isen.blog

“There is a potential dark cloud on the horizon for the cellular operators, however, as unlimited Internet access packages may disrupt today’s enhanced service offerings, which are currently very tightly coupled to what a particular service provider wishes to offer."

Gerry Kaufhold, In-Stat Analyst in press release announcing In-Stat report entitled, "US Consumer Attitudes About Mobile Communications and Entertainment."

Technorati Tags: Apple, Content-Conduit, DisruptiveTechnology, End-to-End, NetworkNeutrality, QuoteOfNote, Stupid Network

[Source]

. . . and so is Yom Kippur.

Both Yom Kippur and OneWebDay are days of rememberance of something we might forget without a Special Day. In the case of OneWebDay, we need to remember what a miracle the Internet is, how recently it has become a necessity in our lives, its potential to lower the barriers that separate individuals and cultures, and how easily its potential could be wrenched out of our hands.

I am as secular a Jew as any Jew can be. I didn't have a Bar Mitzvah, I have never been to Friday night services at temple, I have few warm feelings for the state of Israel, I don't know the next word after "Barook atah . . . " and I never got the joke my grandfather told (and told and told and told) about the non-Kosher cheeseburger.

My wife, who is just slightly more knowledgeable in religious matters than I am, impressed one Jewish thing on me -- Self-respecting Jews keep their head down on Yom Kippur. Yom Kippur -- pronounced "yum kippa" NOT "yawm kipoooor" -- is the Day of Atonement. Treating it like every other day says, "I have nothing to atone for . . . I'm perfect."

Tomorrow is OneWebDay, the Day to Celebrate the Internet. It's held every September 22. The dang Jewish calendar, where the dates float all over the place, put Yom Kippur right on top of OneWebDay this year. I wish the Jews would get their calendar synched to the rest of the world.

There will be OneWebDay celebrations all over the world tomorrow. I won't be going to the Big OneWebDay gala in New York City, featuring Jimmy Wales (Wikipedia), Andrew Baron (Rocketboom), Birju Pandya (Charityfocus.org), Dana Spiegel (NYCWireless), Lauren Klein (One Laptop Per Child). I won't be going to any of the other OneWebDay events around the world.

But that doesn't mean you shouldn't. If the Internet has changed your life and you'd like to celebrate that fact, and if your religious attitude permits, you should be there. It's the second oldest Important World-Wide Observation tomorrow.



[Disclosure: I am on the OneWebDay board. It is a completely voluntary, non-compensated position.]

Technorati Tags: OneWebDay, Rant

"Mr. Abe tried to read the air but ended up following too much advice and yielding to the various centers of power and special interests to which his Liberal Democratic Party has owed its 50-year near monopoly. The result, unsurprisingly, was wishy-washy, ineffective policy."

Joi Ito in In Japan, Stagnation Wins Again, an Op-Ed in today's New York Times on the cultural and economic backstory behind Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's resignation last week.

Technorati Tags: Economics, Japan, JoiIto, Politics, QuoteOfNote

"This is twaddle," sums it up. I almost used it alone as a Quote of Note. But the whole paragraph below is Jack-London-esque in its economy of word . . .

The Federal Communications Commission has just been advised by the US department of justice, under heavy lobbying from the operators who stand to gain from higher data charges, that a neutral net might "prevent, rather than promote" investment and innovation. This is twaddle. An open-access net has produced one of the greatest surges of innovation ever recorded and has given an opportunity for people all over the world to communicate with each other and share knowledge on equal terms. Long may it continue to be so.

Link

Technorati Tags: Bushco, FCC, NetworkNeutrality

Art Brodsky at Public Knowledge blogs about a friend in the UK -- where there's regulatory separation of BT's core network from BT's services -- who has 59 choices of Internet provider! Art writes:

. . . He had to make up a spreadsheet to figure out which service was best. Let us pause and consider this concept. This U.K. consumer did something not one U.S. consumer can do. This broadband consumer in the U.K. has so many options – 59 Internet Service Providers that he needed a spreadsheet to figure them out.

*snip*

There is competition on price, on download speed, on upload speed, on the amount of data that can be downloaded, on the price of installation, on the number of email addresses, on the amount of Web storage space, on the number of IP addresses, on the amount and price of tech support.

Art's post is chock-full of pointers to primary data -- GO READ IT NOW!

"Oil remains fundamentally a government business."

Dick Cheney, CEO Haliburton, in his speech at the Institute of Petroleum Autumn lunch, 1999

Technorati Tags: Bushco, Energy, Oil, Politics, QuoteOfNote, Regulatorium