It should be recognized that intelligently-managed state-of-the-art broadband infrastructure is the prerequisite for future new content services and applications. Without such infrastructure, which needs to be financed adequately by the users and end-users (eg, customers and anyone offering services and applications over the Internet), there will be no possibility for sustainable growth in data and Internet usage.
A comment on my Wednesday post referred to “the tsunami of disruption”, also known as “open internet-driven innovation over dumb pipes.”
But the ITU Broadband Commission’s report, delivered last weekend to the United Nations Millenium Development Goals project, has a different perspective. It says that:
Higher capacity access to the Internet provides a platform for a wider range of applications so it is implicit that investments in such capacity can benefit and reward innovative and creative ideas for applications. Those who invest in communications capacity are not necessarily those who may benefit from applications and services, so innovative mechanisms need to be found to ensure that broadband deployment is not stalled through lack of investment.
Different visions of the future. Your comments are welcome.
September 23, 2010 September 21, 2010 / 2 Comments
I picked up a Blackberry Torch earlier this week at the Canadian launch party. I like it. A touchscreen with a slideout keyboard as a safety net for those uncomfortable with the touch-typing.
Which leads me down a general theme – I wonder: Is RIM hedging its Blackberry bets to extinction?
By offering so many different models and user interfaces for the Blackberry, I wonder if RIM has created too fractured a marketplace for itself – is RIM playing it too safe for its own good?
Let’s look at the current product line-up: there is the new Torch with the touch screen interface, but a slide-out full keyboard; the Bold and Curve with full keyboards; the Pearl with its implicit requirement for your friends to grant you creative license to accommodate your spelling; the Tour; the Storm. All of these are current models.
Perhaps RIM’s Canadian-ness makes it want to have something for everyone (we Canadians don’t like to annoy anyone). But, I wonder if this keeps it from placing bigger bets in redefining a unique user interface, the way that Apple has unified its UI across all of its platforms.
On one hand, different people like different interfaces; but on the other hand, trying to have something for everyone may be keeping RIM from returning to the leadership that Wall Street is looking for.
Still, the Blackberry Torch should appeal to youths who want a touch interface but like a real keyboard for their messaging. Also, I am told by my youth advisors that the integrated social networking app is a real winner.
What are you thoughts?
And as Blackberry launches the Torch across Canada this week, we wonder what’s next? Will we see a Blackberry Pad device in time for Christmas, perhaps as early as next week, as written up by WSJ?
September 22, 2010 September 21, 2010 / 2 Comments
With Netflix slated to launch in Canada today, it is worth reflecting on my Rogers On Demand Online service.
I have been playing around with a Beta of movie rentals from the Rogers On Demand Online website and it is pretty convenient. At the cottage through the summer, we were exposed to Apple TV and the benefits of on-line movie rentals.
The trial runs through September and RODO Rentals should be available to the general public in about a week and a half.
It got me thinking about the value of content for BDUs. When Rogers negotiates for content, they do so as an enormous BDU, Canada’s biggest mobile wireless service provider, one of the biggest ISPs, one of the largest video rental distributors and as a broadcaster.
Think about negotiating leverage for other companies who may be trying to acquire distribution rights. some are similarly situated, others will clearly have a more difficult time.
Some deals will be exclusive for internet distribution; others may be more restricted. Will vertical integration lead to reduced distribution channels for creators?
Will over the top companies have a chance to acquire Canadian rights for all of the content they seek to distibute?
When Netflix launches in Canada, how many programs will be tied up by another rights holder?
ITU Secretary-General Dr Hamadoun Touré today challenged global leaders to ensure that more than half of all the world’s people have access to broadband networks by 2015, and make access to high-speed networks a basic civil right.
Why did the ITU chief issue such a strong statement that has been erroneously attributed by some to the work of the Commission?
Considering the poor civil rights records of so many members of the UN, the mind wanders trying to sort whether his statement was driven by noble leadership, naivete or arrogance. In the lofty language of international diplomacy, a call for a new basic civil right has specific meaning. My jaded cynicism doubts that broadband ranks with other basic civil rights that are unenforced in so many UN member states.
The closest that the Broadband Commission came was an action item that said:
The United Nations General Assembly is asked to note the recommendations of the Broadband Commission for Digital Development and in particular the concept of ‘Broadband Inclusion for All’ and its mapping to achieving the MDGs in relation to the relevant resolutions of its Second Committee and to acknowledge the work of the Commission in support of Article 19 of the Declaration of Human Rights. [link added]
Is that a clear call for broadband to be declared a basic civil right?
However, the report itself makes for interesting reading. In particular, there is support for the emergence of mobile broadband as a viable access alternative in the section entitled “Technology: Futureproofing Technology.”
In planning the roll-out and deployment of broadband networks, it is unlikely that any single technology will be able to provide all the answers. Optical fibre is desirable at the core of the Internet, and for the majority of backhaul traffic, to achieve a high-capacity backbone, but at the edges of the network, and in particular in the hands of end-users, it is most likely that mobile devices will deliver many broadband applications and services.
As I wrote yesterday and last Friday, we need to be far more flexible in our vision for connectivity solutions. Getting the best fitting broadband solution to all Canadians means having more than one kind of solution available. The ITU’s report is crystal clear on this point.
Depending on local conditions such as geographic location, economic prosperity, rural or urban environments and local terrain, there is a role for a host of different technological solutions in providing broadband access – from cable to fixed wireless; from satellite to microwave; from xDSL to mobile technologies; and many more. Policy-makers should seek to adopt a technology-neutral approach as regulation needs to accommodate new upgrades of current technologies, as well as future technologies which do not yet exist.
There is a strong endorsement of satellite technologies for broadband:
Satellites also provide invaluable solutions, particularly for providing capacity in hard-to-reach rural areas and for providing the essential backhaul capacity needed by other operators to reach their customers. Recent catastrophic events have also highlighted to governments the important role played by satellites for achieving emergency preparedness and responding to events (such as the earthquakes in Chile and Haiti and the floods in Pakistan).
Through technology agnostic lenses, we can see that market forces, prodded by policy leadership, have succeeded in ensuring all Canadians already have access to a broadband internet service. No one participating in the CRTC’s upcoming ‘Obligation to Serve‘ proceeding should find inspiration for a new universal broadband service obligation by misinterpreting the ITU secretary general’s call for broadband as a basic civil right.
As Wire Report wrote earlier in the month [pay wall], there was no Canadian representation on the ITU’s Broadband Commission. It will take some further analysis to see whether our industry and consumers interests coincided with recommendations that emerged out of a Commission that had strong representation from our major trading partners.
A couple weeks ago, SaveOurNet.ca asked, “Where does Canada stand if internet access is declared a right.” All Canadians have access to broadband under the ITU’s definition. Indeed, all Canadians have access to at least one broadband service operating at more than an order of magnitude beyond what is called for.
I think there has been enough attention on the plumbing. We need to focus on getting more Canadians to drink from the taps.
David Ellis is self described as a digital strategist, educator and broadband evangelist. He teaches in York University’s interdisciplinary Communications Studies Program and he has been writing about Canadian broadband. In particulare, he is advocating for more to be done to accelerate adoption of higher speed services.
He had a piece through the weekend that merits discussion.
I took issue with his view that a reason to rule out satellite connectivity is that the higher latency rules out telemedicine applications.
Most of all, geostationary satellites have latencies that put them completely out of the running for important apps like telemedicine – three or four times higher than the 250 milliseconds it takes a signal to travel 22,236 miles into space and back, i.e. 900 to 1,000 milliseconds or more
Telemedicine is an imprecise name for a broad field, with a variety of requirements for broadband connectivity. Let’s be clear – most of us are not ever going to have digital imaging devices in our homes and even fewer will have a robotic scapel connected to a gigabit optical feed to allow doctors to operate from the comfort of their homes. Instead, a more immediate requirement is for telemetry type connections: vital signs, blood pressure, heart rate, temperature, blood sugar levels. Isn’t that a reasonable definition for residential telemedicine?
Until we get to pricing of home CT Scans in the order of Mr. Fusion, we need to be more realistic about the kinds of broadband speeds and latency that are really needed.
There seems to be a subtext that implicitly suggests that anything less than the types of speeds possible in an urban setting isn’t worth consideration for univeral broadband services.
This strikes me as a noble, but naive message.
There is an enormous benefit to having any form of data communications connection in a household. The leap from zero to anything greater than zero enables all sorts of efficiencies in the delivery of government and social services. Most importantly, it provides an appetizer – a taste of what being connected can do.
The next stage is moving from casual – call it dial-up – to always-on connectivity. With ‘always-on’ connections, there is the ability to push as well as pull, an ability to stay on any time, without tying up the phone line. Many applications, such as home energy monitoring, e-health, e-commerce, e-mail, need just a basic always-on connection.
We want way more than basic always-on connections, and we are going to need a variety of connectivity technologies – including next generation satellite – to enable all Canadians to derive benefits from the digital economy. There are high throughput satellites being launched early next year that will bring affordable urban speeds to every home in Canada – no matter how remote it may be.
As I have said many times before, I used satellite for the entire summer, for business and consumer purposes and it works just fine, thank-you.
The ITU released a report yesterday, A 2010 Leadership Imperative: Towards a Future Built on Broadband, that will be getting a lot of coverage over the coming week. The ITU Secretary General called for making access to high speed networks a basic civil right, a stronger statement than what appears in the official report. However, keep in mind that the ITU has a low bar for its definition of high speed service: 256 kbps, always-on connection. The ITU defines wireless, mobile broadband and satellite as all being acceptable substitutes. Canada is well beyond this hurdle for all our citizens.
As I wrote on Friday, there needs to be a greater emphasis on broadband adoption. On that key point, I am in full agreement with Professor Ellis. Let’s hope for some action as Parliament returns for the fall session.
