http://www.circleid.com/ Postings from Brough Turner on CircleID en Copyright 2008, unless where otherwise noted. 2008-05-30T17:11:01-08:00 http://www.circleid.com/posts/85306_sip_revolution_delayed_hope http://www.circleid.com/posts/85306_sip_revolution_delayed_hope published it anyway. Now I'm feeling a little guilty as there is an optimistic note I could have used as my conclusion. So let me try again... First let me summarize my problem. When SIP emerged in 1996, it's support for direct connections from one user to another was extremely compelling. This was the VoIP protocol which would lead to a complete revolution in communications... More...]]> 2008-05-30T17:11:01-08:00 http://www.circleid.com/posts/852711_telecom_china_after_dust_settles http://www.circleid.com/posts/852711_telecom_china_after_dust_settles has begun. Now China will have three major companies, each with both mobile and fixed networks. The focus for fixed network growth is broadband Internet access. The focus for mobile will be continued growth in mobile subscribers and the launch of 3G services, with the three companies using three different 3G technologies. More...]]> 2008-05-27T10:29:00-08:00 http://www.circleid.com/posts/85218_google_surpasses_supercomputer http://www.circleid.com/posts/85218_google_surpasses_supercomputer Pflops here; now what? about IBM's new 1 petaFLOPS supercomputer, the Roadrunner, and how its designers are scrambling to run benchmarks in advance of the annual International Supercomputing Conference (ISC) being held June 17th-20th. It's an article (dare I say, a puff piece?) about IBM, but it does mention competing supercomputers by Japanese vendors. However, it makes no mention of distributed computing projects like SETI@Home or, more importantly, of the Google computing cluster. More...]]> 2008-05-21T07:31:00-08:00 http://www.circleid.com/posts/ngn_not_the_internet http://www.circleid.com/posts/ngn_not_the_internet ITU-T defines it: "A Next Generation Network (NGN) is a packet-based network able to provide services including Telecommunication Services and able to make use of multiple broadband, QoS-enabled transport technologies and in which service-related functions are independent from underlying transport-related technologies." but many people don't realize how little this has to do with the Internet... More...]]> 2008-05-10T06:20:00-08:00 http://www.circleid.com/posts/84249_china_3g_license_smoke_screen http://www.circleid.com/posts/84249_china_3g_license_smoke_screen Jonathan Dharmapalan of Ernest & Young was quoted as saying he expected it to take 12 to 24 months from the start of China's commercial TD-SCDMA trials, i.e. from now, until 3G licenses were issued. But there was little analysis or comment on what's really happening. 3G licenses are a formality. They delay the deployment of 3GSM & CDMA 2000 which could otherwise happen rapidly -- just plug new cards into existing radios and offer established handsets (already being manufactured, in China, for the world market). More...]]> 2008-04-24T09:39:00-08:00 http://www.circleid.com/posts/841610_muni_wifi_neglect_technology_evolution http://www.circleid.com/posts/841610_muni_wifi_neglect_technology_evolution Wireless Pittsburgh: Sustainability of Possible Models for a Wireless Metropolitan-Area Network by Jon M. Peha, published in February as a working paper of the New America Foundation. The good news: it's full of interesting cost estimates and projected subscriber take rates based on specific demographics in Pittsburgh, Minneapolis and Philadelphia... The flaws in this study... More...]]> 2008-04-16T10:32:00-08:00 http://www.circleid.com/posts/84920_ny_times_misreads_wef_report http://www.circleid.com/posts/84920_ny_times_misreads_wef_report Study Gives High Marks to US Internet." But either John Markoff is fuzzy about exactly what the Internet is or he didn't actually read the report. His title is way off base. He did interview a few people who are quoted in the latter part of the article, so there is some information in the article. But he's done a major disservice for the many who read only the title or perhaps first paragraph... More...]]> 2008-04-09T14:28:00-08:00 http://www.circleid.com/posts/832812_models_wireless_spectrum http://www.circleid.com/posts/832812_models_wireless_spectrum 1, 2, 3) on spectrum licensing and spectrum utilization. Thanks to Nick Ruark for pointing them out... Reading on I was struck by a gaping hole in their assumptions. More...]]> 2008-03-28T12:49:00-08:00 http://www.circleid.com/posts/broadband_access_what_should_we_regulate http://www.circleid.com/posts/broadband_access_what_should_we_regulate Network Neutrality is a hot topic in the US. The FCC held hearings in my neighborhood recently (while I was in Asia). Now I see Professor Susan Crawford will be testifying next Tuesday at a House Judiciary Committee hearing on "Net Neutrality and the First Amendment." I look forward to her remarks, but I worry that the whole discussion will be focused on "IP Pipes," that is connectivity at network layer 3. This distracts us from the fundamental problem... More...]]> 2008-03-08T12:42:00-08:00 http://www.circleid.com/posts/82299_the_perfect_phone http://www.circleid.com/posts/82299_the_perfect_phone Lee Dryburgh initiated a great thread in the Emerging Communications public group entitled What would your perfect phone be? There are 14 messages there at this moment with a lot of good ideas, but my first thought was the term "phone" is too limiting. Indeed, some of the correspondents' ideas also go far beyond the idea of a telephone. Here's what I want and fully expect to see, eventually. More...]]> 2008-02-29T09:08:00-08:00 http://www.circleid.com/posts/82480_iphone_android_700_mhz_wireless_innovation http://www.circleid.com/posts/82480_iphone_android_700_mhz_wireless_innovation eComm 2008, I'm moderating a panel "Wireless Innovation, with or without operators." This will be a discussion -- smart people from differing camps responding to (hopefully) probing questions from yours truly, and the audience. Points of view represented include Google Android, J2ME/JavaFX Mobile, iPhoneWebDev.com, Skype and Trolltech Qtopia (Nokia), plus Chris Sacca, formerly head of Google's wireless initiatives. I've been thinking about subjects and questions for the panel. As a start, I'll set down my current views, then seek others' views and questions. More...]]> 2008-02-04T07:58:00-08:00 http://www.circleid.com/posts/81289_tiered_internet_pricing_p2p http://www.circleid.com/posts/81289_tiered_internet_pricing_p2p tiered charging for Internet access has generated a flurry of coverage in the blogsphere, but no new insights (at least that I've seen). The primary problem ISP's complain about is that 5% of their customers use 90% of the available bandwidth and when they examine this traffic, it's mostly peer-to-peer file sharing... More...]]> 2008-01-28T09:16:00-08:00 http://www.circleid.com/posts/812112_google_win_700_mhz_auction http://www.circleid.com/posts/812112_google_win_700_mhz_auction bid to lose in the upcoming 700 MHz auctions and many more are equivocating. The idea is Google's entry alone will induce enough openness, and besides they couldn't afford to become an operator. This shows a total lack of understanding! More...]]> 2008-01-21T12:29:00-08:00 http://www.circleid.com/posts/congestion_backbone_telecom_internet http://www.circleid.com/posts/congestion_backbone_telecom_internet a fire or a natural disaster), there is a risk of congestion collapse. In a congestion collapse, the remaining capacity is so overloaded with access attempts that virtually no traffic gets through. In the case of telephony, everyone attempts to call their family and friends in a disaster area. The long standing telephony approach is to restrict new call attempts upstream of the congested area... This limits the amount of new traffic to that which the network can handle. Thus, if only 30% capacity is available, at least the network handles 30% of the calls, not 3% or zero... More...]]> 2007-09-12T09:31:00-08:00 http://www.circleid.com/posts/070820_understanding_skype_outage http://www.circleid.com/posts/070820_understanding_skype_outage official explanation. Phil Wolff has a good set of interpolated comments on the official explanation. There are two things to add... As the Register points out, last Tuesday was Microsoft's monthly patch day and those patches required a re-boot. If we believe Skype that their problem started with excessive login attempts, this is the only plausible explanation on the table... More...]]> 2007-08-20T09:17:00-08:00