Tuesday, June 21, 2011
If you're a global thinker or a world traveler, you have already taken objection to the title.  Just like our World Series of baseball, the World Champions of the Superbowl, and all our other national titles that we over-inflate as world titles, the same is true for this title.  The world didn't go wired.  America did.  In fact, other parts of the world totally skipped the wired revolution.  So, why then did America go wired?

In parts of the world where the communication boom came post-wireless revolution, nobody even thought to go through the trouble of laying cable or fiber.  Why even waste the time.  Just build transmitters and antennas.  But in the U.S., arguably the more advanced and faster-growing technology markets on the planet, we exist today in a state of dependency on wired local connections.

Local connections -- key point here, we all know that wires support wireless.  But what I'm calling into question is our dependence on wires for local loop.  From the hub to the handheld.  From dbox to d-link router.  Why?

My theory: it started with consumer, not business, demand.  Namely, telephone and television.  In the 60's and 70's, as such luxuries were becoming more necessity than nicety, the efficiencies of airwaves was still quite low.  Digital broadcast was only developed in the last decade and mandated just last year.  Analog signal on the spectrum simply couldn't deliver the hundreds of channels and multiple phone lines that we were all demanding. 

The result: by the 80's copper cable traversed most of the developed areas.  As cellular and other wireless technology matured in the 90's there existed a sense in which the cable was there, why not use it.  Aside from that, 3G and 4G speeds still hadn't arrived yet and wires still severely out-performed wireless. 

So, why this history lesson now? Why think about it today?  Two reasons: (1) wireless is catching up, and (2) wires aren't everywhere that people are anymore. 

Development has out-paced the grid.  Neighborhoods pop up in corn fields every day, and with neighborhoods come stores.  More and more, new development (both commercial and residential) is realizing the costs to keep the grid up with the demand.

Meanwhile, the alternative local loop, wireless signal, is catching up. The wireless "pipe" is getting bigger through optimization of signal (i.e. digital) and the release of more spectrum (a la FCC auctions). 

Will TV antennas once again be a regular scene on the rooftops?  Will T-Com super-giants like Time Warner Cable change with the times and begin delivering on the air once again?  Or, will we (unlike the rest of the world) keep up the illusion that every terminal, house, c-store, and business needs to be tethered with copper strands no matter the cost?

Labels: 3G, 4G, Broadband, Cell Towers, FCC, Time Warner, Wireless

posted by Unknown at 6:20 AM Link to this Article  0 Comments

Wednesday, September 29, 2010
That's right. Shocking news indeed. And when I heard it, I too had the same shocked reaction that you have right now: "OMG! AOL is still in business?!?!?!"

When this news blip hit my RSS reader, it was definitely a productivity killer for me. I had to stop what I was doing and find out what AOL does in the age of broadband to make money? I mean, they're not a broadband provider (that I know of) and like most Americans, the only recollection I have of this company is the incessant CD's in the mail with software that would dial-up to the internet -- a utility that ceased being useful a decade ago.

So, on my quest to uncover just how AOL makes money these days -- enough money, in fact, to buy one of the most popular technology blogs on the web -- where did I turn? To Google of course. It would take me about 30 minutes of research to finally discover the irony in that.

AOL, it would seem, suffers from a great brand confusion which is, oddly enough, also it's saving grace. The confusion is that many people still equate AOL with one of two services: dial-up internet, complete with a suite of services that accompanied the dial-up connection; or, their famous AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) which dominated dorm rooms for much of the past decade. And, as the onslaught of broadband has killed the former, the latter is slowly losing ground to social media platforms which offer the same capability and more. So, how has such a legacy saved AOL?

Today, my best estimation is that AOL's revenue streams lean primarily on advertising to the users of their many free services, and to the readers of their many content channels (enter: TechCrunch acquisition). The revenue from paid subscriptions to their services certainly exists, but the acquisition of TechCrunch signals a strategic direction for AOL.

But how has their early-days legacy of THE dial-up provider set the stage for their success today? Simple. They were providing internet services before internet services existed. Before Google, when 30 million Americans connected to the Internet each day via the AOL software on their computer, AOL was the search engine. And, AOL was the go-to email option. Today, many of those same customers remain AOL users.

But if that was the pattern historically, then why has Time Warner, one of the largest TCom companies in the world, released ownership of AOL as of last year? Aren't today's broadband services going to go the way of AOL someday?

Answer: just the opposite. Yahoo was one of the first to move the opposite direction. Yahoo, which began as an internet portal offering search, mail,and content once partnered with SBC to provide broadband. And, most recently, Google has begun to indicate their desire to toe-dip in the broadband market. It would seem that AOL's pattern of moving from ISP to search and content provider may be a step backwards in evolution.

Did AOL miss the boat by not entering the broadband market? Or, did Time Warner hop the boat with their ticket?

Labels: AOL, Broadband, Google, TechCrunch, Time Warner, Yahoo

posted by Unknown at 8:56 AM Link to this Article  0 Comments

Thursday, May 7, 2009
My grandmother was recently introduced to email. She uses a simple software on her desktop called Juno that doesn't even require her to get online. So, her monthly bandwidth consumption is probably less than the average mobile phone in 1995. And yet, she pays the same amount for internet as the neighbor across the street running her home based ebay business.

Now, I can certainly understand the economic reasons that this is so based on the cost to deliver service to each household. But, some people these days aren't so sure. And, it may surprise you that many discussions over this issue aren't geared towards saving money for the little-old-lady, it's about charging more for the internet moguls.

This fall, Time Warner is reportedly going to begin rolling out a metered pricing plan based on bandwidth consumption. This has obviously been met with mixed reviews. But, it's a pricing model not uncommon in the telecom industry. Mobile phones, for starters, began with pay per usage and only recently evolved into offering unlimited plans.

Which brings one important question to mind: if the companies on the GSM network billed per usage until their network grew to the capacity it is now, why would one of the largest providers on the age-old cable networks just now be switching to a per usage model? It seems counter-intuitive.

Labels: Broadband, Cost Reduction, Network Providers, Time Warner

posted by Unknown at 9:59 AM Link to this Article  0 Comments