More Mbps, Less Money

The need for more and more business bandwidth is bumping up against the need for larger and larger cost savings. On the surface, it would seem an impossible situation. But look closer and there may be a way to meet both network performance and budgetary constraints.

There are really two approaches to optimizing bandwidth economics with little or no up-front investment. Both work and they are not mutually exclusive.

The first is strictly competitive. Telecommunication line contracts are based on monthly lease commitments for 1, 2 or 3 years. During the course of the contract term, the competitive landscape can change dramatically. What cost $1,000 a few years ago might be had for $500 or less today. That scales all the way from T1 voice and data lines up to optical carrier services. Can you save 25 to 50% or more by simply switching vendors? It's done everyday. The most dramatic savings are seen in areas that have only recently seen competitive carriers move in or in situations where contracts have been automatically renewed over and over with little or no price negotiation.

The second approach is to switch technologies. That may seem like a daunting prospect. After all, you've spend a lot of time stabilizing your network. The last thing you need is to throw some technical incompatibility into the mix.

But transport technologies are more compatible than you might think. Most network traffic today is based on packets. Ethernet packets to be precise. Older metropolitan and long haul networks were developed around telephone technology and based on digitized voice channels. There's no reason that a T1 or OC3 connection can't transport packets instead of voice streams. You've been able to get T1 and SONET data lines for years. To make this work, there is circuitry that performs a protocol conversion so that packet data can be sent as collections of bits the right size for the line technology and then reassembled at the other end.

All of this conversion from one network protocol to another happens transparently and so fast that you are unaware of it as a user. You know that you have a dedicated connection to the Internet or a private data pipe from point to point. How it all works is unimportant. Or is it?

A network designed from the ground up to be compatible with the core protocol that you are running is bound to have less overhead and be more efficient. That's the idea behind IP core networks and Carrier Ethernet. Competitive carriers without a legacy investment in telephony networks have been building out all-new IP networks serving regional areas and even the entire country. This is where you'll find Ethernet services for metro and long haul applications.

But does switching to Ethernet from TDM technologies like T1, DS3 and OCx really save anything. In many cases, yes. No, you won't be able to get a 10 Mbps Ethernet service for the same price as a traditional T1 line, but the cost per Mbps might be 1/3. It gets even more dramatic when you move up to 100 Mbps Fast Ethernet and 1000 Mbps Gigabit Ethernet. Depending on your location, Fast Ethernet even get you twice the bandwidth for less money overall than a standard DS3 service.

A third approach is to add hardware based bandwidth optimization to squeeze the most out of the lines you have. This is more of a trade-off arrangement versus an outright cost savings. There's a cost for the WAN optimization appliances that needs to be offset by the costs avoided by not upgrading to faster connections. If you are in a situation where it would be really expensive to move up the next bandwidth increment due to limited service choices, bandwidth optimization can buy you the breathing room you need for your business activities.

Empire Building With Text Messages

Have you dreamed of being a maven, a guru, master of a mighty empire? Do you savor the image of commanding your minions by the thousands no matter where they happen to be? Would you like to ensure that your hot "tip" or secret information is read while it still has value? Or do you simply want to be able to organize an event, make special offers to your clients, send important instant messages to all the employees, students, or members of your organization? What you need is group SMS texting.

Group, mass, or bulk text messaging all refer to the same thing. It's sending out one text message that is received by many people. You're used to standard SMS messaging. Just about any cell phone built in this century can send and receive text messages using SMS technology. SMS stands for Short Message Service. It's called short because you are limited to text messages of 160 characters or less. No blabbing on and on like you would on a blog (Ahem!) or email.

Up to three quarters of all cell phone users send and receive SMS text messages. It's so popular because it's available wherever you happen to be and doesn't need any special equipment beyond the keyboard and display on your cell phone. Any wonder while one-on-one texting becomes addictive?

If you want to send a message to many people at once, what do you do? The first thing that comes to mind is email. Like SMS text messaging, email is almost universally available. Everybody has a computer and an email program. But unlike cell phone texting, most people don't carry their computer with them. So email is hit and miss as far as timely delivery. They get your message when they get around to sitting at their computer. That could be way too late for what you wanted to share.

Some people can get email on their cell phones as well as their computers. But many don't have this service. Nearly everyone can receive and send text messages. Most have their cells turned on when they are out and about, so you should be able to get to them anytime, anyplace.

So, bulk SMS messaging is like bulk email? Yes and no. Yes, in that you only compose a message once and then push it out to dozens, hundreds or thousands of recipients. No, in that SMS hasn't become the spam infested cesspool that is today's Internet-based email. But you do need to be careful if you decide to get involved with any type of message broadcasting. If you think email users get flamed about junk mail, think about the passion welling up in the recipient of a cell phone user who just paid to receive an unwelcome message. I wouldn't want to be within arm's reach if I did that.

The way to get the benefits of mass messaging without the ugly backlash is to be respectful of your recipients and use a delivery service with a strong privacy and anti-spamming policy. One such service is Ez Texting. They have a system that makes it easy for you to compose and send out messages to your private mailing list from your computer at a low cost per message. It only allows verified opt-in subscriptions to protect your clients from cellular junk messages.

Who uses group text messaging? Ez Texting promotes their service to retailers who want to give back to customers with coupons and sneak preview sales. Restaurants can do the same thing with special discounts and comps or VP passes. Event marketers can get the word out on the next big happening. Schools can address the entire student body in minutes. Social groups can coordinate activities on a moment's notice. Real Estate Agents can let their clients know about new properties almost as soon as they come on the market.

To that list I'll add anyone who runs a Web site or other service dealing with information that goes stale quickly. Need to know where the celebs are? An immediate market opportunity? Crisis business meeting? Traffic congestion? Threatening weather? Criminal activity nearby? I'll bet you can think of a lot more. Where time is of the essence, group text messaging is likely the fastest way to get through. You can give it a try right now for free with Ez Texting.

Aggressive Passive Optical Networking

PON or Passive Optical Networking is proving to be a cost effective technology for establishing fiber to the premises for residential and business users. So fast is this technology developing that PON is blowing through standards almost as soon as they are released. The latest increment is 10 Gbps GPON being demonstrated by Ericsson. Do I hear 100 Gbps? How about Tbps?

Well, not so fast (so to speak). Bandwidth demands are certainly rising in home applications and business WAN networks. But the transition from wireline to fiber has really just gotten underway. Not that you'd know it by watching the development of PONs.

The big appeal of passive optical networks versus the active variety is capital expense. In a SONET or Ethernet fiber optic network the cable is passive but transmission, reception and control is done with active electronic circuits at every node. This results in fine increments of multiplexed bandwidths and support for a wide variety of protocols and upgrades. That's the beauty of optical fibers. Once the considerable cost of construction has been paid off, the possibilities for pressing bandwidth into service is almost limitless. It gives carriers a lot of flexibility but at a price.

The thing about residential broadband is that cost really matters. In fact, the daunting bill for replacing the sunk costs of the century old copper wire infrastructure with higher capacity fiber has held back the telcos, cable operators and competitive carriers alike, until just recently. PON changes the equation. PON doesn't make high bandwidth packet transmission cheap, but it does make it much cheaper.

It's the P in PON that does the trick. The passive designation means not just the cable, but the distribution system as well. There is an active Optical Line Termination or OLT at the central office. Each premises gets an ONU or Optical Network Unit, which is also an active electronics box. In between everything else is practical. Passive optical splitters divide the fiber beam from the main line to multiple drops. There are typically 32 drops from a single trunk line, although that can vary from more to fewer depending on the length of the lines.

Then there are the PON standards. The first was APON or ATM based Passive Optical Networking. ATM or Asynchronous Transfer Mode is a technology based on small cells instead of large packets. It was primarily for business applications.

Next is BPON or Broadband Passive Optical Networking. This ITU-T G.983 standard offers downstream and upstream speeds of 155 (OC3 bandwidth) or 622 Mbps (OC12 bandwidth).

Speeding this up further is GPON or Gigabit Passive Optical Networking, standardized as ITU-T G.984. GPON offers downstream speeds of 1.25 Gbps and 2.5 Gbps. Upstream speeds supported are 155 and 622 Mbps, plus 1.25 and 2.5 Gbps.

The EPON or Ethernet Passive Optical Networking standard is supported by IEEE 802.3ah and offers 1.25 Gbps both upstream and downstream.

Now comes 10 Gbps GPON offering 10 Gbps of passive optical networking or 4x the capacity of GPON. There is also a 10GEPON. That's 10 Gigabit Ethernet Passive Optical Networking now in development under IEEE 802.3av. Seems like that should be enough for now, but with 100 Gbps core networks being demonstrated and 40 Gbps being deployed by long haul carriers, 100 Gbps GPON may not be that far in the future.

The mad dash for fiber optic deployment is having a beneficial effect of reducing the cost per Mbps for Ethernet WAN business users as well as residential broadband/television/telephone users. Just in time, too, as video and other high bandwidth application are sucking up packet speed as fast as it becomes available.

Medicine in the White Spaces

The drooling is well underway for whatever bones of the old VHF and UHF analog television service aren't already picked clean. The telcos, AT&T and Verizon, have already gobbled up the juiciest morsels of the 700 Hz spectrum that weren't already allocated for digital TV broadcasting. No one is going near the frequencies reserved for public safety service. Instead, everybody now wants in the cracks and crevices known as "white spaces" between the powerful signals of commercial television transmitters. That includes all that wireless medical equipment they hook you up to in the hospital.

Medical telemetry, also known as biotelemetry, refers to medical equipment that uses wireless data links. One popular use is wireless cardiac monitors that keep track of patients' heartbeat activity without tethering them to a bedside monitoring unit. It can also include a wide variety of hospital equipment including imaging, scanning, ultrasound and more. Just about anything that isn't voice and video and is designed for medical application fits the definition.

As it turns out, medical telemetry has already staked out its claim in the UHF TV band. Channel 37, covering the frequencies between 608 and 614 MHz, has been used since 2000 for this purpose.

But how can that be? DTV is just getting going in a big way and all the old analog transmitters are still running full bore. I thought white space transmissions were something that would spring up when the analog channels go dark next February?

Turns out that the FCC established the Wireless Medical Telemetry Service (WMTS) on three bands in June of 2000. Two of those are in the microwave region of the spectrum that were originally assigned for government use but no longer needed for that purpose. The other is 608 to 614 MHz, also known as TV channel 37.

But what happened to the TV stations on channel 37? There weren't any. Channels 37 was reserved for radio astronomy work. Since radio telescopes are few and far between, the channel can be shared between radio astronomers and hospitals with only rare situations of interference. So, in a way, medical telemetry is already in the white spaces.

Medical telemetry is one of the existing applications threatened by proposals to turn the TV white spaces into wireless Internet broadband, cellular backhaul, or other services yet to be conceived. Since only channel 37 is assigned to WMTS, one way to avoid trouble is to have white space transmitters include a spectrum mask to prevent transmissions on channel 37, plus one channel to each side for additional protection. The proposed white space transmitters would have to avoid channels being used for TV transmissions in a particular location anyway, so this is just a slight further constraint.

Medical electronics is a rapidly advancing technology that gobbles up bandwidth of all types, including wireless and wireline and fiber optic connections. Medical imaging alone needs all it can get to enable transmission of large image files in seconds, not hours. Compared with the requirements of CAT scan and MRI equipment, patient monitoring is currently a fairly narrowband operation. But with future advances, even this activity may need all the white space or other bandwidth it can get.

DOCSIS 3.0 Fiberizes Cable Broadband

Cable MSOs (Multiple System Operators) have been left grinding their teeth as Verizon's FiOS fiber to the home service blows away the broadband capabilities of coaxial TV cable. Well, perhaps not for long. A new upgrade to the DOCSIS cable broadband standard enhances digital download speeds right into fiber optic download territory - without the FTTH connection.

DOCSIS is the acronym for Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification, the standard for cable modems. In order for cable broadband to work on a systems designed for analog television signals, DOCSIS uses one or more standard TV channels on the download side. The upload channels have to do something different than normal TV reception requires. They have to send information in the reverse direction, from customer premises modem back to the cable head end. To avoid a collision with all those signals coming down, the upstream connection uses frequencies below the TV band.

Cable systems have been running DOCSIS version 1.0, 1.1 or 2.0. They are all based on using a single 6 MHz standard TV channel to carry about 40 Mbps in the downlink direction. Now, 40 Mbps sounds like pretty decent bandwidth if you could get it. But you can't. That 40 Mbps has to be shared between you and all your neighbors. Up to 1,000 of them all getting the same feed on the same channel. Across town, other users are sharing a different channel.

This level of oversubscription explains why your connection speed varies so much. What you experience at any moment in time depends on how many other users are online and whether they are casually surfing the web or downloading videos.

Network performance can be improved by increasing the number of channels available to serve cable modems and assigning fewer users per channel. But to really goose up the bandwidth, you need wider channels. Wider channels don't play with the TV system, but you can bond channels together to combine their bandwidths. It's philosophically similar to bonding channels to increase bandwidth on T1 business lines. That's what the DOCSIS 3.0 specification does. It provides for bonding up to 10 channels of 40 Mbps each for a total of around 400 Mbps. There is a possibility that this could be expanded to 1 Gbps or more in the future.

So, there's no fiber involved? This is done all over standard coax cable? Actually, there is fiber involved behind the scenes. Most cable systems are designed around a combination of fiber optic cable distribution to neighborhood nodes and then copper coaxial cable the premises. This is a HFC or Hybrid Fiber/Coax system. From the customer's point of view it doesn't matter. the customer connection is a F connector on a RG-6/U cable.

The network performance, however is very fiber-like. If your computer says you're connecting at 40 to 50 Mbps it's hard to tell without looking if there is a fiber optic cable plugged into the back of that modem or not. Some Comcast cable customers may have DOCSIS 3.0 by the end of this year.

There are now three competing systems designed to increase broadband Internet access speeds for residential users. FTTP or Fiber to the Premises is the system chosen by Verizon. It's a pure fiber optic network from central office to the user. AT&T is taking a different approach of FTTC or Fiber to the Curb. From there a high speed DSL connection carries the signal into the premises over telephone line. Cable operators use the HFC or Hybrid Fiber/Coax with fiber to neighborhood nodes and then conventional TV cable into the premises.

It seems logical that all-fiber networks are going to have the highest ultimate bandwidths eventually. But for now, the hybrid networks of fiber & telephone wiring or fiber & coaxial cable are doing a good job keeping up with the steady advance of premium service bandwidth.

MAN Up

Is wimpy network performance your problem? Has productivity slowed to a crawl because zippy LAN performance is hobbled by too many users trying to get data in and out of the company through that neck of a funnel known as the WAN interface? Are you afraid to walk through the bullpens for fear of the angry stares and derisive comments about IT holding everybody back? If so, it's time to MAN up!

It's not that you need to grow a backbone... Actually it is. The frame relay or T1 connection that served you so well when most information was transmitted via paper, and the mail room served as a network router, has seen its glory days. The pace of activity and the volume of data flowing to customers, vendors and other company sites has tapped out these connections. A constant bandwidth of 1.5 Mbps might have seemed generous, even a bit wasteful, a decade or two ago. Now it's like connecting a soda straw of a WAN to a fire hose of a LAN. It will take a bigger MAN to do the job today.

The MAN for the job is the Ethernet MAN or Metropolitan Area Network. You might not be familiar with this MAN. The Ethernet MAN has come from obscurity to be the hottest ticket in town in only a few years. Ethernet MAN has taken on the incumbent SONET MAN and is winning over businesses left and right. You may not have wanted anything to do with SONET MAN. Incumbent telcos have had a lock on most SONET services and kept the pricing beyond what all the the largest organizations can afford. Ethernet MAN comes into town with two big competitive advantages from competitive carriers. One is Ethernet and the other is price.

Ethernet in point to point and multipoint metro networks makes the connection to your corporate LAN almost trivially easy. The outside line terminates in an Ethernet jack and you just plug-in your switch or router. There's no need to worry about protocol conversions or specialized terminal equipment. It really is Ethernet, just like you use internally.

Ethernet also offer dramatic cost reductions in many cases. SONET can provide dozens, hundreds, or thousands of Mbps. But can you afford it? With Ethernet, you'll most likely find that you can afford to upgrade from that 1.5 Mbps T1 to a 10 Mbps Ethernet connection. Perhaps you'll even be able to justify a 100 Mbps Fast Ethernet connection. That's over twice the bandwidth of DS3 service, but not twice the price. Maybe less, considerably less, than a single DS3 connection.

Need even more bandwidth? Gigabit Ethernet MAN is for you. Of course, you'll need a building that is "lit" for fiber optic service to get 1,000 Mbps. But not necessarily at the lower speeds. Many 10 Mbps connections are provided as Ethernet over Copper, using the same twisted pair telco lines that you already have installed for lower speed services.

Now that you know the advantages of Ethernet service in metro areas, there's really only one thing left to do - MAN up now for higher bandwidth. You'll wish you had done it sooner.

Moving On Up To The Fast Side

You've heard the one about what a snail says while riding on the back of a turtle? "Wheeeeeee!"

Well, that turtle is the current state of broadband deployment in the world. We in the United States are that snail. If we could actually take the ride, the sheer velocity would be breathtaking. So far behind the bandwidth leaders are we.

But now comes a glimmer of hope. The FCC has upped the ante of broadband definitions in its recent report and order regarding broadband data collection. The existing standard that defined broadband as 200 Kbps and above is being replaced by a new set of broadband tiers. The set of service speeds from 200 Kbps to 768 Kbps will be known as First Generation data. That's another way of saying legacy or antique broadband service. Kinda like the way those early 300 and 1200 baud modems seem so quaint now.

Basic broadband is being stepped up to include speeds of 768K to 1.5 Mbps. That includes such services as entry level DSL and Satellite Internet service, EVDO cellular data, and business T1 lines. Nothing wrong with basic broadband. It's just right for things like email, general Web browsing, and video clips on the go. Looks like Apple just scooted under the wire with their 3G iPhone upgrade. The old EDGE service doesn't make the basic broadband definition.

The next tier up is 1.5 to 3.0 Mbps, followed by 3.0 to 6.0 Mbps, and then 6.0 Mbps and above. While that probably covers the vast majority of residential and small business users, it also says something about the status quo of broadband in America. You might think that anything above 6 Mbps is so outrageously fast that there is no need for further definition until technology advances to challenge the great frontier beyond.

Ironically, that day is already here. The lucky few consumers (potentially few millions) who have access to Verizon's fiber optic service called FiOS start with a download speed of 5 Mbps, with upgrades to as fast as 30 Mbps, and soon 50 Mbps. Even 100 Mbps is in the testing phase.

Corporations, who have been primarily served by 1.5 Mbps T1 lines, now have the option of upgrading to Ethernet service in the 10 to 100 Mbps range from competitive carriers. That's just for those who are limited to delivery on copper wire. If lit for fiber optic service, available speeds go to at least Gigabit Ethernet at 1,000 Mbps.

The rest of the world will probably continue to point and laugh at our pitiful excuse for Internet access. The Japanese and South Koreans can afford to yuck it up. Their broadband speeds average 61 and 45.5 Mbps respectively. They also make a lot of electronic devices that we've forgotten how to build. Sigh!

It's nice to see that the broadband snail is starting to make its move. But if we are going to regain our place as a technology leader in the world, we're going to have to go beyond turtle and start thinking about rabbit speeds. How about GigE as a baseline service to every home and business? That would get things moving, wouldn't it? Then Internet users from other countries could come over here and say: "Wheeeeee!"

100 GigE in the Long Run

Long haul fiber optic networks, including core networks for regional and national carriers, are headed up in bandwidth capacity as Internet and private networking users keep demanding more and more Gbps. The most recent upgrades have been to 40 Gbps. But XO Communications and Infinera are getting ahead of the curve by demonstrating 100 Gigabit Ethernet on the XO long-haul DWDM network.

The reason for the partnering of the two companies is that there are two pieces to the puzzle. You need a long haul network with the inherent capacity to carry the signals. XO is a leading competitive carrier with that kind of capacity. You also need equipment that can make good use of available network capacity. That's what Infinera specializes in.

Infinera creates a 100 Gbps transport network by concatenating ten 10 Gbps fiber wavelengths. DWDM or Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing offers up to 160 individual wavelengths, also known as lambdas, on a single optical fiber. When all wavelengths are pressed into service, the total capacity is 1.6 Tbps or Terabits per second of bandwidth. We're not at the point of needing quite this much just yet. But if video streams keep multiplying the way they have been, that type of network capacity is not too far fetched.

Infinera is also providing a service known as bandwidth virtualization. Philosophically similar to server virtualization, this is a technique that decouples bandwidth services from whatever the underlying transport infrastructure happens to be. Bandwidths can be deployed at rates from 1 Gbps to 100 Gbps using protocols such as Ethernet, SONET/SDH, or wavelengths. Without bandwidth virtualization, the network you've installed dictates the type of service available.

All of these capabilities are contained in the Infinera DTN system, a transport chassis containing a band mux module, digital line module, tributary adaptor module and management control module. A full bay provides 800 Gbps of capacity. Infinera and XO Communications are using this equipment to demonstrate long haul 100 GigE service at NXTcomm08 this week. A 100 Gigabit/sec Ethernet signal is injected into the Infinera DTN in Las Vegas, transported to Los Angeles on the XO network, and looped back to Las Vegas where it is recovered and monitored.

Thanks to advances by companies like Infinera and XO Communications, Gigabit Ethernet for business use is no longer something to dream about. It's now readily available in major metropolitan areas with very attractive lease rates. Standard 10 Mbps and Fast 100 Mbps Ethernet is available to many more businesses using fiber optic or Ethernet over Copper last mile connections.

Philly Stake With WiFi...Mmm

What's the best tasting action in Philly? It's an investment stake in citywide WiFi and it's got a lot of mouths watering in Philadelphia.

Seems a bit hard to swallow, seeing as Earthlink just bailed on a similar metropolitan wireless system in the very same city. This isn't a duplicate effort. It's the same system under new ownership. A group of local investors believes that they can succeed where Earthlink failed. Seems a bit nervy until you look at the details of their plan.

First of all, access will be free to consumers. Well, that certainly quiets all the grumbling about having to pay twenty bucks a month for spotty coverage. Philadelphia Internet users were lukewarm, to say the least, to the original Wireless Philadelphia service plans. You could get a reduced rate of half that by proving hardship under the Digital Inclusion plan. But even that much can be a barrier for the economically disadvantaged.

Free is much better. Who is going to complain about free? The obvious question, though, is who is going to foot the bill for all this free service?

The answer is a combination of paid access for business users and advertising for everyone else. The press release also mentions integrated wired and wireless access for larger users such as hospitals, universities and corporations. There may very well be enough profit in high bandwidth and converged network services to foot the bill for all the laptop users sitting on park benches and students researching their homework assignments.

Whatever shortfall there is from business and organizational payers is expected to be covered by advertising revenue. Access to the system is via network controlled landing pages that can easily be populated with ads as well as information of local interest. If done well, this could be quite lucrative. After all, the lure of free service is going to result in tens if not hundreds of thousands or more visitors every day. That's advertising space worthy of newspaper and TV types of advertisers.

Wireless Philadelphia is off to a running start with their ambitious Internet service plans. Earthlink had already built the lion's share of the network before they decided it was financially unworkable under their pay-for-access plans. The new operators have only to finish the job to provide complete coverage and get going on their services to business users.

How well this all works out remains to be seen. Civic pride by businesses and other community leaders with a stake in its success are certainly important in getting the revenue stream going. There is also a civic improvement aspect to including those who are always left foundering in the wake of technical progress. There have already been initiatives in Philadelphia to donate both refurbished laptops and Internet access to families in need.

With the recent FCC feelers about establishing free public-access wireless Internet service nationwide, the time for universal broadband does seem to be at hand. When seen in the context of improving the educational base of a city or the nation, with higher level skills leading to more employment opportunities and less need to put people on the dole, municipal broadband could be considered an investment that will pay back in years ahead. Education alone could justify public support as a way of modernizing our school systems. But in these tight economic times, a cleverly managed citywide WiFi network that is designed to pay its own way while providing free public access is a very appetizing solution indeed.

Aktino Sends 90 Mbps Down Copper Line

New technology is making a mockery of the notion that you need fiber optic cable to transport DS3 or Carrier Ethernet beyond the local area network. The latest amazement comes from Aktino, the Irvine, California company that builds carrier equipment designed to get higher performance from conventional unshielded twisted pair copper loops. They are now able to deliver DS3 bandwidth (45 Mbps) or over 90 Mbps of Carrier Ethernet bandwidth over a CSA (Carrier Serving Area) of 12,000 feet. This covers many business and cell tower locations that would otherwise be out of luck for high bandwidth connections.

Bandwidth is becoming a hot commodity for business and consumer applications as diverse as medical imaging, IPTV & video transport, engineering data transmission and telepresence. The cellular carriers are currently in a hotly contested race to see who can build out 3G networks and then be first with 4G capabilities. All of these advances are threatened by limitations on the metro and wide area network infrastructure that is geared to voice and modest speed data transmission. While there are many buildings in large metropolitan locations that area already "lit" for fiber optic service, that includes few cell tower sites and only a minority of businesses who want more bandwidth.

Fiber optic transmission offers nearly unlimited amounts of bandwidth, but it is no panacea. The cost per Mbps of bandwidth is extremely attractive from competitive carriers in lit locations. But if you aren't already served with fiber bandwidth, the cost of the construction to get those high bandwidths at low monthly lease cost can make the project unacceptably expensive. That can be the case in both densely built-up areas and in smaller towns or rural locations.

What broadband over copper does is extend the range of fiber optic networks to provide connections thousands of feet, perhaps several miles away. Nearly every location in the country is served by copper telephone wiring. You'll find a couple pair to every home, and larger binders with multiple pairs to business locations. Most are within a radius of 18,000 or less from the nearest telco central office. The majority are much closer than that. What's needed is a means to connect the fiber carriers to locations by using the conventional twisted pair copper already in place.

That's what Aktino specializes in. They connect to those cables with equipment that employs both DMT and MIMO technology to transmit far high bandwidths that you could get with the standard digital over copper transmission method of T1 lines. T1 is limited to 1.5 Mbps, but lines can be bonded to create larger bandwidths up to 9 Mbps or so. To get to Ethernet and DS3 bandwidths, you need technology that squeezes even more capacity out of those copper lines.

DMT or Discrete Multi Tone modulation makes use of many simultaneous carrier frequencies to carry more bits at one time. An advantage of DMT is that it is resistant to interference from other signals that might be present in binder groups, which are 23 to 100 bundles of copper pairs commonly used to consolidate telephone wiring on the way to the central office. If one channel is blocked by interference, the data can be shifted to others that are clear.

MIMO or Multiple Input Multiple Output technology is familiar as a wireless antenna system used for routers and planned for WiMAX to increase transmission bandwidth in environments where there is interference. By using 8 copper pair, with MIMO keeping their signals from causing cross-talk interference, the carrying capacity of ordinary copper phone line can be greatly increased.

It's the combination of DMT and MIMO using multiple pairs of UTP copper, typically 8 pair, that gives Aktino systems the ability to provide 90+ Mbps of asymmetrical bandwidth or 50 Mbps of symmetrical bandwidth over longer distances than you'd expect with FTTC (Fiber to the Curb) technology. This is good news for carriers needing 3G and 4G cellular backhaul and businesses who are running out of network capacity and need affordable DS3 and Carrier Ethernet bandwidth.

Recycle Your Old iPhone For Cash

Early adopters and power users are just under a month away from getting the new iPhone 3G. The addition of faster cellular data networking, nearly as zippy as the WiFi hotspot experience, plus true GPS, corporate email & third-party application support makes it a definite improvement over the initial iPhone release. So much so that anyone who desperately needs the upgraded functionality or just wants to ride on the cutting edge will find it almost impossible not to trade up. But, oh, the cost. What can you do to take some of the sting out of buying the iPhone you wanted all along, when you've already spent a small fortune on the earlier model?

The latest information I've found about upgrading to the 3G iPhone is that AT&T plans to offer you a trade-in if you bought your iPhone on or after May 27 and it is in like new condition. According to one report, you'll get your money back less a 10% restocking fee when you buy and activate a new 3G iPhone. Sounds like a pretty good deal if you go in to an AT&T store between July 11 and August 1 and haven't lost your original packaging or receipt, or scratched the phone.

But what if you are a true early adopter who stood in line to get one of the first iPhones and would gladly do the same again. You can certainly do that and buy yourself a 3G model. But you won't get a trade-in deal. So, now what do you do? Put it in a glass display case to admire? Toss it in a drawer like the fate of most unneeded cell phones? Try to sell it in a newspaper ad or auction it on eBay?

Here's another option. Recycle your iPhone for cash.

Now, just a second. Who wants to send a beauty like the iPhone to the recycling crusher? Relax. That iPhone is still worth decent money to a company that recycles newer technology phones for use overseas. How much money? I just checked the prices paid and, as of this writing, your 16 GB iPhone will get you $280. The 4 GB and 8 GB models will net you $100. You get a free postage paid mailer, send in your unwanted phone and charger, and you get check back in the mail.

You almost always get more if you sell your old unwanted cell phones as soon as you take them out of service. A cell phone gets stale faster than a carton of milk. But that doesn't mean that those dusty old cells aren't worth recycling. In the first two years, you can probably get paid something for just about any model phone. The higher tech smartphones bring more than the garden variety entry-level phones as you would expect.

The real oldies that were once goodies may not have a cash value anymore, but you can still send them in at no cost. Why do that? Mobile electronic devices contain goodly amounts of toxic chemicals used in their manufacture. Lead, cadmium and arsenic are just a few. Tossing one or two in the landfill won't create a public health hazard, but pitching tens or hundreds of millions of them is a real threat. Those minor amounts of toxic waste combine to degrade the environment for future generations.

Instead of just pitching that old junker phone, send it to the recycler and know that it will be dismantled and the materials recovered for reuse or proper disposal. It gets the clutter out of your house or business and you're doing a good thing.

You're intrigued by the thought of getting money for that stack of retired cell phones that your family or employees have accumulated, aren't you? Well, find out now how much your old wireless device is worth and then get paid to recycle them.

The Marauding Elephant Network

In the Laikipia district, near the Mount Kenya Forest in Africa, farmers are nervously alert. Danger lurks from the forest. One never knows when an attack may come. With little warning, one could lose valuable crops, livestock or even one's life. Not to guerrilla insurgents or government troops. This is not a military situation. The marauders are elephants. They emerge from the forest wreaking havoc at random. When farmers hear the whistling sound of their approach, they do the only thing that makes sense. They activate their marauding elephant communications network.

The root of this problem is the age-old conflict of man versus nature. In the centuries when there were few humans and a seemingly unlimited bounty of nature, humanity could clear out a niche and protect it by whatever means necessary. But we overdid it. Species after species has been wiped off the face of the Earth or nearly so, as we slashed, burned, and settled our way to an accelerating population currently over 6.6 billion. Only now are we coming to our senses to realize that conquering nature and destroying it diminishes us as a species and ruins a irreplaceable heritage.

From the elephant's perspective, it is we who are intruding on their ancient habitat and defacing the land with our agriculture and settlement. The 5,000 remaining members of the herd live in the Mount Kenya Forest, a national park and forest reserve. It is also a United Nations UNESCO World Heritage Site that has garnered international interest in preserving it. The African elephants themselves are highly intelligent and social creatures that deserve the right to a decent and natural existence.

So, what can help people and elephants co-exist in a situation where both want to occupy the same territory? Technology comes to the rescue in the form of an electronic communications network that farmers can use to warn each other and the Kenya Wildlife Service when elephants threaten. In this case, it's a special PTT or Push to Talk cellular phone system. In the United States, Nextel is known for PTT service on their IDEN network. The African PoC or Push to Talk on Cellular uses the international GSM cellular standard. Handsets can be used for standard phone calls and text messages as well as PTT group communications. Precious communications resources will likely be conserved, however, as places to recharge the handsets are few and far between in this area.

More rapid communications helps farmers stay out of the way of any marauding elephants and lets them alert the Kenya Wildlife Service in time to respond to the threat. This gives the farmers a way to protect their lives and property without getting into conflicts with the elephants that can be fatal to either party.

The GSM PoC communications system is among a variety of techniques that help people and elephants peacefully coexist. One clever low tech solution is for farmers to plant chillis around the perimeters of their fields. Elephants hate chillis, which helps to keep them out of the fields. The chillis can then be turned into hot sauces and seasonings that are sold as Elephant Pepper products.

Another approach to protecting wild animals, such as elephants, is to create sanctuaries where they can live without fear of poaching or intrusion by humanity. The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust conserves elephants and rhinos in Kenya and has a program where you can foster an orphan elephant. The Amboseli Trust for Elephants protects elephants in the Amboseli area of Kenya and is a leader in scientific research regarding elephants.

In the United States, The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee and the Performing Animal Wildlife Sanctuary (PAWS) offer care and protection in a natural setting for elephants that are too old or otherwise unwanted by circuses and zoos. Both have web cams that let you view the elephants and their activities from anywhere you have a computer and a broadband connection.

Many Wavelengths to Serve You

What happens when you max out the capacity of your network but still need more bandwidth? You have to go with a faster network, right? You may have to go with faster NIC (Network Interface Cards) and Ethernet switches for every node. What you don't want to do is run out of capacity on your lines. When you've got all you are going to get out of your structured wiring system, it gets expensive, really expensive, to upgrade that network. But what if you could just add some more signals into those same cables and multiply the bandwidth 32 or even 160 times? If your network is fiber optic based, you can do just that.

The magic is in a process called WDM or Wavelength Division Multiplexing. We think of fiber optic networks as having a beam of light at one end and a receiver at the other. The transmission electronics modulates a laser beam with our data stream and a photodiode at the other end converts the modulated light back into electrical pulses. What WDM does is send multiple beams down the same fiber optic cable in parallel. Two beams gives you 2x the capacity, four beams gives 4x, and so on. This process is so well developed that you can send 16 to 160 separate beams simultaneously to support enormous bandwidths.

Fiber optic networks are much faster than copper-based networks to begin with. Gigabit Ethernet over copper can be a challenge within an office environment. Forget long haul. T3 is the highest of the copper T-Carrier systems at 45 Mbps and is usually only deployed over a few miles. T1 lines can reach out to just about any distance using regenerators, but the bandwidth is limited to 1.5 Mbps. Compare that to typical long haul fiber bandwidths of OC-48 at 2.5 Gbps or OC-192 at 10 Gbps. Some carriers are upgrading their core rates to the OC-768 level of 40 Gbps.

In the world of copper transmission lines, frequency division multiplexing (FDM) is the equivalent of fiber optic WDM. FDM is what Cable TV companies use. Each channel has its own carrier and occupies its own narrow band of frequencies in the spectrum. More than 100 standard TV channels of 6 MHz each can be carried on a typical cable system. Some of these channels are assigned to broadband Internet services rather than television transmissions.

Wavelengths are also different frequencies which, in the optical (including infrared) parts the spectrum, represent different colors. They are also called lambdas after the Greek letter representing wavelength. Light split from a prism demonstrates that many different colors can exist simultaneously in a single beam without interference.

There a two general categories of WDM. CWDM or Coarse Wavelength Division Multiplexing uses up to 16 different wavelengths within an individual single mode fiber strand. DWDM or Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing uses up to 160 wavelengths in a fiber strand and requires more precisely controlled lasers. But at 10 Gbps capacity per wavelength, a system with 160 wavelengths offers well over a Terabit/second bandwidth.

WDM schemes are found in long haul carrier core networks where the cost of installing hundreds or thousands of miles of fiber optic cable far exceeds the cost of new electronics to increase capacity by adding more wavelengths on the same fiber. WDM or CWDM is also installed on dark fiber when customers need the extra capacity in metropolitan (MAN) networks.

Thanks to WDM and competitive carrier build-outs, fiber optic bandwidth is more affordable than ever. That's especially true for the new Ethernet over fiber services available to businesses in major metropolitan areas.

Agony of the Cell Phone Shopper

Do you enjoy pain? Then treat yourself to a day shopping for cell phones. Motor directly to the closest big name carrier store and let them have at you for a couple of hours. Then drive around till you find the next one and repeat the experience. If you have time left after you've canvassed all the carrier stores, and can still move under your own power, then visit an electronic retail store or two. On your way home, refill that tank of gas you drained during your pilgrimage and relax with a nice bag of ice on your forehead. Why that funny look on your face? You didn't even buy anything, did you?

That's the pleasure of conventional cell phone shopping. A recent study by J.D. Power and Associates shows a general undertone of dissatisfaction with the wireless retail sales experience. Leading the slide were the four horsemen of shopping misery - sales staff, store display, store facility and price/promotion. Not mentioned in the study, but fast becoming a major factor in all shopping decisions, is the fifth horseman known as gas prices. Just how far afield are you willing to go searching for the perfect phone when you can almost hear the liquid gold being sucked through your fuel injectors?

Avoiding horseman number five may wind up permeating everything we do. As the price of gas shoots right past $4 a gallon, perhaps on its way to a full fin, every news program is riddled with stories about our shock & awe and how fast we're changing our habits to cope. A common practice now is to combine shopping trips into a few well planned bursts instead of ambling all over town to compare products and check prices.

Another approach is to just stop shopping altogether... at least in the physical world. With a Web browser and a broadband connection you can shop for just about anything and not spend of drop of fuel. If you're careful, you can even avoid paying for the fuel used to bring the product to your door.

Shopping for cell phones and plans online offers other advantages as well. Let's see how it deals with those four reported shopping dissatisfiers. First, you won't have to contend with the sales staff because there is no salesperson guarding the gate. You browse in, look around to your heart's content taking as much time you want, and browse right back out if you wish. This gives you time to look at various pictures of all the phones, read the detailed specs that are never on display in the stores, check the pricing and compare one carrier's offerings against the others.

If and only if you want help, you click on a link to ask questions or otherwise get assistance. Or call a toll free number to hear a human voice. Compare that to fending off an overly eager commissioned "associate" who is all over you within seconds of crossing their threshold. It's not that store sales people don't mean well. It's just that they are so darn motivated to sell something and not always thoroughly versed in the nuances of their product line. Don't even think about asking for a fair comparison with a competing carrier's product. That's just begging for it.

Store displays are somewhat hit and miss, providing their contribution to customer dissatisfaction. Not all models are necessarily mounted for your viewing pleasure. Some are in-stock. others aren't. The really big fancy displays are the phones that are being heavily promoted. Even these only offer a limited number of bullet points. You have to think to ask for further detail and probably wait while someone looks up the information.

Compare that to the online experience where the virtual world offers enough space so that every phone model available can get a full photo and text display. You can even search out user reviews to see what people who bought the phone really think of it. Go ahead and ask for user reviews in a store. Then quick say "just kidding" before it gets unpleasant.

Speaking of the bricks and mortar experience, how much fun is it to get your phone activated? My experience is anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour of crushing boredom. It depends on how well the system is working that and how many phones, if any, your particular sales associate has personally activated. When you buy it online, that's all taken care of behind the scenes and your phone shows up ready to use.

What about prices and promotions? Go ahead and compare online pricing for cell phones with major carrier plans and see for yourself. You may be astonished to see that the prices, rebates and special offers of things like free Bluetooth headphones are better than you'll find at a carrier store or even a big box electronics store. Free phones are more common than not, with big discounts on those high priced smartphones. Some models even offer a free phone when ordered with service, and then a cash back rebate on the free phone. In the bricks and mortar world, that's pretty much unheard of.

A final advantage of the virtual world is that it never closes. You want to buy a cell phone in the middle of the night? Go ahead. It's the same experience as during the day. It's liberating to be able to shop when you please, take as much time as you want, and not have to squeeze a side trip or two into your daily schedule. Why, you'll even have your purchased beamed down to you like in Star Trek. OK, not that fast. It will take a couple of days and the starship will say UPS or FedEx instead of USS Enterprise.

iPhone Getting its Video in a Sling

Mobile video is developing along multiple lines, including carrier specific formats such as Verizon's VCAST and Sprint TV, and channel specific formats such as MediaFLO. Now Sling Media is entering the fray with a SlingPlayer for iPhone. This is potentially a game changer because it puts control of content back in the hands of the user.

Sling Media is best known for the Slingbox, a set top box that connects to your satellite receiver, DVR or Cable box, and a broadband connection. DSL or Cable broadband is used as a conduit to control the Slingbox and receive video from it on a computer located just about anywhere. It's as if you could pick up your TV set and carry it with you everywhere without trailing a collection of wires behind. The Slingbox and a WiFi hotspot take the place of those wires.

Alternatively, you could simply view IP video streamed or downloaded from Web sites while you are on the go. But this is currently a hit or miss proposition. Some networks offer full length programs after they've aired. Others only give you short teasers. Many popular satellite and cable channels don't offer the same content for Internet viewing. But with a Slingbox it doesn't matter. You input what you are already subscribing to and view it wherever you happen to be.

This isn't Sling Media's first foray into mobile video. They already have support for Windows Mobile, Palm OS or Symbian cell phones and PDAs. The iPhone version should hopefully be available soon. What the iPhone offers is a large and very high quality video display. The new iPhone with 3G data network capability will let you watch video content literally anywhere you can get a decent cellular signal. With the original iPhone you need the high bandwidth of a WiFi hotspot connection to enjoy the experience.

Corporate users aren't out in the cold, either. You might just want to access the business or news channels between customer calls or at lunch. But the ability to pick up any video without the need to first convert it to IP streaming, gives the Slingbox applications for video conferencing, security cameras, and pre-recorded videos from the home office or customer submissions.

As the iPhone advances to support corporate email, 3G and later 4G cellular data networks, Apple aficionados will have more ammo to lobby for the iPhone as an accepted business tool.

I Shall Call It Cellular Mini-Me

The stampede from landline to mobile telephone service is only increasing as 3G networks build out to include suburbs and smaller towns, as well as total metro coverage. The BlackBerry is standard business wear. The iPhone is starting people to question whether they really need to be lugging around a laptop computer, since there's a full service Safari browser included. Wireless is oh, so liberating compared to being chained to a desk. You're free to chat, browse, or watch videos to your heart's content, all on the go. That is, until you open a door and go inside.

The indoor dead zone is the bane of wireless transmission. The higher the radio frequency, the shorter the wavelength and the easier it is for things like walls to stop signals cold. Actually, these impediments only attenuate or reduce them in power. But the effect is the same. Now you have a solid signal, now you don't. Satellite TV signals, which are at even higher frequencies than cellular, are easily blocked by even tree leaves or a good rainstorm.

One solution is to move to a lower frequency band. But there isn't much unused spectrum available and there already is a huge investment in the current cell tower network. AT&T and Verizon did snap up the 700 MHz TV channels that were recently auctioned. These frequencies have longer wavelengths and can penetrate buildings better. But even if these are pressed into service, what do you do with the hundreds of millions of phones and thousands of cellular base stations now in service?

Another solution is to increase transmission power to make signals go further. That won't work on the phone side because you really want less power, not more, to increase battery life. Well, how about just putting up more cell sites? Put one on every corner disguised as a street light. Hide them in the trees. Bring them inside and put them in the ceiling.

Wait! That's an idea. Why not bring the cell tower inside the building where the problem is? Not a full size one, of course. Just big enough to cover the dead zone. That's exactly what carriers have done in some cases. They'll install a small base station and antennas inside an office building and connect it to their network. Voila! Indoor cellular coverage. It's called a picocell to indicate its smaller size and coverage area.

Picocells could be the answer to all of our wireless coverage problem if they just weren't so expensive and labor intensive to install. If cellular towers could just create a miniature clone of themselves that resembled a WiFi router with a similar price and ease of installation...

Enter the femtocell. It's the Mini-Me of cell towers... sort of. Sprint is currently testing a femtocell called Airave in Indianapolis and Denver. If they like the results, there may be femtocells everywhere soon. Femtocells? Picocells? Where do they get these names?

Femto and pico are like micro and nano, only smaller. A pico something is one-thousandth of a nano. A femto is even smaller. It's a thousandth of a pico or a quadrillionth of the full deal. If you need to go even smaller, your next stops are atto, zepto and yocto. They'll probably implant yoctocells in your brain some day. Then you'll never get away from the yoc, yoc, yoctoing on the cell phone.

For now, the femtocell may come to your rescue in maintaining ubiquitous wireless communications. Sprint's Airave is more like WiFi router than you might think. It looks the part. Plus it connects to your broadband service through your existing router or Cable/DSL router.

Why the broadband connection? It's for backhaul. That's the connection to and from the phone company. The femtocell doesn't actually coordinate with the bigger cell towers. It's a stand alone device. You can't just keep talking as you walk through your front door. You have to hang-up and call back using the femtocell. Your Sprint cell phone communicates back and forth with the femtocell just like your notebook computer communicates with a WiFi router. The femtocell communicates back and forth with Sprint over your broadband service, just like you communicate with the Internet using a WiFi router.

This is more than just an analogy. Your calls go over the Internet similar to VoIP services. In a way, you have a combination of cellular and VoIP technology with all their advantages and limitations. The limitation on Internet for backhaul service is that call quality can be affected by network congestion on your broadband service and you lose service when you or your ISP loses power.

If you are going to have your calls go over the Internet, why not just skip the femtocell and use WiFi directly? That's what dual mode phones offer. T-Mobile is testing a service called HotSpot@Home that uses your wireless router instead of a femtocell. The key to this is a dual-mode cell phone that offers WiFi connections as one of the modes.

You could also use a wireless VoIP telephone handset and a service such as Skype to mimic femtocell service as a way to make inexpensive phone calls. But you'll have no coverage on the go. Once WiMAX or other wireless outdoor broadband coverage is available everywhere, wireless VoIP may give traditional cellular a run for its money. That is, unless the major cellular carriers, who now own the spectrum likely to be deployed for mobile broadband, decide to jump on this bandwagon themselves and all wireless phone services go IP instead of GSM or CDMA.

How the ZAC Browser Helps Autistic Kids

Every once in awhile you come across a story that just makes your jaw drop. The latest one I found is called "Grandfather builds Web browser for autistic boy." It's the story about how a software developer took matters into his own hands when his 6 year grandson had trouble using the Internet. Six year olds having trouble using the Internet? Hardly seems newsworthy until you know more.

You see, this particular six year old, Zackary, suffers from autism. As such, he has a hard time communicating and interacting and doesn't talk much. What Zackary does enjoy is playing games, listening to music and working puzzles. There are lots of these activities online, but the complexity of navigating the Internet and knowing what keys on the computer to use are a challenge to younger children. It's was even worse for Zackary who is easily overwhelmed by too many choices.

Autism is a group of related development disorders that can show up in the first few years of life. The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) offers an autism fact sheet that tells more about the characteristics of autism and how it's treated. Autistic children typically "have difficulties with social interaction, problems with verbal and nonverbal communication, and repetitive behaviors or narrow, obsessive interests."

You may have seen the ad on TV that says the chances of a child developing autism are one in something like 167. The Autism Society of America puts it at 1 in 150 births. What's more, it's the fastest growing development disability growing at a rate of 10 to 17% a year. I find it astonishing that a disorder this prevalent and threatening isn't the subject of constant news reports and public outcry demanding the crisis level of attention that Polio garnered when I was that age or that AIDS has more recently. But it doesn't, and that's why initiatives like Zackary's grandfather's can make such a difference.

What John LeSieur did was build a "walled garden" that provides limited and controlled access to the Internet. Only a few carefully selected public Web sites are accessible and they are mostly educational and fun sites, free of flashing ads and information overloads that would be too frustrating for an autistic child to deal with. Unneeded keyboard functions and even the right mouse button are disabled to reduce complexity.

The end product, called the ZAC Browser, is available free for anyone to download. You can even give it a try without installing it on your computer. I did just that. When the ZAC browser opens, a fish aquarium fills your screen and the cursor is a little submarine. You move the mouse to select what you want to do. Read a story, play a game, make some music. I'll have to admit I got hooked on a music program that lets you add instruments to "I've been working on the railroad." The popping bubbles are the best.

Anyway, it's worth your while to visit the ZAC Browser - Zone for Autistic Children if only to read their story and see how how well designed the site is. If you are a parent of an autistic child, there is a special section just for you. There's also a free newsletter and a forum where you can participate. All of this, created through simple personal initiative.

Unlimited Internet's Days are Numbered

Remember the days when you could saunter into an airport, buy a ticket to anywhere, and be treated like a king on your flight? Nowadays you better get there a couple of hours early to hurry up and stand in line, only to sit and wait on the plane, packed in with the other sardines. The royal treatment? You'll get the royal something else if you don't go along with whatever they care to dish out. Well, guess what? That same wonderful experience is coming soon to the Internet.

Perhaps this seems a little far fetched. After all, we've been dining at the all-you-can-eat Internet buffet for over a decade. You can go anywhere, anytime, download as much as you want and there's always more. Even better, the ISPs keep increasing their connection speeds so you can do more and more, faster and faster. What parallel does this have with big jets morphing into flying cattle cars?

The deregulated nirvana that was the airline industry also sowed the seeds of its demise. Cheap readily available air travel got us to fly more often. It was so easy and so inexpensive that we shunned automobiles, trains and ocean liners in favor "hopping on a plane." Decades later we wonder why airplanes are so full and the runways so congested. What happened was that demand caught up to supply. The hubs in the system that make it possible to go anywhere are enormous investments that are hard to site and take years to expand or construct. The recent run-up in fuel prices cut the profit right out of the business, resulting in fewer, not more, planes available to sate the demand of more people who want to go more places but not pay any more.

Still, what's that got to do with the virtual world of the Internet? Behind the scenes it's not all that virtual. There's a physical Internet out there consisting of fiber optic cables, routers, telephone lines and TV cable drops. Anything physical has limitations and the Internet is getting crammed full. Full of what? Video mostly. Traffic growth was easy to manage as long as there was a steady stream of new adopters moving first into dial-up and then broadband access. Prices of the services and the business case for the build-outs were based on oversubscription formulas that assumed casual browsing and email. In these modes, there are bursts of traffic followed by long periods of inactivity while users compose their messages or read the content of Web sites. Video throws everything into chaos.

What's so different about video? Be it streaming or downloaded, video files are huge packet collections that take minutes and hours, not seconds, to traverse the Internet. Audio has the same problem, but it's a lower rate bitstream and the files are smaller. Music and high resolution images brought dial-up access to its knees. Video put the nail in the coffin and is now chewing up the available capacity on broadband.

The Internet is getting congested, but less at its very core than at the edges. Tier 1 carriers have been lighting up formerly dark fiber and installing faster switches and routers. There's even new undersea cable being installed to Europe and Asia. The providers really in a pickle are the Cable MSOs. Cable TV and Internet service shares a common line that feeds multiple drops to individual households and some businesses. The telcos have it a bit easier in that each location has a unique copper pair that goes all the way back to the central office. Both types of providers have expensive backbone connections that have to be amortized over many users. If some users are pushing the limits with heavy video activity and others are typical Internet surfers, the few will limit the bandwidth to the many. Time Warner Cable believes its just 5% of the users that are causing the majority of the congestion.

The first idea about how to deal with this dilemma was to identify the traffic burdening the networks and either block it or slow it down. In corporate networks, it is common to give preferential treatment to time sensitive or high priority data packets at the expense of other packets in order to keep the network from overloading. ISPs, especially the beleaguered Cable companies, would love to put the squeeze on pervasive BitTorrent streams. But that flies in the face of net neutrality. Net neutrality, the principle that all traffic on the Internet must receive fair and equal treatment with no discrimination, is sacred among watchdog groups looking out for the public interest. Violate it and you may find yourself in front of a Congressional hearing.

If all data must be treated the same but your network is about to buckle under the weight, then your only choices are to increase backbone and last mile bandwidth to such a level that there can be no congestion, an expensive and long term proposition, or throttle the users themselves. The principle of unlimited bandwidth for all is not nearly as sacrosanct as network neutrality. Better to have a few disgruntled users who probably have nowhere else to go than thousands of unhappy campers who can barely run Google searches.

This is exactly what Time Warner Cable and Comcast are experimenting with. In select markets they are setting monthly bandwidth limits, such as 5 to 40 GB, with extra charges if you go over. Sound similar to most cell phone plans? In this case it's gigabytes, not minutes, but the principle is the same. Just like cellular, the idea is to keep a few people from hogging the network and limiting the access of others.

This isn't a unique idea. Web hosting companies routinely impose monthly download limits on their service packages. But those are professional users. How the general public will react to limited access remains to be seen. Right now it may be just a relative handful of video aficionados who are affected. But what happens when YouTube clips become passe and we're all engaged in getting our full length TV shows and new release Blu-ray movies online?

In fairness, ISPs are working with private content delivery networks to have video streams hosted as near to the end users as possible. Build-outs of FTTP (Fiber to the Premises), such as Verizon's FiOS, will relieve that last mile congestion in a least some areas. But the fact remains that we are a bandwidth limited nation. Technology advances such as Internet-based video on demand may well be thwarted until network capacity catches up.

In the short term, bandwidth demand may well outstrip supply. A quick solution is to reduce demand by imposing a cost penalty for exceeding average usage. How successful this will be is likely dependent on where the limits are set and how much extra it will cost to get the content you can't live without. It could be that many users will be delighted by faster downloads while only a few will be stifled by limits on their consumption. But there is also the possibility that tiered service will result in more Internet haves and have nots, as only the well-heeled will be able to enjoy the benefits of high demand technology services.

New Things BREWing in Wireless

Mobile content has become a hot area of development as everything goes more and more wireless. A cell phone is no longer just a cell phone. It's an information and entertainment device that also makes and receives phone calls. Any mobile device that isn't also a portable computer, gaming console, music machine, GPS navigation system or video player gets ignored in favor of those that are. One of the key technologies in making those 3G and 4G technologies work in wireless handhelds is BREW, and new things have been BREWing at their just completed conference.

What's BREW? It stands for Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless. In other words, a technology that enables multimedia applications to function in a wireless device. BREW was created by Qualcomm in 2001 as an applications development for CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) mobile phone networks, such as the ones operated by Verizon and Sprint. It's been expanded to include GSM networks, which include AT&T, Alltel, T-Mobile and the rest of the world. BREW applications run on the BREW RTOS or Real Time Operating System, much like PC applications run on Windows or MacOS.

So, what's new with BREW? One big improvement is plan to integrate Adobe Flash technology into the BREW platform. This should be available in the fall of this year. That's not too far away for developers to get ramped up with new tools. But the good news is that developers can use their existing Adobe tools, including some popular ones contained in Adobe Creative Suite 3, to quickly port their Flash applications for BREW.

Qualcomm is also introducing a new framework called Plaza for creating widgets. It's an open standards-based system for developing modular internet applications that can run on many platforms. Such widgets are popular for delivering content from Websites and information services.

What's this all mean for users? Clearly, the mobile application experience is going to be richer and more diverse in the near future. Apple and BlackBerry have set expectations high for both personal and business use. Many new wireless devices will certainly expand the range of content and interactivity available to users on the go.

For a rich selection of BREW enabled and other wireless devices and cellular phones, browse now at Cell Phone Plans Finder.

Fight For Your Right to Broadband

Sick and tired and falling asleep while your PC downloads software updates or high resolution photos? Videos unwatchable because they're constantly stopping and starting? Are you a victim of pitiful bandwidth? Well, you're not alone. In fact, if you are an American it's your lot in life. We may be the world's super power, but we're laggards when it comes to Internet access. Instead of just grumbling, let's see what we can do to improve the situation.

Just how far behind are we, anyway? Start cheering "we're number 16." That's our rank in broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants. The U.S. weighs-in at 11.4 per 100. South Korea is #1 with 24.9 per hundred.

Oh but that's because we have much better connections, right? Wrong! South Korean users typically have DS3 level access at 45.50 Mbps. Japan is number one in the speed category. Japanese surf at 61 Mbps. The median download speed is 21.7 Mbps in Finland, 18.2 Mbps in Sweden, and 7.6 Mbps in Canada. The United States? We zip along at a medium speed of 1.97 Mbps.

Where are these numbers coming from? They're in a report called "Speed Matters" by the Communications Workers of America. SpeedMatters.org is also a Website dedicated to promoting high speed Internet as a strategic asset for the country. They're calling for 10 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload as the broadband access benchmark by 2010. What is our current country's standard? 200 kbps.

The need for universal broadband at higher speeds is more than just a boost of adrenaline for online gamers or the ability to download movies in a couple of minutes. There are serious applications in telemedicine, advanced education, easy remote access to government services, economic growth for rural areas, and enabling people with disabilities.

I got to thinking about this and some more ideas popped to mind. One of our looming problems now is the skyrocketing cost of gasoline and diesel fuel. Perfectly good houses are sitting empty in the suburbs not because they are too expensive, but because people can't afford the cost of gas to commute to the cities. One way to take pressure off oil supplies and immediately cut consumer gasoline costs by 20% is simply to have everybody stay home one work day a week.

The way you avoid a productivity drop of an equal magnitude is to have them do their jobs remotely. That might not work too well for pipefitters, but anyone who lives on the computer all day is a prime candidate for telework. Imagine if you had the same 61 Mbps connectivity as they have in Japan. You would have your own desktop telepresence system for meetings and could access even the largest files over a VPN network.

The same could be true for middle and high school students. By restructuring the educational week, it might be possible to let the students interact in virtual classrooms one day a week and do all their reading and tests online. Just stopping all the school buses one day a week would cause a noticeable drop in diesel consumption and expense and would cut pollution as well. But who's going to watch those kids who should be in school? Why, the parents of course. They're home on the same days sharing that impressive 61 Mbps.

I'll bet you can come up with some even better ideas on how massive amounts of bandwidth, available to everyone, could change the way we live and work for the better. But to make any of it happen, we need to elevate high speed Internet in the minds of lawmakers as a matter of national infrastructure instead of a luxury item. If you agree, take a few seconds and sign a petition to the 2008 Presidential Candidates that urges them to make high speed Internet access a priority in their campaigns.

DSL, Cable and Satellite Internet service providers have also been steadily improving their broadband options. If you haven't checked in awhile, see what residential and home office broadband options or business location bandwidth options are available for your location now.

Tired of Flaky Internet Connections?

It's hard to do business when your tools are intermittent and unreliable. You'd expect that advancements in technology would really improve things, but often the opposite is true. The more sophisticated and interconnected processes become, the flakier they seem to get. A simple cash box transaction turns into an e-commerce disaster. Why can't things just work right all the time?

All the time might be a bit much to ask. Anything technical is going to hiccup occasionally. But most of the time, the vast majority of the time, your business systems should run like clockwork. If they don't, you need to find the weak link in the chain. For many small businesses it comes down to a flaky Internet connection.

When the Internet was a novelty, it was pretty much a world of students, researchers, entrepreneurs and the generally curious. Now it's a utility. Nearly every business demands an Internet connection or an equivalent way to transfer electronic data. The Internet tends to be the network of choice because it is universally available and connects to practically everyone, everywhere. But the Internet is the flakiest, most insecure, unreliable, congested public resource there is. Isn't it? It doesn't have to be.

A lot of what makes the Internet feel like such a flaky medium is what's called the "last mile" connection. That Internet jack on the wall never goes directly to the backbone of the Internet. Not unless you're a major ISP or Internet Service Provider. A Tier 1 ISP is part of the inner workings of the Internet and peers with all other T1 networks. Other ISPs buy their access from these networks and, eventually, one of them sells service to you via a last mile connection. The high speed fiber optic core of the Internet is blazing fast and highly reliable. What you get may be something quite different.

It generally comes down to cost and availability. In major metropolitan networks, you may have a dozen or more ISPs vying for your business. Out in the boonies, you have fewer choices. There is also a huge difference in price vs performance among various connections. The lowest priced service is generally DSL or Cable Modem. These are shared access "information services" rather than dedicated telecommunications services. What's the difference besides price?

An information service isn't regulated the way a telecommunication service is. It is offered on an "as available" basis with no guarantee as to availability or time to repair when failure occurs. Even when the connection is working, bandwidth can vary all over the place. That's because the service is oversubscribed to keep the cost down. Just like getting bumped when the airlines sell more seats than they have on a plane, your connection can slow to a crawl because the ISP sold more connections than they have the bandwidth to support. They assume that only some of the subscribers are online at any time. When too many show up at once, they have to share what is available.

What's better? Dedicated Internet service improves your experience dramatically. If you order T1 dedicated Internet access, what you get is 1.5 Mbps of bandwidth for both upload and download. It's consistently available at all times. On rare occasions when line breaks or equipment failure take down the circuit, these telecom services get fast attention and are usually restored in a few hours or less. The dedicated designation means that you don't share the available bandwidth. It's there for your use whenever you need it.

Other dedicated connections include bonded T1 lines for faster access in increments of 1.5 Mbps. That's 3, 4.5 ,6, 7.5, and 9 Mbps typically. Ethernet services start at 10 Mbps and go up to 100 Mbps and, in some areas, 1000 Mbps. Ethernet is available in metro areas. T1 service is available just about anywhere.

If you are being driven crazy by flaky Internet service, you'll breathe a lot easier and your business operations will perform better by moving up to dedicated Internet access. The price differential is probably less than you think. Find out now by checking prices and availability for dedicated Internet access at your business location.