Author Archives: admin

NC State Fair Preview Day 2009

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The day before the North Carolina State Fair opened in Raleigh the door was open to preview the midway for 2009. The rain and cold didn’t slow down workers putting the final touches on everything from rides to ensuring enough oil was on hand for frying pickles, candy bars, Oreos and even apple pie.

Even the State Fair and those who cover it are making use of mobile technologies for convenience and function. I hope you enjoy the show!

Pardon the Dust at Mobile Jones

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Pardon the Dust at Mobile Jones

I’ve been thinking about and planning changes to mobilejones.com for quite a few months now. You will see a number of changes in layout, design and features as the project continues.

Hopefully, these improvements will make mobilejones.com a better resource and enable some features that readers will love. Please be patient as these upgrades will be accomplished over time.

Looking forward in 2009 mobilejones.com will continue to grow with the same exciting pace as the industry, itself. Creativity and change is coming to the mobile industry at a frenetic pace. Time to get back to reporting on those developments and connecting with loyal past and new readers.

Salvage Your Home after a Flood Using Simple DIY Flood Cleanup Strategies

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flood cleanup in san diego, caFlooding is a very common source of disaster and it occurs somewhat frequently around coastal areas. If your home is close to the coast or you are in some other flood-prone areas, it is in your best interest to get prepared for eventualities. Torrential rain can also be the source of the flood. Never wait for the flood to occur before you get set to deal with it. How best can you do this? By getting helpful information that will teach you what to do, like you are already doing by reading this write up. Such information will help to limit the level of damage you suffer as a result of flooding. They are also simple enough to follow. If you are seeking for a DIY flood cleanup guide, then this is it. Otherwise, look here for professional flood/water damage services in San Diego.

Salvage your valuables

If the flooding is not the exceptionally huge type that reaches the height of the building, you should make attempt to salvage any of your valuables in the home. Remove your furniture and other items, both those floating and those already submerged. Remove everything you can lay your hands on to ensure their safety. Your rug too must not be left in the flood. In the sun you need to spread them to make them dry. If you have very important paper documents that are soaked already with water, lay them out in the sun to dry, with one separated from the other. If the weather is kind enough to permit a full glare of the sun, it is a question of time before these items get dried and back to normalcy.

Salvage your home

Get rid of the water and get rid of the mud that accumulates as a result of the flooding. Never allow the water to stay for too long to curtail their damaging effects. Never allow the mud too to stay glued to your floor, your walls or furniture for too long, else they become very difficult to remove. Get rid of them on time and make sure it is done appropriately. The water can be removed using pump and the mud can be shoveled off. If the shovel cannot remove all the mud, make use of a hose to get rid of the any leftover mud to make the home clean again.

The mud and the flood water must have brought all sorts of things into the home, including possible infectious agents. The next thing to do after salvaging your valuables and removing the water and the mud is to disinfect the home. This is a very important aspect of the DIY flood cleanup and it must be done to make the home livable again. Wash or clean up the walls and the floor using disinfectants. Scrub the furniture with disinfectants too. The rug must be spread to dry under the sun. The sun can help kill some of the germs, but the rug must be properly disinfected after it has dried up. Clean up the interior of the home and discard everything that is already damaged by the flood.

Read more about Mold Remediation Services in San Diego, CA

Telecommunications as Networking Application: VoIP

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Telecommunications as Networking Application: VoIP

Much of the jargon around the US’s broadband decline focuses on the unrealized goals of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 or on the need for improved telecommunications regulation.  Bunk!  Just as journalism will survive the decline of the news print business, telecommunications service will survive the the Telecommunications business where functional integration has limited voice service innovations.

VoIP is the demonstration of telecommunication or voice as just another application that has emerged from our networking activity.  Quality of “voice over IP” or VoIP continues to improve with options to connect using mobile devices either using a 3G data connection or a Wi-Fi access point. Note no need for complex hardware or QoS systems from large infrstracture companies that drive costs up on the operator voice connections.

The following video from Telecom.tv is an excellent overview of the players offering telecommunication applications on IP connections and even proves the quality of  VoIP calls regardless of the air interface used.

 

The two applications offering highest variety of options are Truphone and a new entrant in the market, Vopium.  Both work over the 3G data network and Wi-Fi connections.  Truphone was the 1st VoIP application to offer an iPhone and Touch client.  Both Vopium and Truphone offer Android clients which allow voice or IM with Skype contacts in addition to contacts on their own service.

Of the ones I’ve tried the quality and options nod definitely goes to these two companies.

Telecommunications as Networking Application: VoIP

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Telecommunications as Networking Application: VoIP

Much of the jargon around the US’s broadband decline focuses on the unrealized goals of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 or on the need for improved telecommunications regulation.  Bunk!  Just as journalism will survive the decline of the news print business, telecommunications service will survive the the Telecommunications business where functional integration has limited voice service innovations.

VoIP is the demonstration of telecommunication or voice as just another application that has emerged from our networking activity.  Quality of “voice over IP” or VoIP continues to improve with options to connect using mobile devices either using a 3G data connection or a Wi-Fi access point. Note no need for complex hardware or QoS systems from large infrstracture companies that drive costs up on the operator voice connections.

The following video from Telecom.tv is an excellent overview of the players offering telecommunication applications on IP connections and even proves the quality of  VoIP calls regardless of the air interface used.

The two applications offering highest variety of options are Truphone and a new entrant in the market, Vopium.  Both work over the 3G data network and Wi-Fi connections.  Truphone was the 1st VoIP application to offer an iPhone and Touch client.  Both Vopium and Truphone offer Android clients which allow voice or IM with Skype contacts in addition to contacts on their own service.

Of the ones I’ve tried the quality and options nod definitely goes to these two companies.

It’s Infrastructure, Stupid

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It’s Infrastructure, Stupid

I recently interviewed Bob Frankston to add his expert view to my coverage of the FCC NOI on the National Broadband Plan, but what I got instead was an offer to take the Red Pill. So I did.

We started with my outline of what I thought were salient points.  ”How many times will we, the people, pay to build this network that is refereneced in the National Broadband Plan?” I asked. We built it 100 years ago, the military built a piece in the 1970s, various educationals initiatives built pieces in 1980s & 90s, the National Science Foundation unified and operated the military and higher-ed backbones, and then in 1991 the National Information Infrastructure offered tax breaks and incentives to Telcos to deliver fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) for 86% of American homes by 2010 at a cost of $200 billion to the taxpayer.  It sounded to me like a good start.

But Frankston quickly turned my attention, when he started talking about the transition from steam engines to diesel engines in the railroad industry.  He pointed out,

…not one of the steam engines companies survived the transition to diesel engines. It wasn’t because the engineers couldn’t build diesel engines, but because steam engines were one off designs with each engine requiring a different number of wheels and the ability to negotiate a grade or severe curves or longer distances, the DNA of marketing and customer relationship for steam engines was just different than diesel engines. Had the railroads realized that they were in the transporation business, they would have built airplanes.

He continued,

…they wouldn’t have built roads as there was no business model in roads.

Why is the railroad a good model for the telecommunications business as described by the National Broadband Plan?

First, the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) was modeled on the ICC (Interstate Commerce Commission) who regulated railroads and sold rights for a price.

This is similar to the FCC’s revenue generating activity in auctioning spectrum to wireless carriers. Just as rights for railroads were treated as private property, so is spectrum.  In fact, spectrum allocations are specified in acre units.  It is counterintuitive to think of signal frequencies in the sky as acres of land, but that is the current process of transferring our national airwaves into property sold to carriers.

The steam engine versus diesel engine analogy is directly relatable to the battles between so called Bell heads (those specialized in circuit-switched networks that comprised the telephone network and long time employees of telcos) versus Net heads (those specialized in packet-switched networks that comprise the Internet and the newer engineers on the block in carrier staffs).  For cable companies, the conflict is between Broadcast heads versus Net heads.  The evidence for cable company dysfunction is Time Warner Cable’s inability to realize the opportunity of delivering TV as an application across AOL infrastructure resulting in lower costs and greater audience reach.

Back to railroads.

Modern railroads in the US have these companies reinvesting their profits into infrastructure.  European railroads separate the rails business and the by-rail-transportation business. They are two different businesses.  And yet, the Internet is more like driving, and you can’t just bend the railroad business and make it a road. With the Internet we create our own solutions.

Bob’s discussion on unneeded and even incompetent complexity in the effort to assure scarcity is best presented in his own article titled, Assuring Scarcity.

The analogy of telcos as railroads and the Internet as roads started to rattle around in my head.  Today’s service providers, telecommunications and cable companies, are trying to sell Internet service through artificial billing events. Sending messages is a good example. Why do we pay – at worst – 20 cents per text, but 75 cents per picture message.  Both are composed of bits. Once you have the ability to transfer bits, you can transfer more bits.

What would our use of roads be like if today’s telco and cable cos (ISPs) were in charge of roads?

Roads are built by city, county, state and the federal governments. Let’s say that those are the service providers in this case. If these road provdiers were like ISPs and potential broadband providers they might be telcos, cable cos and fiber cos.  Each of these companies strings a wire to my house. So,  to ensure my “access” to roads the city, county, and state would have to extend their roads to every house to provide access to their brand of transportation service.  That’s at least three roads running out to every house.

Each time I drove up on the road, I’d need a way to show that I’ve paid for access to the road.  For simplicity sake let’s say that I have an “E-ZPass” to present my crendentials to a reader that would allow me access. And to get the E-ZPass I pay a monthly subscription to either the city and would therefore be restricted to driving only on city roadways.  Or if I paid a monthly subscription to both the city and the county, I could drive on both city and county roads, but not on state roads.

This description isn’t different from paying for DSL and Cable TV. Or paying for Cable TV, phone and Internet Access commonly known as a triple play.

Now in this analogy, I’d need the right vehicle to drive on asphalt which wouldn’t work on conceret roads.  Concrete roads would require a different set of specs for the vehicle. A choice would require that one decide to drive on the more plentiful asphalt roads or the less plentiful but more stable concrete roads.

Roads have special features. Each time a bridge is crossed, or a tunnel driven through would be an event for a new charge.  In addition, if I wanted to take advantage of higher speed limits on the roads I’d be charged each time I increased my speed to a higher level. On city and county roads it might be one charge for 25 to 35 mph and then a fee increase for 45 to 55 mph.

And of course my monthly road subscription would limit the total number of miles I could travel on the road. Any additional mileage would result in a higher monthly subscription or a per mile charge 10x to 40x greater than the montly allotment.

To replicate the cable model, I’d be limited to mass transit. My road experience would need to be shared with a group.  The more subscribers on the bus or train, the more stops and therefore the slower my transportation.

If I wanted to use roads during rush hour, an addition charge would then allow me to use roads during those peak periods.  I would not be allowed to roam onto roadways even for short periods built by a provider with which I didn’t have a monthly contract.

Using road side attractions would each require it’s own fee.  Public restrooms, emergency lanes, emergency call boxes, and rest areas would each read my E-ZPass and transfer the appropriate charge to my bill.

Each trip on roads would require an assessment of which providers I needed to pay to complete my transportation goal.  That’s right. Transportation is the service I want, but instead I’m paying for arbitrary road events that are artifically and inconsistently assigned some price.

Telecommunications is an application. This abstraction has been successfully demonstrated byTruphone, Skype and Vonage.  TV is an application successfully demonstrated by Hulu andUstream.tv.  They are not magically integrated into a physical cable.

We should be asking many more questions as we consider the FCC’s new national strategy.  Bob Frankston having thought about these issues since his work at Microsoft and creating “Home Networking” which freed consumers from the carriers owning the network in their house.  Sound far fetched?  Cable cos and DSL providers in the early days charged for the number of computers one connected to their network – not unlike charging for multiple cable boxes when such equipment was required just to watch broadcast video.

We must the consider this next question carefully.  Frankston asks,

Why do we tolerate the claim that fungible infrastructure is a telecom service?  

Roads are infrastructure and although they enable one mode of transportation we do not fund them with a service model.