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I blogged a bunch of sessions for the Pacific Telecom Council‘s PTC ’10 conference. This year’s theme was Embracing the Cloud: Enabling Connectivity and Innovation, which was both timely and informative. Here’s a list of my posts:

Sunday

• Sunday Morning: Satellite Workshop
• Sunday Morning: Submarine Cable Workshop
• Sunday Morning: Green ICT and Rural Connectivity
• Sunday Morning: Reaching the Unserved-Underserved
• Sunday Afternoon: Emergency Communications

Monday

• Monday Keynote (China Unicom)
• Monday Conversation (VON and Rogers)
• Monday Keynote with Vab Goel
• Monday Discussion: Applications in the Cloud
• Monday Keynote: Japan MIC
• Monday Keynote: Robert Pepper
• Monday Breakout: Investment and Finance

Tuesday

• Tuesday Discussion: Policy and Business Development
• Tuesday Plenary: Internet Communications
• Tuesday Plenary: The Content Providers Speak
• Tuesday Discussion: Lightening in the Cloud
• Tuesday Conversation: Clouds and Carriers
• Tuesday: Life of Submarine Cables
• Tuesday Plenary: Scott Forbes
• Tuesday Point, Counterpoint

Wednesday

• Wednesday Conversation: Consumer Centric Communications
• Wednesday Discussion: Voice 2.0 (Gary Kim, the moderator, also posted this on his blog!)

It was a great conference with a few too many interesting sessions for me to cover. Thankfully you can catch some of the main sessions and interviews at PTC TV.

Network, Policy, Scenarios ptc, PTC10

I am very proud to read at broadband.gov that my friend

Dr. David S. Isenberg has joined the broadband team as an Expert Advisor, and will be working on how physical infrastructure choices facilitate or impede policy options.  David is best known to the telecom policy world as the author of the 1997 essay, The Rise of the Stupid Network.  When Dale Hatfield was Chief of the FCC’s Office of Engineering and Technology, he called The Rise of the Stupid Network “one of three works that changed my perception of the telecommunications industry.”

I have been warned to “lower my expectations,” as the wheels of government do not move at top speed or toward full enlightenment. That said, I remain optimistic!

Life, Policy, Scenarios FCC, infrastructure, isen.com, Policy, stupid network

Holding a position as an incumbent or primary telecom carrier bestows certain monopoly-ish benefits including limited (or no) competition in connection choices to homes and certain businesses. A person representing a home or business needs a phone or cable connection in order to obtain a connection to the Internet.

This privileged position implies a certain duty of care for their customers by the carriers. That duty, however, is sometimes misplaced. For example, storing customer passwords in the clear, as text that anyone could read, is not a “best practice” in security circles. It came as a shock that TrendMicro wrote of about this practice by noted telecom company Orange (Telecom) in France:

The showstopper however is the vulnerability on the orange.fr website which was posted today. According to 2fingers over at HackersBlog a SQL injection vulnerability was discovered by fellow hacker Unu, that exposes not only the account details of almost a quarter of a million customers, but also their passwords in clear text…

Why is this important? The article continues:

Recently published research showed that 61% of people use the same password for multiple sites, so this kind of compromise represents real risk for many people.

HackersBlog state that they have alerted the folks over at orange.fr but have not yet received a response.

If Orange was truly storing passwords in a clear text file, the rest of their security practices should rightly be questioned. This practice applies to all providers: take care, use best practices to protect your customers.

This post should also serve as a reminder to everyone that’s a customer of an Internet Service Provider: periodically change and protect your passwords.

Identity, Network, Policy, Scenarios best practices, password, plain text, security, telecom

Transforming Global Information and Communication Markets, by Peter Cowhey and Jonathan Aronson, “discusses why we are on the brink of a third transformation of global information and communication markets that requires innovative global governance.” This book is now available through MIT Press or via download!

From the Introduction:

As 2009 nears, the world is in a time of gloom and panic. Will global governance and the global economic order survive? In retrospect, some saw the collapse of the dot com bubble as a portent of the fi nancial meltdown and the collapse of confidence in the future. In the United States there is a dour bipartisan consensus that escalating special interest politics, budget deficits, economic insecurity in the midst of more consumption, environmental and energy policy gridlock, and deep uncertainties about national-security strategy point to intractable problems in the design and conduct of public policy. In other countries the specifi c bill of complaints may differ, but a similar uneasiness is widespread.

Although we can gripe as well as anyone about the world’s follies, this book is more upbeat. Since World War II, a planet-straddling information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure has created a global information economy at an ever-accelerating pace. A radically different model for competition and public policy for this infrastructure was introduced that is far sounder than its predecessor. More remarkably, countries agreed to rewrite the basic international agreements governing commerce for the communications and information infrastructure in a way that makes more sense than the consensus that was forged immediately after 1945.

For once, the transformation in governance and technology is not just a tale of the prosperous states doing better. These changes boosted the economic takeoff of India and China and other emerging powers, and also brought a much greater level of digital connectivity to the poor than anyone dreamed of in the late 1980s. Much remains to be done in poor countries, but an expanding record of successes now exists. For example, banking done over mobile phones (“m-banking”) is taking off faster in developing countries, which lack well-developed financial markets, than in wealthy countries.

This book explains how and why a combination of technological innovation, market strategies, and political entrepreneurship propelled …

Policy, Scenarios digital connectivity, global, globalization, markets, telecom

Has Divestiture Worked?
A 25th Anniversary Assessment of the Breakup of AT&T

This looks like a fascinating–albeit short–event. Three panel discussions and a great lineup of speakers on the agenda. If you’re in New York, I highly recommend going.

UPDATE: If you’re not in New York, here’s the link to the stream! (Excellent, thanks!)

Events, Network, Policy, Scenarios ATT, controlling network, divestiture, Network, telecom

One of the latest buzzwords in technology is cloud computing. In this scenario, the Internet is considered to be “the cloud.” The basic idea, roughly stated, is that we no longer need to rely on our local computer hard drives for everything–including software applications and storage. Now we can just log into various Internet-based services, use their applications, and store our documents on their servers.

Many examples of cloud computing are common and in use every day. On a personal level, MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn help you manage your contacts and address book (friends, colleagues), and Flickr helps manage and display your photo collection. On a business level, Google Docs and Zoho offer a suite of tools for writing, accounting, and much, much more.

We all know that technology is not perfect. Combined with human interaction, we get a system that can be surprisingly fragile. Cloud computing is one example of this.

I have had the frustrating experience (many times) of using–and coming to depend on–GoogleDocs for group writing projects. I always found it frustrating when, without prior notice, Google would implement changes in the user interface that complicated our group work; or when Google Docs had a service hiccup and our group’s documents became unavailable for some time.

Similarly, others are documenting problems. I wrote about Digital Eviction (on Digital ID Coach) a couple of weeks ago citing Phil Wolff’s Data Portability article that’s timely and relevant to this post about having growing pains in cloud computing. Phil’s post offers six actions that might be appropriate to address the problems that cloud computing are likely to create. Briefly, those include:

• Intervention with a back-up service
• Prevent and educate on graceful exit strategy
• Commit to adding appropriate language to contracts (EULAs and TOSs)
• Insure your digital assets
• Advocate for the little guy
• Enforce with real laws and penalties

As we are increasingly dependent on cloud-based service providers, recognizing the vulnerability of these services makes it more important than ever to create back-ups of our work. One place might be on our local hard drives. I urge you to do it now.

Content, Network, Policy, Scenarios backup, cloud computing, digital assets, SAAS, service providers, terms of service

Professor Jay Gillette, writing for Network World, picked up where I left off. Thanks Jay!

One of the most interesting papers from this conference was written by Robert Desourdis of SAIC. During the Emergency Communications and Disaster Management panel, he presented some of his thinking from this paper (pdf) . The part about 24 deficiencies? Why Pearl Harbor took the US Fleet by surprise, and not coincidentally how Sept. 11 happened, and Katrina’s response failures. It’s about who we are, collectively.

Finally, it’s worth noting that lots of communities are trying to take the “broadband” matter into their own hands. At the PTC ’09 final luncheon on Wednesday, Louis Zacharilla of The Intelligent Community Forum awarded seven community networking awards recognizing communities that display at least one (in most cases several) of these Intelligent Community Indicators. These are communities that were being passed by for high speed broadband connections, or communities whose leaders decided that they would make their network connections an economic priority. There are some good lessons here.

Events, Network, Scenarios behavior, communications, disaster management, intelligent communities, PTC09

Freedom to Connect: F2C09

This is David Isenberg’s Freedom to Connect (F2C09) conference, which will be held on March 30-31 in Washington DC. This year’s theme is the Emerging Internet Economy.

I’ve been to a few of his F2C confs and they’re a fascinating mix of Internet and telecom insiders talking on- and off-the record, engaging conversations, topped off by great food and outstanding music. His program for this year is amazing (again).

The registration fee is half-price this month, so it is timely to mention. Who attends and why? From his site:

F2C 2009 presents the people of the Internet who:

• enable economic growth,
• strengthen democracy,
• facilitate creativity and innovation,
• make the Earth greener, and
• lower the barriers that divide people.

F2C 2009 will tell the story of:

• on-line, network-enabled industry and culture, new jobs and sustainable growth
• Burlington VT, where muni fiber enables business, artistic endeavor, and new telemedicine
• how Lafayette LA’s community came together as it built its muni fiber network
• the twin cities of Cedar Falls and Waterloo, Iowa, where one twin has a muni net, and the other doesn’t
• how municipal CIOs are planning for Seattle, Portland and San Francisco municipal fiber networks
• city nets, wired and wireless, that didn’t work — what went wrong and what that teaches
• what Obama’s infrastructure and economic recovery plans mean for tomorrow’s network
• and more…

Events, Network, Policy, Scenarios collaboration, conference, economy, F2C09, fiber, telecom, telecommunications, Washington DC

Next session: The Future of Broadband Mobility. Ken Zita (KZ) moderates with speakers Jen-Hon Lin (JHL), Sachio Semmoto (SS), Yoshiyuki Takeda (YT), and Michael Tyler (MT).

Ken Zita:

How about let’s talk about 4G? Broadband mobility is where the future is going. Mobile phones are everywhere. This is about the fast change that affects the social fabric of the world.

The arrival of very high speed and all-IP mobile networks is imminent. “4G” will transform markets and mobile services paradigm worldwide. Ultrabroadband: 160-250MB/s down and 50MB/s up, commercial 2H09.

Impact of broadband on mobile business strategy? remains tied to legacy bandwidth economics” and is relatively untouched by economics of the Internet: switched to packet (open), shift to IP allows service creation of content service independent of access network. Gateways for media downloads vs mere transporters of bits (diff business models).

How will mobile biz models evolve with broadband? On-demand video, P2P, user-generated content and application downloads will displace basic access services (voice) for new revenue growth. Emerging financial models have more moving parts, less revenue certainty (ad hoc revenue events, on-demand content, connectivity, commissions and revenue sharing). Timing the transition of revenue is important. No “net neutrality” for mobile today.

Who owns what? How will network/device/content/brand/web storefronts evolve as mobile experience? Can mobile operators preserve closed ecosystem? Apple, Nokia, Google on integrated, vertical services. Mobile content without networks, who will build the next Apple store?

Search: speed to the handset is exciting but mobile search needs to evolve too. What is required to crate “meaningful” mobile search and net-centric mobile customers? Today, search is a drag. Contextualize with geography and who you are.

Operational challenges: service delivery involves controlling content thru middleware, or finding a way to stay relevant as consumers download content from off-network sites. Technology (networks, layers, content). Video hits local mobile network.

Can Asian mobile SPs globalize? North Asia is streets ahead of the rest of the world in mobile adoption, but past attempts by Japanese and Korean operators have failed. Big difference: mobile content strategies (opening up services), platform for delivering lifestyle services and knowledge uniquely appropriate to local market. Does network scale have a natural or optimal limit re: services that involve local market knowledge and customization?

What does it mean to create a “mobile Internet?”

YK: Widening world of mobile phones (various data types). DoCoMo’s challenge: communication to info access, life assistance, behavior assistance (personalization of services). Number of mobile phone subscribers growing, Mar ’08 is 102.72M. Ratio of 3G (chart w many countries) is high in Japan.

Frequency chart re: spectrum assignment, present and future (FDD (700-2GHz) and TDD (2-2.5GHz) systems. Devices and Mobile communication systems (illustration). Technology and market trends in Japan all trending higher in all bands, from fixed network services to LTE/Super3G and 4G. Deployment in layers over time, to ultimate status of Super 3G and 4G after 2020.

Trends of Next Gen Systems adopted by Carriers (chart). Change in business models of mobile from vertical integration to open systems (Android, G1 and iPhone, etc.)

JHL: Taiwan mobile market overview: 25.28M mobile users in Nov 2008, penetration 109.8%. Mobile revenue si 59.26% of total telecom market in 2007. Private telecom co, mible WiMax in 2007. Is a full service provider, 97% market share in fixed, mobile 35.5%.

Performance: Netbooks 99% market share, 93% Notebooks and motherboards (chart). Trends and opportunities: fiber to home, LTE/WiMax (converging).

Business model is key: connect to anyone at any time, any place, any devices; ubiquitous network society. Value of networks is proportional to number of subscribers. How could operators realize such value?

SS: The Future of Broadband Mobility

From 10 years ago: fixed broadband. Formed a company then, now sold and doing something else. Now: mobile operator mainly focus on broadband data service (estab. Jan 2005, two directors, lots of outside directors, 3K employees, $4B raised in financing). Now has >1M subscribers. Is different from incumbents: they are mobile company with voice service; his company is mobile broadband service.

Unique biz model: data centric strategy, unique netbook bundling marketing, mobile and fixed bundled service. Efficient network with low running cost, is price leader in mobile broadband service. Not stealing subscribers from incumbents: not stealing voice services, is all data, trending upward.

In PC market, we have created a new demand, “bundled sales of data card and net book.” “Special discounted price: $1-$200 US.” (Net books: ASUS, Acer, Dell, HP, Sony, Toshiba.) Targeting new users by clearly differentiating mobile phones and data. (chart with speed, monthly charge and other: fast speed with low monthly charge.) This is the key.

MT: Four Trends, Fundamental Change (no PowerPoint)

1. Big change in capability of mobile devices. Now powerful processors, versatile radio freq interface that can connect to variety of networks, including phone and data, also makes device mfgrs strategic players.

2. Network layer structure that’s visible to outside world. Implications: service creation not tied to circuit-switched network, or network fabric. Carriers that don’t merely want to carry bits will become app provicers; value on app platforms and tools, resources and tools that can be used.

3. Increasing role of downloading. Mobiles are looking more like the Internet. End-user chooses and uses devices and apps.

4. Emergency of boundary management: boundary between network operator management and outside world, open boundaries. Closed worlds not being successful commercially. Operator has resources at diff layers, other important apps: strong authentication services (to prevent theft of services).

Examples: Eqo (Vancouver) takes over phone book, does dialing via IP network; also provides IM function that is compatible with all major messaging systems.

Devices, Events, Identity, Network, Scenarios broadband, Devices, hand held, handhelds, mobile, mobile phone, net book, platform, PTC09

The link for this session is here.

J. Steven Rich will be introducing David Ball. Tedros Lemma and other planned speakers are missing.

David Ball: Satellite Services (and how they fit into next gen nets)

Satellites are integral: for unfettered access, to support mobility and ubiquitous services, to support critical services and apps, and in deployment for next gen networks (NGNs), esp in remote and rural areas where terrestrial infrastructure may be limited or non-existent.

Growth driver is in provisioning services. Trends in globalization and convergence.

Video apps: HD/SD channels growth, direct to home (DTH), mobile video (to vehicles, airplanes, cruiseships, mobile platforms). Data apps: cellular backhaul (e.g., Africa), Corporate Networks & VSAT services (VPNs, VoIP), mobile broadband apps for land/sea/air, and broadband (20-25M homes don’t have broadband access).

Video distrib world: 5-10 years ago: analog, mpeg2 or SD, thru 3 last mile operators to one consumer device. NOW: many apps, many formats, several last mile operators and networks, many consumer devices.

Mobility products: a new frontier. Maritime, aeronautical, disaster recovery, transport. Enterprise drivers for mobile satellite services: mobile staff, geo distribution, efficiency gains in operational settings, low terrestrial infrastructure availability, back-up and business continuity plans, increased awareness and connectivity (anywhere, anytime), etc.

Requirements are changing, and so are demands on spectrum for services. Challenge on regulators is increased demand, esp time-licensed devices, how to deal with unlicensed mobile devices.

WRC 07: World radiocommunication conference in 2007: many countries didn’t opt in, now a country by country battle, esp WiMax.

Regulation is crucial, esp in effective spectrum allocation issues. Unlicensed devices (radar detectors) have been regulated, point to point, directional requirements, need to balance users against each other. Regs can impact an entire industry plus existing users.

Satellite industry is continuing to increase awareness from regulators to users and device manufacturers. Spectrum security issue, analysis of spectrum interference.

Steve Rich: Next Gen Services

Past trend: FCC has become much more regulatory (VoIP) and eased back in other areas (wireline carriers). Other countries have seen deregulation est in standards and equipment authorization issues. Brand X ruling: cable is not a “telecom service” but was an “information service”. Decision upheld by Supreme court. Also FCC has authority to regulate info services.

IP-enabled services around how to regulate info services, including specified criteria. Most matters were regulated based on safety, carrier compensation, universal service and consumer protection.

Next decisions: Pulver’s Free World Dialup is info services. AT&T was only phone to phone via IP was phone service even if transport changed to IP. Vonage.

Wireline Broadband Reclassification Order: FCC changed reasoning because of Brand X, distinguished that carriers did not have to sell unbundled loops to CLECs.

VoIP e911 order in 2005: required intercarrier voice services to provide 911. Also VoIP CALIA orders are now treated as telecom providers with regard to lawful interception of services.

Other FCC holdings: CPNI order, consumer privacy rules now applied to VoIP providers. Also interconnected VoIP providers now required to provide 711 telecom relay services and contribute to fund. Interconnection: wholesale providers to VoIP were entitled to interconnection.

Video franchising: FCC limited local franchising authorities re: delay or conditions (thousands of jurisdictional differences among local governments). Verizon was already doing telecom, was granted permission to also carry IP-based video. No anti-redlining requirements.

Net neutrality: FCC issued non-binding policy statement to treat all packets the same. Was a problem recently for Comcast, who was engaged in deep packet inspection.

China: cut capital requirements for foreign investments, however formally classified audio-visual program services was prohibited.

Japan: Mutual Recognition agreement for manufacturers to obtain certification by both countries US and Japan, and Canada.

Korea: ban lifted on WIPI standards, other devices can now develop for that market.

US: new admin, new priorities (net neutrality). Global: fight over local v international standards.

Question: if we can regulate net neutrality, can we tax it? Fair point, not a great leap of imagination.

Events, Network, Policy, Scenarios PTC09