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SMART Letter #18 - April 2, 1999
Copyright 1999 by David S. Isenberg
isen@isen.com -- http://www.isen.com/ -- 1-888-isen-com
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CONTENTS
> Quote of Note: Frank Ianna
> Lead Essay: Wireless Home Networks: Bluetooth & HomeRF
> Quote of Note: Richard Smith, Telcordia Technologies
> Update: Supreme Court UNE decision's effect on CLECs
> SMART Comments from SMART People . . .
Chuck Lanza, Brian Mulvaney, Tom Evslin
> Conferences on my Calendar
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QUOTE OF NOTE: Frank Ianna
"[AT&T will be] making more investment at the edge of the
network . . . and less investment in the center of the
network, in our big 4ESS long distance switches . . . with
close to zero investment in growth in that network next
year. We have capped the growth of that network . . .
finalizing the last two [4ESS long distance circuit
switches in 1999]." Frank Ianna, President, AT&T Network
Services, at news conference on March 2, 1999.
[Note: AT&T now seems to be getting a PART of the Stupid
Network message. So a part of me is cheering, "Yeahhh!"
for my old Alma Mater. There are two big chunks of the message
missing. First, in an all-IP world, the "edge" is wherever
the IP protocol originates and terminates, and increasingly,
that's in a device at the customer's fingertips. Second,
when that's the case, the main utility of networks is created
in the applications under the customer's fingers, and this
means that value is created independently of network
ownership. AT&T has yet to demonstrate that it understands
how this will affect the old telco business model. -- David I.]
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A HOME WHERE DEVICES CAN ROAM: Wireless home networking
will be affordable, but will end users be buffaloed?
By David S. Isenberg
I like Bluetooth -- the wireless networking protocol
designed to eradicate the hairball of cables behind your
PC. It's an Ericsson-IBM-Intel-Nokia-Toshiba scheme for
cheap, unplug-n-play networks to link nearby devices.
It'll bring more intelligence to the edge.
Bluetooth will cost about $5 per end in a couple of years.
It will be cost-competitive with physical cable, so you
don't necessarily need portability to benefit. It'll be
worth it just to eliminate the dust trap under your desk.
In the Bluetooth vision, your printer isn't tied to your
PC anymore - you can put it across the room if you want.
Your modem becomes a clean wireless package next to the
RJ-11 jack. You connect your laptop to the net via cell
phone - while the phone is in your briefcase. The Palm
Pilot in your pocket syncs to your PC while it's while its
there. You take your wireless web-pad to the kitchen for
coffee. You can do voice over Bluetooth, too, so your
Bluetooth phone might deliver voice commands to your PC.
I can imagine other applications. Your phone flips caller
ID to your PC for a screen pop. Your car reports mileage,
gas level and other stats when you come home. Your
electric company reaches through your PC to your
appliances for so-called demand-side energy management.
Trivial apps, perhaps, but at five bucks an end you can't
afford not to have them.
Despite these potential benefits, a lot of smart people
badmouth Bluetooth.
+ "It is oblivious to the IP revolution," says 'IP
Everywhere' evangelist Bob Frankston.
+ At 1 megabit per second, Bluetooth is "much too slow to
be useful," says wireless broadband expert Dewayne
Hendricks of Com21.
+ And Microsoft strategist Charles Fitzgerald voices
concern with intellectual property and licensing.
(Microsoft doesn't even belong to Bluetooth's 480-member
special interest group.)
Bluetooth is, admittedly, a flawed idea. But then, so are
single-family homes - horrendously energy-inefficient! So
are cars, which cause 50,000 U.S. deaths per year. Then
there's television, Windows, the Republican Party, the
Democratic Party, the telephone network, and the modern
corporation. Fortunately, flaws don't keep stuff from
happening.
HOME RF
HomeRF is another of the several wireless protocols vying
for a place in the living room. It is a lot like Bluetooth
- same 1 megabit data rate, same 2.4 gHz band, same late-
1999 product expectations and similar apps, with an
equally powerful set of members, including Bluetooth's IBM
and Intel. Microsoft is a member, too.
Frankston likes HomeRF. He understands the power of
emergent, unpredicted value. When he and Dan Bricklin
wrote VisiCalc in 1978, the PC changed- by surprise, not
design - from toy to tool. Frankston likes HomeRF because
it incorporates native, end-to-end IP, the biggest creator
of unpredictable value in our time. He thinks that
Bluetooth is too proprietary and too preconceived to
ramify as riotously as HomeRF could. He points to the
overly constrained, often bungled infrared communications
standard, IRDA, as a cautionary tale.
I'm with Frankston on this. Open is better, layered is
better, proven technology is better, end-to-end Internet
Protocol is better.
LOW COST AND EASE-OF-USE
Putting my fridge on line will be an easier decision if I
can recoup the energy savings in a month or two. HomeRF
will cost more than Bluetooth, but how much more is
unclear. HomeRF is aimed at a PC-card implementation,
while Bluetooth cleaves to an inherently cheaper embedded
product model. Also, HomeRF is designed for a 50-meter
transmission range. It needs a 100-milliwatt transmitter
to do it. Bluetooth, in contrast, has a 10-meter range,
and only needs one milliwatt. Dan Sweeney, the general
manager of Intel's Home Networking Operations, says,
"There will always be a premium to pay for a HomeRF radio
versus Bluetooth."
Maybe Bluetooth's nominal 10-meter range will prove overly
limiting. Perhaps HomeRF's other capabilities will become
critical, such as its support for five voice channels plus
data, or its superior wall penetration, or end-to-end IP.
I'm open.
Ultimately, easy-to-use protocols will win. I'm not going
to become a networking guru so I can put my thermostat on
line.
"Because it is wireless, HomeRF sets high expectations for
ease-of-use. You take it out of the box and turn it on,"
says Ben Manny, Chair of the 65-member HomeRF Working
Group. He could say the same for Bluetooth. Manny expects
that both systems will benefit from the experience of
wired home networking efforts now underway (e.g. HomePNA).
If they're cheap and stone-simple, I'll like both. And
when Hendricks' Com21 gives us wireless home networks for
digital video, I'll like that too.
---
David S. Isenberg (www.isen.com), who doesn't have his
tongue in his cheek this April 1, suggests bluetooth.com
and homerf.org for more reading.
This article appeared in America's Network, April 1, 1999.
Copyright 1999, Advanstar Communications, Inc.
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QUOTE OF NOTE: Richard Smith
"Power will shift from the network periphery to the core."
Richard Smith, CEO, Telcordia Technologies, formerly
Bellcore.
[Note: Yeah, right. - David I]
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UPDATE ON SUPREME COURT & CLECs
In the last SMART Letter (#17) I wrote about the U.S.
Supreme Court decision of January 12, 1999 (AT&T v. Iowa
Utilities Board). Well, I can read technology pieces
carefully, and eventually I get it. But not law, yet.
I was confused. The Supreme Court didn't exactly neuter
unbundling, a key CLEC entry strategy, but it certainly
tied it in knots.
Several SMART People picked up my confusion between
47USC251 and 47CFR51. The former refers to the United
States Code, while the later refers to the Code of Federal
Regulations. More specifically, the former refers to the
Telecom Act of 1996, while the latter refers to rules that
the FCC made under that Telecom Act. It is an accident
that both names start with 47. Duh. That's what you go
to law school for.
But I was right when I said that the crucial language from
the Telecom Act is in USC 251(d)(2) "In determining what
network elements should be made available . . . [the FCC]
should consider whether . . . (B) the failure to provide
such network elements would impair the ability of [a CLEC]
to provide the services that it seeks to offer."
And I was right when I said that the Court found that the
FCC was "unreasonable" when the FCC said that "delay and
higher costs for new entrants" was impairment.
But I was wrong to conclude that the Supreme Court had
invalidated the whole notion of Unbundled Network Elements
(UNE). What *really* happened is that it sent FCC Rule 319
(aka 47CFR51.319) back to the FCC for more work. And it
cleared the way for more anti-competitive ILEC court
shenanigans.
And while Kathy Chen (WSJ, 2/12/99) uncovered some
evidence of CLEC trouble with ILECs resulting from the
decision, I haven't found any so far. FCC Commissioners
Kennard and Ness referred to "rumors" of CLEC problems in
speeches after the Supreme Court decision, but I called
the FCC and couldn't track down what they were talking
about. Furthermore, CLECs had problems with ILECs before the
decision, too; it is the way of the world, so today's such
problems might not necessarily be due to the Court's decision.
Amusingly, the FCC faxed me its letters from all five
RBOCs, plus GTE, pledging to continue to make UNE available
to CLECs under the same cooperative, friendly,
streamlined, automated, inexpensive terms ;-) as before the
Supreme Court's decision. SMART Person Michael Weingarten, in
a more educated piece than mine in BCR (March 1999, p. 35-
38) says that things could remain unresolved until late
2001, or longer.
I'm very glad that I am not a small CLEC trying to keep my
head above water until this is resolved. I am embarrassed to
be a citizen of a country that's stuck muddling in legal
drivel while technology's progress sweeps irresistibly
towards the future.
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SMART Comments from SMART People . . .
From Brian Mulvaney:
"I guess I'm still confused by the QoS debate.
There's a profound disconnect here. The rate of
improvement in hardware performance is geometric
and accelerating. Rate of improvement in software
development is what? marginal? a fond hope?
negative even? I think I read another
announcement last week of terabit speeds achieved
by Siemens over a single fiber using WDM. When
the bits move that fast, why would you ever want
to make them wait a relative eternity for bloated,
buggy software to enforce policy decisions? QoS
still feels like the networking equivalent of
Soviet command and control economics."
From Chuck Lanza:
"I've been using your Letter #7: Scenarios Facing
Year 2000 in every Y2K meeting I'm involved in.
Being the Emergency Manager for Miami-Dade County,
Florida, believe me I have a lot of meetings.
There isn't a better way to frame the need for
increased response planning and preparedness than
Letter #7. I always give you credit but I wanted
to send you a note to thank you for providing such
a clear and concise planning document. It has
established two goals for us: 1) to increase and
complete all of our computer and systems
remediation and testing to lessen disruptions, and
2) to maximize our community preparedness and
increase the community's confidence in us that
will facilitate a coherence manifested by a
stronger more intuned community."
From Tom Evslin:
"[SMART Letter #17] strikes home! I thought we
would need differentially priced QoS for business
quality VOIP. I was dead wrong. The "Stupid"
Internet is improving so rapidly that we are able to
beat many third tier PSTN providers in call completion
rate and match them in call durations (proxy for sound
quality) to developing countries.
"The reason this work is that the Internet is
not only highly redundant itself but it enables a
highly redundant network architecture. We try to
have at least three separate terminating affiliates
in each city connected to different ISPs and
different central offices.
"During [recent major holiday for Asian country]
we had a 2x better call completion rate to [that
country] (compared to our PSTN overflow providers)
where the local infrastructure was struggling under
the call load. This is because we had many more COs
to route through. Simply wouldn't be an affordable
architecture with dedicated circuits of any kind."
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CONFERENCES ON MY CALENDAR
May 23-26, 1999, Washington DC. 7x24 EXCHANGE 1999
Spring Conference. 7x24 is a non-profit consortium that
is devoted to always-on facilities of all kinds. Today
they're weighted towards electric power and financial
services industries, but they want and need more telecom
involvement. It could be a great forum for us to
learn about reliability from individuals with similar
practices in different industries. I'll be giving
the keynote, on Tuesday, May 25, on "Reliability and
the Stupid Network." For more information, contact
Joe Paladino, 212-575-2275, axiomny@aol.com, website
forthcoming.
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COPYRIGHT NOTICE:
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Copyright 1999 by David S. Isenberg
isen@isen.com -- http://www.isen.com/ -- 1-888-isen-com
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Date last modified: 18 April 99