive content making it into the system, but the key is to find a way to not only embrace all current local producers but also to encourage new producers to pick up the camera and join in on contributing to their local media.

- Empower individuals to create channels. Giving everyone their own channel might be a bit excessive, but what about giving people the ability to program their own channel by pulling from a giant library of content? In many full fiber networks, the ability to add channels is near infinite, so there should be room to support a large number of voices.

- Establish an avenue for capturing local creativity in technology development. It's unlikely that LUS will have sufficient resources to devote to developing new, innovative, interactive features that extend the functionality of their service. But that doesn't mean they can't enable that innovation by creating a sandbox and inviting the open source community in to play. By doing this they may be able to realize all sorts of innovations that could extend the functionality of local community media.

These are just some ideas to get the conversation started.

Now I want to turn the issue over to you all out there. I know there are a number of great, creative minds focused on the task of making PEG great. What would you do if given the opportunity to build a local community media system on a network with infinite bandwidth alongside a network operator who's top interest is in making its city great?

Is there specific hardware you'd recommend? Or are there features and functionality not mentioned above? Or do you have thoughts that build on this initial list?

Whatever mindshare you can add to this equation will be more than welcome and it has the potential to guide decisions being made over the coming months in Lafayette.

I believe we have an incredible opportunity to imagine what the future can be down in Lafayette and make it come to life. And in so doing I believe that the lessons learned there will be able to help solve problems elsewhere as we all work together to make our country even greater than it already is through supporting stronger local community media.

Posted by Geoff Daily on June 13, 2008 6:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Here's a really neat story about the future of racing games.

Basically what it says is that we're soon going to see games that allow players to race alongside real-life races in real-time.

I can't imagine anything cooler for fans of racing games, plus it's a unique example of what broadband is making possible in the gaming world beyond creating massive open worlds with increasingly higher quality graphics.

I don't think this model will work for many sports, but between NASCAR, F1, Indy, and maybe even some day horse racing and the like, there's going to be an audience that's plenty large enough to create demand for this, so hopefully we'll see this concept become reality sooner rather than later.

Posted by Geoff Daily on June 13, 2008 6:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It's inescapable that at least part of the reason the US lags behind other countries in the deployment and adoption of broadband has been the lack of leadership in the White House over the last eight years.

While it's possible one can argue that the Bush Administration's hands-off policies didn't hurt anything given the growth that has been realized, it's also clear that it did very little to proactively help spur the kind of growth that's been realized in countries like South Korea, Japan, and Sweden.

To some degree I can almost forgive them. In 2000 when Bush took office, despite its promise one could argue that because of the Bubble many perceived the Internet as being a passing fad. By 2004, broadband was being deployed widely and applications like YouTube and BitTorrent were being created, suggesting that the Internet was doing just fine without any need for leadership from our country's highest office.

But today, things have changed dramatically. We live in a time where we can no longer afford to have a void in leadership in the White House on broadband.

Broadband's available almost everywhere, but it's going to be a serious challenge reaching those last homes without it.

Broadband's faster than ever, but we're lagging behind other countries with no real plan for how to catch up.

Broadband's penetrated half of American homes, but it always takes more work to get the second half of subscribers than the first as you can no longer rely on early adopters finding their own way.

Broadband's enabling all sorts of new opportunities to improve healthcare, education, government, and business, with many people relying on it more than ever, yet only through strong national leadership will we be able to take isolated success stories and find a way to extend them all across the country.

These are all situations that will not resolve themselves quickly if left alone. Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge believer in the ability of the market to innovat