Convergence Conversation

If you read me on a regular basis, you will know that I'm certainly not amongst those that condemn regulation by default, far from it. I think in many countries, and at least as far as the telecom sector (and the finance sector, but that's not the topic here) are concerned the issue is not too much regulation it's too little. 

However, there are clear examples, especially in emerging markets of regulation and policy pulling in opposite directions. Case in point: India. The Indian government in the last couple of years has been gung ho about broadband deployment and adoption, especially wireline broadband (to a large extent, wireless broadband deploys itself in India). More...

For a number of weeks now, we've been hearing that Google has entered some troubled waters when it comes to its Kansas City Fiber project. The first customers were supposed to be connected in early 2012, and that's clearly not the case. Furthermore, local newspapers report that the fiber network deployed by the Mountain View giant is far from being ready for commercial operations. The delay, it seems, is due to Google and local stakeholders disagreeing on the conditions and rate at which Google should be able to access the poles to attach its fiber to.

Reading between the lines, it seems that Google thought, or hoped, that because of their brand name and because of the visibility of the project for Kansas City, they would be able to speed up normal procedures and get preferential rates. More...

I was reading the november issue of Wired on the plane this week (the beauty of digital copies on tablets is that you can catch up on past issues!) and something struck me while reading the article on Amazon and Jeff Bezos entitled Jeff Bezos Owns The Web In More Ways Than You Think. I wanted to share that short quote (and strongly recommend reading the interview; it's a clear illustration that the Apple model is not the only option...) because it's relevant to infrastructure discussions: 

Our first shareholder letter, in 1997, was entitled, “It’s all about the long term.” If everything you do needs to work on a three-year time horizon, then you’re competing against a lot of people.

I won't go in any great detail on the announcement itself and Free's offers, you can find context about it in English easily if you google it up. Om Malik has a general context article (he met with Niel before the release, so it's not specific, but it's a good primer) and The Guardian has an article that describes in broad terms the offering they have launched. More...

I haven't posted about much unrelated directly to the coverage of this blog in the last few months. Although you might see that as a good thing, I feel like musing on a topic that is in no way directly related to NGAs: email. 

I have long thought that email was badly implemented in businesses, mostly because users were not guided into how it should be used optimally. The consequence is email glut, which leads to information noise and, ultimately, miscommunication. There are other email related issues in organisations, but that one is most likely the biggest. 

I was reminded of this today by a short post on Gareth Spence's Online Scribbles and - just a few minutes later - by a retweet of an article written in August by Techcrunch's MC Siegler entitled Inbox 10000:

It's the new year, usually a good time to reflect on what's been happening in the past year and what we hope to see in the coming one. These last few weeks I have been reflecting, but the fruits of these reflection is not, I'm afraid, very positive. 

I have seen with a increasing worry the crucially important topic of IT and internet development get political and mainstream attention these last few years solely through one prism: digital content rights. Whether HADOPI in France (which although voted in prior to 2011 kept making the headlines last year), SOPA in the US and numerous variants of either in other countries, that is the only IT topic that has been visible politically in 2011. More...

There was a feature on Xavier Niel on a French TV News show this week. Reproduced here, but it's (obviously) all in French...

Last week in NYC I met with Hunter Newby, the founder of Allied Fiber and of Telx before that. Not only is hunter a super-sharp and very nice guy, he's also a forward thinker when it comes to telecom infrastructure. 

Allied Fiber, for those who don't know, is a relatively recent business that will be offering long-distance fiber in the US and colo- exchanges along the routes. This will for the first time introduce genuine competition in a market that was until now largely held by a small number of players, with the inevitable consequences on prices. 

As you probably know by now, we recently released a report on what actually happens in wireline broadband networks when consumers all try to access resources at the same time (see Do data caps punish the wrong users?) One of the interesting aspects of that report was focusing on where the variable costs are in operating a broadband network. More...

Californian ISP Sonic.net has filed an application to deploy street cabinets in San Francisco in order to deploy FTTH in the City. This could be an important development in a geography where few options are available to get good quality broadband. However, according to this article in the Chronicle, sonic.net could face challenges as AT&T has for environmental reasons. AT&T has been constrained in developing its U-Verse FTTC service in San Francisco due to these same issues with their cabinets. Note that Fiber cabinets are normally substantially smaller than copper cabinets and I haven't heard of any FTTH developments hindered by these issues, whereas other FTTC operations (like BT's) have faced such challenges. More...