SMART Letter #80
Trans-Pacific Tour -- part one
December 20, 2002
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SMART Letter #80 -- December 20, 2002
Copyright 2002 by David S. Isenberg
isen.com - "no incarceration without representation"
isen@isen.com -- http://isen.com/ -- 1-888-isen-com
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CONTENTS
> Soapbox: Let's find a new name for 'anti-globalization'
> The isen.com Trans-Pacific Tour, part one
+ Japan
+ How Japanese kids and U.S. kids connect
+ What ever happened to India?
+ Australia
> Quote of Note: Doc Searls, "Nice doing business to you."
> Quote of Note: Despair.com on customer disservice
> If it's funny, it must be true, by Scatt Oddams
> Conference on my Calendar
> Copyright Notice, Administrivia
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SOAPBOX: LET'S FIND A NEW NAME FOR 'ANTI-GLOBALIZATION'
by David S. Isenberg
I'm distressed that huge multinational corporations have
given globalization a bad name. Notwithstanding, people
who oppose tyrannosauric actions of big companies ought to
stop calling themselves "anti-globalization." Globalization
itself is a fact. There are more ways to be globalized
than there are to be American; some of them are wise, human
and life-affirming, while others are toxic, taxic,
imperialistic and exploitative. Most of the time it is
easy to tell which is which. We share a small, beautiful
planet "Anti-globalization" sounds so head-in-the-sand.
C'mon people. You're not against cheap, easy,
international air travel or instantaneous international,
communications are you? If you're SMART you're not against
treating our planet as a single complex system. I hope
you're not anti-roundness or anti-blue or anti-anybody-but-
your-own-tribe. Let's find a better descriptor!
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THE isen.com TRANS-PACIFIC TOUR by David S. Isenberg
isen.com is a one-person multinational thanks to the
Internet -- without the Internet it would be almost
impossible to do what I do without a staff. Since I do not
make enough money to support a staff, I couldn't do it.
So, thanks to the Internet I've enjoyed business and
pleasure over the last few weeks in Japan, Australia, New
Zealand and (that oh-so-different culture) California.
This SMART Letter covers the first half of the trip -- my
visit to New Zealand and my write-up of the Supernova
conference will be in SMART Letter #81.
You don't have to travel or have an e-pen-pal halfway
around the world to think globally. The next time you're
watching the sun "rise," remember that you're on a planet
that is rotating towards the sun on its axis as you watch
it. When I really think about it while I'm watching, it
changes my perception of the event; it feels like I am
rotating out of the planet's own shadow, there is no
"rising" involved.
JAPAN
Japan is definitely rotating towards the sun these days,
in connectivity if not overall economy.
When I visited Japan two years ago, it was pathetically
behind the United States, except in mobile services.
Techies lamented the paper-insulated, World War II era
copper loop plant and NTT's parochialism. Now, suddenly,
Japan seems (to this globalized gaijin) to have its act
together.
Japanese ADSL service is priced right. In September 2002
there were over five million "broadband" (mostly ADSL)
subscribers, and take rates are accelerating. YahooBB, the
largest, most aggressive ADSL provider, offers 12 Mbit/s
connectivity at about US$12.00 a month. Mandatory Yahoo
ISP subscription costs another US$12.00. YahooBB is
sparing no expense to Get Big Fast. There are bouncy TV
commercials. Attractive teens in YahooBB uniforms hand out
free starter kits (ADSL modem plus software) on the
streets, in the subway, in shopping malls to anybody who
will take one. YahooBB, in business since September 2001,
blew past the million-subscriber mark months ago. (When I
imagine YahooBB's customer acquisition costs, I cringe, but
since YahooBB is controlled by Softbank, they *must* have a
plan, right?)
For another US$3.00 a month YahooBB also offers unmetered
Internet-to-Internet VOIP telephone calls, and (in a
country with non-trivial per-minute local charges)
dramatically reduced Internet-to-landline calling prices.
There's an RJ-11 jack on the back of the YahooBB ADSL
modem; just plug in your phone and call. (I did not get to
hear a YahooBB Internet telephone call firsthand.)
For another US$10.00 per month, YahooBB customers can use
802.11 hotspots in McDonalds, Starbucks, Denny's and other
public and semi-public spaces. To date, there are only
about 3000 hot spots nationwide, but this number is
growing. (It will be fun to see how businesses respond
when spaces designed for fast customer turn-around become
places where kids spend hours lingering over laptops.)
There's not much cable TV in Japan, so cable modem service
has no base. But there are other large ADSL providers
besides YahooBB/Softbank (e.g., NTT), and Fiber to the Home
(FTTH) is a reality in more than a few Tokyo neighborhoods.
In November, the seven next-largest ISPs announced plans
for an Internet telephony service for their 2 million
broadband customers to compete against the YahooBB service.
They say their calls will travel over a dedicated network.
Bad idea!
FTTH deployment is still in its infancy in both Japan and
the U.S. Today FTTH serves over 100,000 Japanese homes,
versus a few tens of thousands in the United States -- and
Japan has less than half the people of the U.S. Like
Japanese ADSL service, FTTH in Japan is priced right. 100-
megabit symmetrical service costs less than US$50.00 a
month from Usen (including ISP service). Or, where fiber
serves an apartment building, 10-megabit service (via in-
building Cat-5 wire) is priced similarly to ADSL. FTTH
availability is spotty and according to neighborhood, but
it is expanding fast.
I have never connected to the Internet in more ways than I
did in Japan. I dialed in, of course; I could hear the
crocodile going tick, tick, tick, so always-on was out of
the question. One of the hotels I used had always-on
Ethernet service for about US$10.00 a day, another charged
about US$15.00; these were absolutely plug-n-play. (Or,
more accurately, plug, reboot and play.) When I visited my
brother Daniel's company (http:// www triangletech.com) I
plugged into his company's fiber-based Ethernet service
seamlessly. I also connected via 802.11b at GLOCOM's
"Socio-Economic Impacts of Wireless" conference that hosted
my visit to Japan. (You can see the entire conference at
http://tinyurl.com/3nam).
But perhaps the most interesting connection was supplied by
Japan Communications, Inc. (http://tinyurl.com/3n76). It
was wireless and ran at up to 128 kbit/s. OK, so it didn't
set any speed records, but it did allow me a persistent,
un-metered, always-on anywhere connection that Tokyo local
telephone calling did not. This was important, if for no
other reason than to maintain instant messaging
reachability for people back in the United States.
Japan Communications is a virtual provider, a networkless
networking company. It buys connectivity from a private,
licensed network in the 1900 MHz band and re-sells it. It
supplies a PCMCIA card and some simple software, including
drivers and various compression engines to make the 128
kbit/s experience faster to the user. Japan
Communications' specialty is selling connectivity to the
corporate marketplace, so, e.g., salespeople can reach into
rapidly changing databases at headquarters. Meanwhile,
Westport Communications, a re-re-seller of Japan
Communications' product (http://tinyurl.com/3q2o), provides
individuals, including visitors to Japan like myself, with
a rent-a-connection for about US$80.00 a month.
My experience was that it worked well during non-business
hours, but slowed significantly as people came to work.
Japan Communications founder Frank Seiji Sanda (who I knew
from a previous visit and who serves on my brother's
advisory board) explained that during work hours his
corporate customers get priority. He strongly suggested I
use the compression engines, but I am philosophically
opposed -- best effort *should* be good enough. However, I
suspect that if I were in Japan for any length of time (a)
I would have to become a customer and (b) I *would* use the
compression.
HOW JAPANESE AND U.S. KIDS CONNECT
Howard Rheingold's new book, _Smart Mobs_ largely revolves
around how kids in developed nations use mobile
connectivity, and how it changes their lives. I read most
of _Smart Mobs_ on the plane to Japan. When I got to
Japan, I could've fallen under the spell of the Jet Lag
Monster, but instead I took my cue from _Smart Mobs_ and
hopped a subway to Shibuya to see the mythical Japanese
young people in action. There they were, just as Rheingold
described, jamming the electronics stores and sushi bars,
thumbing their keitai (mobile phone), getting a funny joke
via text and passing the phone around to their friends,
capturing a picture of their girlfriend's ring on their
cell phone and emailing it from their seat on the subway.
Why, I asked several people, did Japanese kids glom onto
mobile devices more than U.S. kids. The answer that
emerged speaks to me more of cultural differences than of
technology or connectivity.
After school, U.S. kids go home, shut their bedroom door
and log on. In contrast, Japanese kids hop a train and go
downtown, keitai in hand. In Japan it is safe to be a
teenager of either sex anywhere; in the United States
parents fear for their kids when they're out. Also in the
United States distances are long, roads are wide and
gasoline is cheap, but in Japan driving is difficult and
expensive; the large freeways through the middle of Tokyo
are mostly two-lane and jammed. Meanwhile trains are
everywhere; young Japanese teens are as mobile as everybody
else.
In addition, Japanese living space is small and not very
private, hence it is not as likely that kids will have a PC
set up in their bedroom; they probably don't have their own
bedroom or even their own desk.
Before Comcast split my old New Jersey neighborhood's cable
Internet access, performance would sag right around 3:30 PM
on school days. So I know that U.S. kids are as techy-
connected as anybody. But they're in their rooms, not out
meeting their friends because Soccer-Mom would have to
drive them -- yet another example where the mere act of
asking permission itself becomes a barrier.
Meanwhile, Japanese kids are out face-to-facing even as
they connect to the net. The latter sure seems healthier.
Especially if you believe the experts (like Susan Stucky,
see http://tinyurl.com/3ncz) who say that the deepest
learning comes from direct social interaction among peers.
U.S. kids probably have a richer on-line experience with a
big screen, a full keyboard, printers and speakers. I
wonder if Japanese kids will stay home more as they acquire
higher-speed connectivity. But mostly I wonder how a
nation of shut-in and mommy-driven kids will evolve
compared to a nation where kids are autonomously mobile and
more socially interactive.
WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO INDIA?
For almost a year Bharti Telecom, India's second carrier,
has been sending me feelers through third parties about
visiting them. Bharti was on the trans-Pacific tour until
the Fail Fast Letter (see http://netparadox.com) hit the
Internet. The very next day the folks at Bharti decided to
"postpone" the isen.com visit. (If it thinks it's a telco
and acts like a telco and avoids dissenting views like a
telco . . .) I'm not sure which business unit at Bharti
was inviting me. I'm not sure if they knew who they were
inviting or what I stand for. They wanted me to do
"promotional," but I only do promotional if I like what I
see. They weren't ready for isen.com. In contrast, when I
criticized Cisco directly (in SMART Letter #72,
http://isen.com/archives/020611), concerned senior Cisco
folks invited me to come tell them more, because they
wanted to understand (on the off chance that I *might* be
right). NTT (Japan) is trying hard to understand the
consequences of the Stupid Network too. And if Bharti ever
decides it wants to hear what I have to say, that'll be a
sign of hope. Then I'll be glad to go tell them and listen
to them, and we'll probably have a good discussion.
AUSTRALIA
The flight from Tokyo to Melbourne was about the same
duration as the flight from San Jose to Tokyo, but it was
less disruptive because Tokyo time is only two hours
different than Melbourne time. Body time stayed in synch
with planet time.
Both Australia and New Zealand, having dabbled briefly in
telecom competition, are slipping back towards duopoly. In
Australia, Telstra is the former monopoly and Telecom New
Zealand has an interest in the #2 carrier. In New Zealand
it is vice versa. One person I talked to thought that the
non-dominant carrier in one country cribbed the press
releases from the other non-dominant carrier on the other
side of the Tasman Sea. Tweedle dee on one side is
tweedle-dum on the other. And vice versa.
"Well, they're living in a happy harmony
Tweedle-dee Dum and Tweedle-dee Dee
They're one day older and a dollar short
They've got a parade permit and a police escort"
Bob Dylan, "Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum," in _Love and
Theft_, 2001.
International long distance is still showing signs of
strong competition in Australia. I bought an AU$10.00
prepaid card from the local tobacco shop to follow up on
some business in Japan. I had a nice long leisurely chat,
maybe 45 minutes or an hour. The voice quality was fine,
and the explicit dialing directions on the card more than
compensated for having to dial over 30 digits. After
Japan, I called the United States, and the announcement
said that I had AU$7.82 (about US$4.50) left on the card
and therefore the call could only last four hundred and
some minutes. So distance really is dead in Australia if
you use the right stethoscope.
In contrast, the cheapest U.S. calls from New Zealand that
I could find cost NZ$0.16 per minute (8 U.S. cents). Not
bad, but it seems that the N.Z. economy must bear an
infrastructure cost that the Australian economy does not.
Another contrast: the hotel's Ethernet connection cost
AU$29.95, about US$17.00, significantly more than Japan.
But it was still worth it.
My host in Melbourne was the Australian Telecommunications
Cooperative Research Centre http://www.atcrc.com. Nice
folks, but old school. They were reeling because Ericsson
had just announced they were closing their Australia-based
research lab. After my talk, Leith Campbell, the head of
ATCRC, invited a couple of Australian telecom/IT folks.
One of them, Ric Clark, the managing director of the
Ericsson lab that was closing, wasn't much fun because he
agreed with me completely. The other, Robert G. James was
feisty. He talked confidently, as if neo-new-economy
business models were already in place that would let
publishers get their cut, banks get theirs, and would even
let the telcos get theirs. In my interpretation of his
view, nobody gets disintermediated; all the entities remain
intact despite the technical and architectural disruptions
of the Stupid Network (which he agreed were coming). Well,
I guess it is one scenario -- one that publishers and banks
and telcos would probably pay good money to hear.
The next morning I was in the elevator in my hotel when the
door opened and a young man bounded in. He crackled with
energy. "G'day," I proffered. He replied, "What do you
do?" I reply with a sweeping gesture of my arms,
"Telecommunications."
His energy level went from high to intense. "Really?" he
says. "I'm building a new network for rural Sri Lanka from
scratch. Everything -- land line, mobile, Internet. I
have $xxx million committed and I'm here looking for
partners. I'm flying to Europe tomorrow. Do you want me
to send you the documents?" As he says this last word, his
hands indicate a stack half a meter high.
"No, I told him, feeling a little afraid, "but I would
*love* to see your executive summary. I bet I could help."
There are no coincidences. To date he and I have exchanged
a couple of brief emails, but I have not yet seen the
executive summary. Clearly the man is busy! But given the
opportunity to dive in, I am willing to try to show him
that IP over dumb fiber will beat the telco stuff he's
getting from the major vendors and 'sultants in performance
and price. Stay tuned . . .
The cab driver who took me to the airport provided another
memorable encounter. When I got into the cab, he asked me
how I wanted to go to the airport. I looked at my watch
and suggested the scenic route. He was in his sixties, I
guess. He was born in Iraq, neither Muslim, nor Kurd, but
a Christian. He had lived in the Ukraine, in some other
former Soviet republic, in Egypt, in Singapore, and he had
recently moved to Melbourne and achieved Australian
residency. He had a Ph.D. in food microbiology, and he was
delighted to meet another Bio Ph.D.
I asked him about the threatened U.S. invasion of the
country of his birth. His answer did not have a cliché or
habitual thought in it. He talked about how the powerful
use power and about how people let themselves be oppressed.
Mostly he talked of his own experiences. He would
interrupt himself to show me the sights -- here a hospital,
there a park -- and to ask me about the United States.
He had no idea about U.S. racism; his eyes widened when I
told him that dark skinned people in the U.S. had higher
infant mortality, longer prison sentences, lower incomes
and shorter lives. I assured him that most people in the
U.S. thought that this was not a good situation, and that
it was still a great country, and that even with racism
there was tremendous opportunity for immigrants. He
smiled. But he thought he would stay in Australia.
At the airport, I stepped out of the cab onto the surface
of the Earth with more awareness than when I had stepped
into the cab. A consulting firm I used to work with at
AT&T -- GBN -- calls its affiliated clever consultants and
powerful pundits "remarkable people" after Gurdjieff's
book, _Meetings with Remarkable Men_ . Gurdjieff's
remarkable men were avatars in the original sense,
embodiments of divine consciousness sent to Earth for a
purpose. The cab driver would not have fit the GBN
profile, but I think he might have fit Gurdjieff's.
[Next: "My amazing day in Wellington, New Zealand," and
"Supernova, the most blogged conference ever," in SMART
Letter #81, available soon on computer screens everywhere.]
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QUOTE OF NOTE: Doc Searls
"[There's a problem with acronyms like] B2B, B2C and so
on. 'To' is the wrong preposition . . . the correct
middle letter should have been W, because in a real
marketplace we do business with people not to them. Does
anybody ever shake hands and say 'Nice doing business to
you!'?"
Doc Searls, quoted in boingboing.net, 21 Nov 2002
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QUOTE OF NOTE: Despair, Inc.
[Despair.com does a send-up of "success-ories" -- those
kitschy motivational posters titled, e.g., Teamwork, Let's
All Pull Together. You've seen them down at HR and in the
Salesman of the Month's office. I ordered the Despair 2003
calendar; the January page says, "If a pretty poster and a
cute saying are all that it takes to motivate you, you
probably have a very easy job. The kind robots will be
doing soon." Just before my calendar came, I got email
from unfulfilled@despair.com, excerpted below. -- David I]
"We regret to inform you that shipping on your order was
delayed until this week. In this email we provide
excuses in a customer-mocking fashion and make shallow
gestures of remediation.
"Please do not infer that Despair actually values the
customer. It is simply a defensive gambit, as customers
who don't received their order might call their credit
card provider to initiate a chargeback.
"For those of you unfamiliar with your rights as a credit
card holder, a chargeback is something you should NEVER
NEVER NEVER EVER attempt. Without getting into too much
detail, chargebacks are incredibly dangerous
undertakings. They can destroy your credit rating and
leave you vulnerable to hackers. They're also not
particularly patriotic.
"In closing, thank you for your money. Hopefully someday
we can figure out how to legally take it without
providing anything in return to eliminate having to
write this condescending pathetic semi-apology.
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IF IT'S FUNNY, IT MUST BE TRUE
by Scatt Oddams
Hey David,
Maybe a tiger can't change its stripes but what the U.S.
stands for today would put corners on the stripes of its
flag. This 'toon lets U.S. off too easy:
http://www.dubyadubyadubya.com/.
Mikhaela Reid's a 22-year-old Harvard 'tooner, but they
didn't teach her this -- http://tinyurl.com/3pyp -- in
school.
Don't forget, David, that it can be true even if it's
not funny.
Scatt
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CONFERENCE ON MY CALENDAR
February 4, 2003, Santa Barbara CA. Center for
Entrepreneurship and Engineering Management (CEEM) at UC
Santa Barbara. http://ceem.engr.ucsb.edu/events.html
March 31 through April 3, 2003, San Jose CA. VON. I have
a general session TBD on April 1 that I promise will be
interesting. April 1 is one of my favorite holidays. You
will believe EVERYTHING my panel presents.
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COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Redistribution of this document, or any
part of it, is permitted for non-commercial purposes,
provided that the two lines below are reproduced with it:
Copyright 2002 by David S. Isenberg
isen@isen.com -- http://isen.com/ -- 1-888-isen-com
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