Intruder Alert

One should always keep an eye out for the unexpected.

Broadband Deployment Comments to the FCC

From the Illinois Broadband Council.... a listing of comments from (most) of the usual suspects.

For those of us without broadband.... these are pdfs. I shall not comment upon the wisdom of some of these submissions amounting to 9 megabytes or so.

I find the CCIA comments quite worthwhile regarding

• the evolutionary view of "what's broadband",
  
• inclusion of wireless broadband in demographics,
  
• consideration of market competitiveness and
  
• improving the granularity of service coverage statistics (viz, zip plus four)
  

Broadband Deployment (From The Illinois Broadband Council)

Comments, GN Docket No. 07-45

" 5/16/2007 - The following comments have been filed in response to the Commission's April 16, 2007 Notice of Inquiry concerning the deployment of advanced telecommunications capability to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion. NTCA believes the FCC should continue to develop rural broadband incentive programs targeted towards unserved and underserved areas, provide rural carriers with a sense of regulatory certainty, and ensure that all providers who use rural ILEC networks are required to pay their fair share of network costs. AT&T believes the Commission should maintain a stable deregulatory environment by keeping the status quo."

Alexicon Telecom Consulting

Alliance for Public Technology

American Library Association

AT&T

Clearwire Corporation

Computer & Communications Industry

Connected Nation

Consumers Union

Covad Communications

CTIA

Embarq

Fiber-to-the-Home Council

M2Z Networks

Metro Washington Council of Gov

NASUCA

Native Public Media

NATOA, NLC, NACo, USCM

NCTA

Nebraska Rural Independent Cos

NJ Division of Rate Counsel

NTCA

NuVox Communications

OPASTCO

Pacific Lightnet

PCIA

Puerto Rico Telephone Company

Qwest

Roy Elloitt

Sprint Nextel

Telecom Industry Association

Time Warner Telecom

Tropos Networks

Verizon & Verizon Wireless

Wireless RERC

Design for the Real World

A new show at Cooper-Hewitt examines solutions for "the rest of the world" from the design perspective of "what does the person need".

Unfortunately, that sounds like a novel idea.

Design for the Developing World is an audio piece from theworld.org.
"A new exhibit at the Cooper-Hewitt Museum in New York highlightssimple technology and design concepts that can be used to improve thelives of poor people in the developing world. "

The Cooper-Hewitt site "Design for the other 90%" has several examples of how these programs have been implemented. I'm disappointed that communications(tele) does not have its own focus area.

"Why are designers so focused on designing for the wealthiest 10%?" is covered at livemint.com.

These pieces are evocative of the foundation work done by people like Victor Papanek's reality-based thinking in Design for the Real World, Buckminster Fuller's spaceship earth canonical "design for everything" principles out of his book Critical Path, and other good practices in understanding what the Spice Girls were at with the "tell me what you want what you really really want".

This might be a good day to shift to decaf. Or not.

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Collaborative Software Initiative

I don't know bubba.... but why does every rural county run its own 911 system?

Why does every hospital have its own admissions system? Why the serious variance in quality? Why does each doctor's office have its own crappy looking low quality paper form for patient history? Even better, why would a doctor working with geriatrics have tiny, broken, print from a multiple generation photocopy?

There are days that it looks like the part of the country I live in is driven by a new democratic principle of "one building, one grant".

It's consolidation opportunity, baby!

The Collaborative Software Initiative looks to the pooled interests of "software consumers" to leverage quality and costs. The coopepetitors (my neologism, dammit...) gain the advantage of common code that's out of their strategic differentiation zone... like....

• would a school differentiate on the basis of its transcript generating system?
• how many patient history forms does a region need?
• what about the data manipulation underneath a sales-lead tracking system?

Ones' mileage may vary, but this new company, with focus upon open source software stacks (LAMP - Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) looks to be getting to the headaches in the consuming business/government/educational communities. They've also secured alliances with IBM, HP, Intel, and Novell (for starters) and seem to be in the right market place to deliver great value.

Although humans look for patterns in data, (see the face in the clouds?) the Collaborative Software volk fit in with the other coolhunting I've been after:

• open source appliances such as the edgeBOX for all in one branch office solutions
• CUWiN's open source community networking using open source
• the compelling economics of Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) and Open Source
• the already past but becomming more obvious effect of consumer gizmo volumes inverting the old early adopter TALC models.... but I need to wave hands on this topic at a future posting.

Wisdom of crowds.... boy howdy.

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Minitel Redux: Putting The App Into Appliance With Easy Neuf

The International Herald Tribune covers an innovative Internet Appliance developed by Neuf Cigatel - the Easy Neuf. Little box with magic.

What I like about this:

• Linux Core
• Open Source Word Processing, Browser, and Spreadsheet
• €10 preminum for "the box" and "cheap" peripherals (keyboard, tube)

A long time ago.... I described the interaction of fast reliable open networks and "thin clients" as a 'nuthin but net model. Whilst mileage may vary, the use of stable open source appliances will drive adoption by consumers and small businesses who do not (can not) manage the deathly complexity of dueling operating systems. Don't even look at the machines blinking 12:00...

As an example of the business implementation, look at Critical-Link's edgeBOX product - again using Linux core with applications nougats (firewall, email, VoIP... plus partner-provided applications).

So.... do I smell an ASP milling about. How about running payroll and sales tracking along with supporting the must-do office applications "hands free" for the customer/consumer?

Meanwhile, thank you for the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) as a brilliant design initiative to open the discussion and markets about what (ubiquity) verus how (Windows, Linux, et.al.).