My friend Lee Dryburgh has made eComm one of the great conferences on the future of communications technology. It will be April 19-21 in San Francisco.
The highlight for me is sure to be J.P. Rangaswami’s talk, “The Rise of the Open Network: Or How I was David Isenberged into Submission.” I wish I could be there! (Unfortunately, I’ve got a conflict.)
Technorati Tags: EComm
Esther Dyson tweets:
hurrah! #Amtrak finally added WiFi on the Acela! now on 2109 to DC . . .
But then she says:
Express train, local WiFi. I spoke too soon. #Amtrak’s Acela has WiFi, but it seems to have too many WiFi-using passengers. way too slow!
If Amtrak is using one cellular-to-Wi-Fi link per car, it’s almost certainly under-provisioning. Will Amtrak start charging to hold down the number of users? Or will Amtrak increase the number of hotspots per train?
I’d like to see the cell tower traffic stats as the Acela goes by!
Technorati Tags: Amtrak, Twee2blog, WiFi, WirelessNetworks
As the National Broadband Plan rolls out, we can learn a lot by noting who is complaining and who isn’t.
Technorati Tags: NationalBroadbandPlan
As readers of this blog (and other fine publications) know, Lafayette, Louisiana is rolling out a municipal fiber optic network that will pass every house in the city offering connection speeds starting at 10 mbit/s for under $30 a month.
Recently Lafayette’s Mayor, Joey Durel, visited Seattle for a conference. He also met with its new Mayor, Mike McGinn, who was elected on a platform upon which municipal FTTH was a major plank. In addition, Mayor Durel spent time with Seattle’s Glenn Fleishman, of Wi-Fi Network News. Glenn wrote up a very nice summary of Lafayette’s network from a Seattle perspective.
It says, in part,
What lessons can Seattle learn from Lafayette’s nearly complete multi-year effor? Quite a few.
It’s okay to pick a fight with a giant telecom and cable firm. Durel fought against BellSouth, and subsequently AT&T, as well as Cox Communications, the cable operator. Seattle has a weak opponent in Qwest, which has barely begun to bring fiber-to-the-neighborhood service into the area. Comcast is a more serious threat.
However, Durel said that the lengthy legal battle was a big win for the city. The city spent $1.2 million in legal fees, but estimates the delay saved $8 million in equipment costs because fiber gear dropped so much in price during that period. Citizens got a better and faster network, too.
A public fight over fiber meant the public knew more about fiber. Durel said the cable and telecom incumbents “were their own worst enemy. The more controversy they made out of this, the more they educated people.” The local newspaper covered the legal battle fairly, Durel said, and most people understood what they’d get from the new network by the time it launched.
The importance of Glenn’s article extends to Anycity, USA. Well worth a read.
Technorati Tags: FTTH, GlennFleishman, LafayetteLA, MunicipalNetworks, MunicipalUtilities
Today the NTIA announced that OpenCape, a project to bring 350 miles of middle-mile fiber to anchor institutions all over Cape Cod, plus an open-access data center, plus a wireless overlay network, has been awarded a $32 million BTOP grant.
We’re talking about Woods Hole, my home town, where Verizon DSL is so slow that watching YouTube is frustrating, FIOS is never coming, and DOCSIS 3 is below the fold on Comcast’s list.
The visionaries behind the OpenCape project — Dan Gallagher, Art Gaylord, Teresa Martin and Gary Delius — have done a workmanlike job to put together a structure that looks like it will be not only viable (in a financial sense) but also non-cooptable long into the future. If anybody deserves to guide OpenCape through the rest of this process, it is these wise, dedicated individuals.
So excuse me, I just gotta yell WOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!! HOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!
UPDATE: Here’s the press release:
OpenCape receives $32 million NTIA Broadband Grant to build open access middle mile network
$40 million project to create 350 mile fiber optic network, microwave wireless network, and regional datacenter to benefit community, anchor institutions, and region’s economic health.WEST BARNSTABLE, MA March 2, 2010 – The non-profit OpenCape Corporation announced today that it was notified by the U.S. Department of Commerce that it has been awarded $32 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) Broadband Technology Opportunity Program (BTOP) funds to construct a 350 mile fiber optic network, wireless microwave network, and regional data center. Congressman Bill Delahunt made the award announcement at Cape Cod Community College.
The $32 million BTOP grant will be combined with matching funds totaling $8 million from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, RCN Metro Optical Networks, and Barnstable County to construct a comprehensive middle mile network to support the economic, educational, public safety, and governmental needs of the southeast Massachusetts region.
The open access, vendor neutral middle mile network will connect over 60 anchor institutions on Cape Cod and the Islands of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. In addition, OpenCape will build further connections to the Internet in Providence, RI along the South Coast, and to Boston through Plymouth and Brockton. These paths will allow many additional anchor institutions throughout southeast Massachusetts to connect to the network.
OpenCape will serve as an underpinning infrastructure for economic diversification and expansion on Cape Cod. The fiber along the South Coast can also serve as a foundation for additional broadband capacity in that region, helping to provide an economic stimulus in cities such as Fall River and New Bedford where unemployment is nearly 15 percent.
“OpenCape is the product of years of work and collaboration by organizations and individuals across our region,” said OpenCape’s President, Dan Gallagher. “It’s a vital part of the region’s long term growth and competitiveness strategy and we are excited to have assembled all of the necessary funding to immediately begin building the OpenCape network.”
OpenCape estimates that the project will create more than 200 jobs in the equipment, construction and manufacturing sectors, as well as an additional 200 indirect jobs.
OpenCape will immediately bring together the many stake holders who have participated in the development of the concept to focus the region on executing the grant and building the network. “We are going to come together as a region to celebrate a little, but then get right back to work,” said Gallagher.
About OpenCape Corporation
The OpenCape Corporation (www.opencape.com) is a non-profit 501(c)(3) corporation. OpenCape Corporation’s purpose is to fulfill the need for a regional communications network on Cape Cod and the Islands to enhance education, research, and economic development, AND provide for an emergency communications network in times of crisis.
About RCN Metro Optical Networks
RCN Metro, http://www.rcnmetro.com, is a premier provider of high-capacity transport services for carriers as well as large and medium-sized businesses. RCN Metro offers a comprehensive suite of services including: Ethernet, SONET, Wavelength, Video Transport, Internet and more. With a network leveraging unique rights-of-way, spanning from Maine to Virginia and out to Chicago, RCN Metro deploys custom solutions to service providers as well as companies in the finance, hospitality, media, government, health care and education industries. RCN Metro is a wholly owned division of RCN Corporation.
Technorati Tags: ARRA, ARRA Stimulus Act, BTOP, fiberoptics, NTIA, OpenCape, WoodsHole
Yesterday was my last day on the National Broadband Plan team. It was quite an experience. Regardless of what the Plan says in the end, my hat is off to Blair Levin and the team he assembled for its incredible, heroic efforts to produce the Plan. It’s not like we just sat and wrote it, and now we’re going to turn it in. The leaders of the Omnibus Broadband Initiative were buffeted on every side by the incumbents, by Congress, by interest groups left and right, and ultimately by five bosses (the Commissioners) each with a different agenda.
It’s a miracle that there’s a Plan at all; to the extent there is, it’s a testimony to Blair Levin’s organizational skills and political savvy. In addition, not only did the team or some 60 people sacrifice evenings and weekends for many months, but people walked to work through waist-high snow drifts and carpooled the few 4-wheel drive vehicles they had, even as the weather closed the rest of the U.S. Government.
Say what you want about what’s in the Plan, and what’s not in the Plan, but let it be tempered by respect for the dedicated efforts of its authors and leaders.
Meanwhile, I’m a private citizen again, and I will resume speaking as a public voice.
Technorati Tags: FCC, NationalBroadbandPlan
Yesterday at blogband.gov it was announced that I’ve joined the FCC’s National Broadband Plan Task Force. I’m delighted to be helping Blair Levin and his team on this important mission.
The Plan is due for delivery to Congress on February 17, 2010. Everybody working on the Plan takes this date very seriously. The work will continue after this; how long I stay at the FCC after February 17 is anybody’s guess at this point.
Accordingly, (a) this blog will go very light on telecom issues over the next several months, and (b) F2C: Freedom to Connect 2010 will be postponed to a future date to be determined.
Maybe it’s just me, but at age 60 I’ve stopped having fun at big-room music events. For the last decade I’ve been running on fumes; I’ve been to maybe three big-room events that were memorable. For two of them, I lucked into great seats. (These were Maurizio Pollini at Carnegie and Rickie Lee Jones with a tour band that definitely had found its groove; the third was Willie Nelson, Ray Price, Merle Haggard & Co., at Radio City.)
Meanwhile small room music has a much higher hit rate. But nobody goes. If you took all the nights of leisure time in America and threw them into a truckload of crushed rock, you would not find the 100-seat and under concerts until you swept out the dust. If music were conducted by the market’s magic hand, small gigs would be Bye-bye Miss American Pie. Homo economicus would never be a musician.
Discontinuities are often where the value is. Earlier this month I went to five small gigs in eight days — every one of them was its own little gem.
The first gig, on Columbus Day Sunday, was The Asylum Street Spankers at The Fairfield (CT) Theatre Company. The Spankers are an Austin-based neo-Jug Band with tight harmonies, imaginative arrangements, skilled players, a killer sense of satire and a joyful love for their craft. There were 25 people in the room, including the 6-piece band and its entourage. The rest of Fairfield County was closing up the vacation house in Nantucket. The gig began with a tongue-in-cheek announcement to step back, “so the people up here can breathe.” It achieved a living room ambience. An audience member bought a round of drinks for the band in the middle of the second set. Audience and band played out the joke until the end; we hooted and hollered and stomped after the “last” number, all twelve of us who were left, and the Spankers came back and did a couple more.
The next gig was the following Tuesday, pianist Rossano Sportiello at the Fishmonger Cafe in Woods Hole. I’ve written about Sportiello before, and I’ve seen him twice in New York, but this was my first time at one of his locally-famous Woods Hole gigs. (It was my home town. I knew about half of the people in the room.) It was packed, maybe 80 people, for the first set; Sportiello did two long, panoramic numbers. You know the stereotype about how Italians talk with their hands? My jaw dropped watching Sportiello’s hands as he played. In his second set, he did a Scarlatti piece, then Chopin, then he kept his right hand classical and brought in some Fats Waller stride with his left, and then . . . I have no words, none. The encore, a duet with his wife, Lala, a singer, “Nice Work If You Can Get It,” was perfectly cut, polished and mounted.
The next night I went to a house concert in Woods Hole, by my friend and sometimes music teacher Glenway Fripp’s jazz trio, “QuasiModal.” Glenway’s knowledge of music is astounding; he was making the most improbable piano things work in surprising and sophisticated ways. There were 25 people in the audience. Again, I knew most of them. I caught up with some old, too-infrequently-seen friends at the post-music wine-and-cheese.
The next gig was three nights later at the Riverside Y in the Bronx. This night, Rossano Sportiello shared the stage with two equals, singer and bass player Nicki Parrott, and Jonathan Russell, 14, a current holder of the Daniel Pearl Violin. (Daniel Pearl is the WSJ reporter who was kidnapped and murdered in Pakistan in 2002. He brought his fiddle and his mandolin wherever he travelled. The back story on the Daniel Pearl Violin, with poignant details, is here.) The 200-seatish room was about half full. Sportiello was super, see above, but to me the star of the evening was Nicki Parrott; girl could sing, girl could play, girl was charming even when she was rude. (For example, she did her own, “I like big instruments,” in which one line was, “They say size doesn’t matter but I think it’s idle chatter.”) Her bass playing was strong, melodic, imaginative, very up-front. Jonathan Russell was a bit tentative, and this made me hold my breath. Was he going to make a big dissonant mistake? Answer: no. Next answer, as he found his way into the music –NO!!! — once into the middle of a piece this boy was just fine. Very clever three-way interaction with Parrott and Sportiello. By the time he’s 16, he’ll be awesome.
The next night my wife and I found ourselves (long story) at one of Marjorie Eliot’s internationally famous Sunday afternoon parlor jazz soirees in upper Harlem. We sat on two of about 75 card-table folding chairs wedged into every crevasse of her apartment. Marjorie not only hosted but also played the piano. Her fingers were long, her knuckles were large, there was a lifetime of music in each chord. She (as did Sportiello) spoke to her audience about the unity of music. To Marjorie, it was also about the unity of humanity and the sharing of joy. “There have been tears, but today we have music,” she said. “There’s no color thing in here,” she explained. There was a newspaper picture of an angry Dr. Martin Luther King, elbow bent, scotch taped to the wall. I won’t get the names of the other players right, so let me just describe them. There was a black fellow who sang beautifully, with deep vibrato, in the straight-ahead tradition of Nat King Cole, songs like Autumn Leaves and Autumn in New York. Then he sat down at the piano and a blind white kid came out to play tenor sax, cutting abstract post-bop figures. There was another white tenor player, (Googling, I think the guy is Sedrick Chonkroun), who played in a more lyrical, spare, layered style. Marjorie and the younger gentleman shared piano duties. There were two sets. In the middle, humble refreshments, apple juice and candy bars. At the end, hugging kissing and personal words as we left. Wow.
So. Five gigs to remember in eight days. Life should always be this sweet.
Technorati Tags: Music
I’ve known since I was a child that Rachel Carson, the author of Silent Spring, did much of her biological work in Woods Hole. A current friend’s father was Carson’s station chief at what we used to call, “The Fisheries,” today the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the Department of the Interior.
Carson’s Silent Spring (1962) is the first book that brought a scientific sensibility about our environment to public attention. The book got action, too. When I see a Great Blue Heron lumbering low across the sky or an Osprey wheel and dive and splash, then struggle into the air with an Alewife in its talons, I silently thank Rachel Carson.
Beth Daley has a terrific article on Carson in today’s Boston Globe documenting her various stays in Woods Hole, beginning in 1929. What a pioneer she must have been!
One measure of how much times have changed: She died in 1964. Of breast cancer. This is not reported in the Globe article, but local folklorists recount this fact. Back then you didn’t speak of cancer in public. Or breasts. She was suffering silently with her illness even as she was writing Silent Spring.
We actually have made progress against the toxic environmental dangers that Carson identified, but we have a long, long way to go from the first revelations of Silent Spring to the abandonment of the idea that flushing the toxins down the drain means they’ve gone away. More than the Great Blue and the Osprey are at stake if we don’t start treating our small blue planet an integral whole.
h/t: Without Google News Local I might have missed Beth Daley’s great piece.
