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March 30, 2004
Like, umm an information superhighway?
You'd think he would at least give Al Gore credit for the metaphor.
Bush's call in the speech for universal broadband by 2007 has gotten press attention, but not the second half of his sentence:
The good news is that Bush acknowledges that only with competition will broadband be affordable and a platform for innovation. The bad news is that he's for monopoly broadband by a date-certain three years from now, and competitive broadband "as soon as possible." Why do I suspect his administration will do more to achieve the first goal than the second one?
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Posted by Kevin Werbach at 12:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Get well soon, Stuart
Stuart Buck, author of a great paper
on spectrum commons, is in the hospital after suffering a stroke last
weekend. Stuart is 29 and was in apparently great health, so this
is quite a shock. The note on his blog from his wife is
encouraging. I wish Stuart a quick and full recovery.
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Posted by Kevin Werbach at 9:36 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
I'm still here
Just going through another one of those busy periods.
I'll have some interesting news about my future to report soon.
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Posted by Kevin Werbach at 8:18 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 24, 2004
Chicago Tribune on open spectrum
The Chicago Tribune has an article about
the FCC's various proposals to open up more wireless capacity, with
several quotes from me. The different aspects of open spectrum
get a bit muddled, such as the distinction between current initiatives
like the FCC's broadcast underlay proceeding and long-term proposals
like my supercommons idea. Still, it's good to see the big idea of open spectrum getting play in a mainstream newspaper.
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Posted by Kevin Werbach at 8:19 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 22, 2004
Treo all better!
As suddenly as it appeared, my Treo problems have suddenly
stopped. I brought it into my office this morning, and when I
took it out to call the replacement service, it was working fine.
I'll keep my fingers crossed that whatever happened has corrected itself
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Posted by Kevin Werbach at 10:22 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Treo woes
My beloved Treo 600 is suddenly on the fritz. It makes and
receives calls, but whenever I turn it off and on, it locks in the
keyguard mode. Shutting off keyguard didn't help, nor did soft
and hard resets. This is something serious. Time to call
the equipment replacement program, which fortunately I signed up for.
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Posted by Kevin Werbach at 6:46 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 19, 2004
CNet Acquires EDventure
My old boss, Esther Dyson, just announced
that she is selling her company to CNet. Reportedly, she and her
business partner Daphne Kis will stay involved. Even for someone
as prominent as Esther, it's tough to make it as an independent
publisher. I hope the merger works out well for everyone.
If nothing else, it will be a good topic for conversation at PC Forum,
which starts on Sunday.
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Posted by Kevin Werbach at 12:24 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 18, 2004
Gathering of the Treos
The Treo 600 was definitely the "in" device at this year's SXSW conference in Austin. I've had mine for five months, and I still love it.
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Posted by Kevin Werbach at 7:08 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 17, 2004
Internet Commons Congress
I'm speaking next week at the Internet Commons Congress
at the University of Maryland. The name is a bit over the top,
and I was hoping the organizers would be able to get more of the
thinkers defining the "commons" vision (like Yochai Benkler, Larry
Lessig, and Elinor Ostrom). Still it's an excellent group of
actvitists involved in the various battles to preserve an open and
vibrant digital commons.
The topics couldn't be more important. And registration is free.
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Posted by Kevin Werbach at 10:41 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 15, 2004
SXSW Wrap-up
I had a wonderful time at South By Southwest Interactive.
There was an unusually high concentration of people I know virtually or
have spoken with by phone, but had never actually met before in
person. It was an incredibly fertile environment. And kudos
to Hugh Forrest, Jon Lebkowsky, and the other organizers for giving
significant attention to open spectrum and other topics that aren't yet
widely appreciated.
Despite all this, I was disappointed by two things at the
conference. The first was the odd hostility of the venue to the
freewheeling, interpersonal networking that should be the hallmark of a
conference like this. There was the bizarre prohibition on
using power outlets (later rescinded), and a large number of volunteers
in every hallway whose job was to prevent you from walking into another
part of the conference. That's right, the "interactive" people
weren't allowed to talk with the "film" people. It often wasn't
obvious which rooms were in which territory, and at one point I
couldn't get to the speaker green room because it was on the wrong side
of the line.
SXSW has complicated multi-tiered registration rates, and evidently the
goal was to prevent people from getting more than they paid for.
Still, there's a little thing happening called "convergence."
It's odd for a tech-savvy festival about film, music, and interactive
communication to be erecting barriers between people.
My other disappointment was that most of the sessions just weren't that
exciting. The panel discussions didn't always do justice to the
people involved, and many of the topics felt a bit stale or cliched
(aka, How to Make Money with Blogs). Maybe I'm just jaded, or too
far ahead of the mainstream. There were some great sessions,
including the keynote by two of the organizers of MoveOn, and I had two
leave half-way through the four-day event. I just expected more,
given the reputation of the event and the people who were there.
Anyway, I hope to be back next year. And I left with a bunch of ideas for cool things to do at Supernova.
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Posted by Kevin Werbach at 10:36 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
650 million cameraphones a year
Alan Reiter points to
a research report suggesting that 150 million camera-enabled mobile
phones will be sold this year, growing to 650 million by 2008. At
that point, there will be something like a billion people sending
photos and video back and forth among mobile devices. And people
are wondering what all that Internet capacity will be used for?
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Posted by Kevin Werbach at 9:35 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 14, 2004
Cory sticks it to The Man
That's how Jason Calcanis
described the latest development in the gripping SXSW power outlet
saga. In short, following Cory Doctorow's call to arms on BoingBoing,
the conference organizers were able to get the ridiculous prohibition
on using power outlets rescinded, and the excessive limits on photos of
the sessions rolled back. Isn't the Net great?
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Posted by Kevin Werbach at 5:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Anti-attendee conference policies
Cory Doctorow takes the organizers and venue of the South By Southwest conference to task for attendee-unfriendly policies on videotaping and electricity outlets.
In this day and age, it's amazing that tech conferences still have
policies like this. It reminds me of the "no blogging" rules that
some high-end events still try to enforce. When I organize Supernova,
I see myself as an advocate for the attendees. I insist that we
have a working free WiFi connection, as many power outlets as we can
muster, free tools like group blogs and chat rooms for attendees to
communicate, and freedom for participants to report on what's happening
at the event. I can't imagine this will be anything but the norm
in the future.
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Posted by Kevin Werbach at 9:46 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 13, 2004
Views from Austin
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Posted by Kevin Werbach at 2:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
My Wireless Future presentation
The Powerpoint presentation for my keynote at the Wireless Future conference today is available here (1.6MB PPT).
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Posted by Kevin Werbach at 9:15 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
I made it
My flight from Philly last night was delayed because of a mechanical
problem. It looked like I was going to have to spend the night in
the beautiful Dallas/Ft. Worth airport area and catch an early flight
to Austin this morning. But somehow, despite leaving 90 minutes
late, we made up enough time in the air for me to make my
connection. And even better, the Omni Hotel, where I'm staying,
has free WiFi in all the rooms!
I'll be at SXSW in Austin through the end of the weekend. If you're here, give a shout. I'd love to meet up with as many cool people as possible.
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Posted by Kevin Werbach at 8:24 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 12, 2004
(Not so) deep in the heart of Texas
I'm off this afternoon to Austin, the funky college town that just
happens to be in the middle of Texas. I'm speaking at the Wireless Future conference, organized by Jon Lebkowsky and the other good folks at the IC2 Institute at the University of Texas.
I'm really looking forward to it. The organizers have managed to
rope in a wonderful group of visionary types to participate -- it will
almost be a Supernova
reunion! And there haven't been many conferences focused on the
radical possibilities of open spectrum and the various radical wireless
technologies now being deployed. My only regret is that I won't
be able to stick around longer, for the fabulous South By Southwest
music festival.
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Posted by Kevin Werbach at 6:49 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 11, 2004
FCC starts VOIP proceeding
The FCC has released its notice of proposed rulemaking on
voice over IP. The initial round of comments are due 60 days
after the notice is published in the Federal Register, which is usually
a few days after the official release.
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Posted by Kevin Werbach at 1:29 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 8, 2004
We have DSL!
For the past two weeks I've been moving into a new office, which is one
explanation for the relatively light blogging. The biggest pain
has been waiting for the DSL line to get hooked up. Trying to do
business with one phone line shared between voice and dial-up Internet
isn't a whole lot of fun.
The good news is that Verizon came today to provision the DSL
line. My router arrived from Covad the same morning. The
Verizon tech never even came up to my office, but I saw him drive away
so I figured I'd try plugging in the router. I ran through the
Covad set-up instructions, and I was online in ten minutes.
Woohoo!
Now comes the good part. I only ordered one regular voice line
because I'm planning to use VOIP over the DSL connection for most of my
office communications needs. With the broadband link in place, I
can get the virtual VOIP lines set up.
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Posted by Kevin Werbach at 10:53 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 4, 2004
Coursey's Spectrum Skepticism
David Coursey at ZDNet AnchorDesk picks up on our IEEE Spectrum article about the coming spectrum explosion.
David's job is to be cantankerous and pick fights. So I'm not offended by his comment that "My
immediate reaction to [the article] is, 'Keep dreaming.'" He
acknowledges that we make a convincing case; he's just skeptical the
spectrum-rich future we paint will arrive quickly or without
tradeoffs.
I'm not sure where exactly we disagree. The IEEE Spectrum article
isn't a lyrical vision of infinite bandwidth; it's a point-by-point
account of where the new capacity will come from, and why we're
confident it's coming. Even if you don't believe the more exotic
technologies we discuss, such as ultra-wideband, will have any
significant effect, there is still a huge amount of spectrum coming on
the market from simple FCC reallocations.
The kick from the unlicensed technologies will indeed take some time to
manifest itself fully. But that's like dismissing the Web in 1994
or WiFi in 1999. If we know that the wireless world is going to
be transformed, we shouldn't dismiss what's happening because the
process will take a few years.
I'm gratified that most of the comments to Coursey's column on the
ZDNet site defend our original article. It doesn't help Coursey
that he throws in red herrings like the risk of cancer from cell phones
and the problems with spectrum auctions. Our basic argument, that
more new wireless capacity will soon be made available than over any
comparable period in history, remains unrefuted.
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Posted by Kevin Werbach at 6:44 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 3, 2004
The Worst of Both Worlds
The DC Circuit Court of Appeals has overturned significant
portions of the FCC's Triennial Review order from last year. So,
essentially, we now have FCC Chairman Powell's policies for today's
networks, and Commissioner Kevin Martin's policies for
tomorrow's. This makes things even worse than before.
The best argument one could make for the majority's decision was that
UNE-P would foster some competitive entry in the absence of
line-sharing (which Powell wanted to keep) and open fiber
networks. The best argument for Powell's view (which I
reluctantly supported) was that the broadband fight was what really
mattered, so we can afford to let UNE-P die. For now, at least,
the DC Circuit has given us the worst of both worlds.
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Posted by Kevin Werbach at 8:35 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 1, 2004
Pew Survey highlights
Summary of findings from the latest Pew Internet & American Life project survey, this one focused on user creation of content.
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Posted by Kevin Werbach at 8:18 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Ringtones are 10% of the global music market?
So says UK research firm ARC Group. Evidently this is what will replace the revenues bleeding out of CD sales.
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Posted by Kevin Werbach at 8:17 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack