John Stankey, President and CEO, AT&T: "Data consumption right now is growing 40% a year."

With growth rates less than half of the predictions, a data-driven FCC and Congress has no reason to rush to bad policy. Wireless technology is rapidly moving to sharing spectrum, whether in-building small cells, WiFi, White Spaces, Shared RAN or tools of what the engineers are calling hetnets — heterogenous networks. The last thing policymakers should do is tie up more spectrum for exclusive use; shared spectrum often yields three to ten times as much capacity.

Bad compromises on the video spectrum are unnecessary because plenty of spectrum is unused. That includes the 20 MHz that M2Z would be building out today if Julius hadn't blocked them; the 20 MHz the cable companies are sitting on and want to sell to Verizon; and the 30 MHz or so Stankey identifies as fallow at AT&T.

40% growth is still substantial, but wireless technology is improving at a breathtaking pace. LTE has about 10x the capacity of 2.5G and 4x the capacity of 3G. LTE Advanced, deploying beginning 2013 at Verizon, is designed for 10x the capacity of LTE. Putting more spectrum to use would be great, but let's do it right.

Wireless speeds are actually going up dramatically, with AT&T delivering 2-5 megabits to most of the country and Verizon's LTE delivering 5-12 megabits to 2/3rds of the population. Verizon is ahead of schedule to bring 5 megabits+ to 92% of the country in 2013 and 96-98% in 2015-2016. AT&T and Sprint have raised capex to catch up. 80%+ of the U.S. will have a 5 megabit offering in 2013-2014, 90%+ by 2015 or sooner. That's without any additional spectrum.

Today's wireless networks are designed to be shared: towers, WiFi, White Spaces, DAS and small cells all working together. The best engineers in the world are working on RAN sharing, SON, hetnets, 8x8 MIMO and techniques I'm writing about in my next book, Gigabit Wireless. AT&T in fact is one of the world leaders in DAS, WiFi and femtos and behind the scenes a key thought leader. There's wonderfully exciting stuff I'll be doing my best to translate for non-engineers.

Takeaway: The future is sharing the airwaves so let's get the policy right.

Written by Dave Burstein, Editor, DSL Prime

"Dave predicts that computers will be equipped with optical connections instead of pins for networking, and the volume of data transmitted will overwhelm routers, which at best have mixed optical/electrical switching," writes Oram. "Sensor networks, smart electrical grids, and medical applications with genetic information could all increase network loads to terabits per second. When routers evolve to handle terabit-per-second rates, packet-switching protocols will become obsolete. The speed of light is constant, so we'll have to rethink the fundamentals of digital networking."

"Participants will gain access to Openreach’s Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) technology which delivers super-fast broadband speeds," says Openreach. "End users will initially have access to downstream speeds of up to 100Mb/s but these will rise to give users the option of up to 300Mb/s in the spring of this year, the fastest commercially available speeds in the UK for a residential connection. Upstream speeds will also be the fastest in the UK."

Map Showing NORDUnet's 2011 completion of network expansion by taking a third connection to the US in production.
(Click to Enlarge)

NORDUnet is now emerging as one of the world's first "GREN"s — Global Research and Education Network. NORDUnet is extending their network infrastructure to multiple points of presence throughout the USA and Europe to interconnect to major Internet Exchange Points (IXPs). This will allow them to negotiate as a Tier 1 Internet service provider and exchange traffic with other global commercial Tier 1 Internet transit providers. NORDUnet is also playing a global leadership role by extending this service offering, on a shared cost basis, to NRENs such as SURFnet (Netherlands), PIONIER (Poland) and perhaps others.

Many network operators ask why they should build an extensive peering network when transit prices are only marginally more expensive than peering (and still dropping)? The NORDUnet engineering team are one of the first to understand that Internet peering is not about cost comparison between peering and transit pricing.

Most universities (as well as consumers and business) have a fixed budget for Internet connectivity. So regardless of traffic volumes they can only spend so much money for Internet transit. As result many institutions cap traffic volumes to commercial transit providers. But peering traffic is done on a settlement free basis and therefore traffic volumes are not linearly related to cost. Many NRENs have discovered that content peering traffic has a huge benefit for their connected institutions in stabilizing costs without restricting use of the network. On some NRENs, content peering traffic is now 90% of their overall traffic volume. By connecting to the major IXPs in the USA, NORDUnet can eliminate purchase of virtually all transit traffic. Traffic volumes are expected to immediately jump because now institutions will not have to cap formerly transit traffic.

This arrangement will have a huge benefit for the research community as more and more computational research is done on commercial clouds in the US. NORDUnet realizes, that despite concerns about US Patriot Act, researchers are voting with their wallets and using commercial cloud providers and value added cloud providers in the US. Many research disciplines, especially genomics and bio-informatics are being increasingly dependent on commercial application providers, because they have the necessary tools critical to their research. Numerous bioinformatics companies, like SoftGenetics, DNAStar, DNAnexus and NextBio, have sprung up to as they have found life sciences a fertile market for products that handle large amounts of information. Access to these commercial organizations through the commercial Internet or Open Lightpath Exchanges is essential for the future of research.

This initiative by NORDUNet will have profound implications for the future of the Internet and data intensive science. The obvious next step after exchanging peering traffic is also to use this links for dynamic lightpaths and virtual networks for large data flows. It is no surprise that networks like NORDUNet and SURFnet are also leading the developments of dynamic optical networking through GLIF. The other important development is for other NRENs to build similar global links and exchange peering routes so collectively they can represent themselves as a global Tier 1 and finally eliminate the archaic telco business models that currently dominate the Internet. This will significant benefits for those NRENs who are deploying community IXPs and can extend the benefits of content peering to community anchors and support community broadband developments.

Peering traffic also goes hand in hand with dynamic optical networks and GOLEs. Some NRENs are under pressure by some large institutions threatening to leave. Some institutions think that by directly connecting to a GOLE and purchasing commercial Internet for the balance of their traffic is all they need for R&E connectivity But peering dramatically changes the balance as it is a service and business model that is not available from commercial providers. The cost savings are dramatic for the connected institution and it does not cripple researchers accessing commercial research services such as clouds because of traffic caps.

Once again, NRENs and GRENs are demonstrating their important role in redefining the critical role of the Internet and creating new opportunities for the global informational economy. Kudos to NORDUnet.

Written by Bill St. Arnaud , Green IT Networking Consultant

They tried and failed with UBB. Now they are at it again with "speed boost" technologies. The two technologies at question are Verizon's "Turbo” service and Roger's "SpeedBoost”. There are very few technical details, but it appears in the former case that users will be able to purchase additional instantaneous bandwidth to the detriment of other users on the same shared service. Whether this will make a difference to actual throughput is another matter because the slow video may be due to server problems and not network congestion. And if you are in elevator with very poor connectivity, you will unlikely get any faster download speed, no matter how many times you press the turbo button. But will Verizon give you a credit if you don't get the advertised speed boost? I doubt it. Similarly the Rogers' service, while still free, seems to imply faster speeds if they detect you are streaming a video, particularly from their own on-line service. Will users who are not streaming video, but using other real time applications get the same benefit such as VoIP or Telepresence? I doubt it.

The carriers continue to have this brain dead idea that bandwidth is a scarce resource — which is only true to the extent that were the ones who created this artificial scarcity. Building a business case around an artificial scarcity is as stupid as trying to make a premium market from air we breathe. Customers aren't interested in buying bandwidth or quality of service to enhance their user experience. Just as with electricity they want and expect that just about any appliance or application will simply work — with no need for special speed boosts and other gimmicks. Imagine negotiating with the electric utility for a little extra power when you needed to turn on your stove or TV.

It is last mile packet loss which has the biggest impact on the customer's user experience — NOT bandwidth or congestion. The Internet (TCP/IP) is designed so that packet loss is used as a signaling tool to reduce packet throughput. Regardless of where the packet loss occurs the Internet is designed to slow down any data stream, that is affected by a lost packet. However the rate to which a data stream is slowed down is greatly dependent on distance. This is why moving caching boxes as close as possible to the user affects end-to- end throughput, particularly if there is ongoing packet loss.

Although bandwidth and congestion can be a factors affecting packet loss, there are much more clever ways of reducing the impact of packet loss, especially in wireless environments. There are two much simpler solutions. The first is to locate caching/cloud servers as close as possible to the end users. Something that companies like Akamai and Google do already — at no charge to the carrier. Decreasing wireless distance from the wireless node is the other critical factor. This is why integrating WiFi with 3G/4G is so important.

A good example of a carrier that "gets it" is Free.FR in France. Free.FR is redefining what the idea of a carrier in the 21st century is, thanks to these innovations I have been talking about and pioneered by R&E networks like SURFnet. Integrating a blend of Wi-Fi, 3G and its all-fiber backbone, Free will offer unlimited voice, texting and data over the mobile networks. Free.fr deploys their own set-top box for automatically sharing a portion of one's broadband connection via Wi-Fi with other Free.fr customers. Over five million set-top boxes means Free.fr has a free Wi-Fi cloud covering major cities such as Paris. Even when away from home, you can easily get broadband instead of resorting to an expensive 3G network. Their set top box will also allow extreme local caching, to further enhance the user mobile experience. This is the future of broadband. Not silly gimmicks like TurboBoost or SpeedBoost.

Written by Bill St. Arnaud , Green IT Networking Consultant

It is January 2012 and we keep our heads above the mobile data deluge, even if barely, thanks to a gathering avalanche of LTE networks.

Even the wildest prognoses proved conservative as the GSMA was betting on a more 'managed' progression through intermediate steps of gradual increases reasoning that the use of existing investments should be maximized while price declines and threats to existing roaming and SMS revenues also had to be 'managed'. Continuity implies to postulate that transitions should be gradual, not chaotic or highly disruptive. The last two years, however, turned out to be rather disruptive after a plateau of relative tranquility powered by a steady traffic and revenue growth in the wireless data world. But over the last year we have rather unexpectedly seen industry pillars including Microsoft, Nokia and RIM heaving and creaking under the mobile broadband gusts. Once unassailable Symbian now fades away and Android dominates the charts. Cloud computing combined with ever more Intelligent and versatile end devices is likely to further upset a relatively stable decade when some dominant computer and handheld operating systems were revenue and profit gushers with every new version they issued.

It still holds that faced with deluges of data and floods of handsets and applications, a drought of IP addresses might be perceived as a rather minor issue in the scheme of big things that would be resolved in due time anyway. As address depletion became a reality, the excitement was limited to the circles of digerati and cognoscente but went largely unnoticed by the vast majority. Not so when broadband networks fail to deliver enough bandwidth to provide a satisfactory user experience.

Back in June of 2009 there were no LTE networks operational. Ten of them were forecasted to go live by the end of 2010. The very first to become commercial was Teliasonera in Norway and Sweden on December 14th 2009. In the US, MetroPCS was first of the mark on September 21st 2010 followed by Verizon Wireless on december 5th the same year. In Canada, we saw Rogers Wireless start LTE service in july 2011 with Bell following in September 2011, the same month as AT&T Mobility.

Latest GSM Association figures (registration required) show us that as of January 5th 2012 we have 49 operational LTE networks in 29 countries and 229 deployment commitments in a total of 79 countries. And obviously LTE networks have to be able to talk to each other. This in turn is generating furious activity to deploy IPX exchanges to provide data and voice roaming in an all IP environment, a topic by itself, and keeping a number of us quite busy over the last six months.

And what about IPv6 in all of this? It is or soon will be under the hood. Verizon announced from the start that their devices would support IPv6 as recommended in the LTE specifications and they kept their word. Some mobile network operators have been rather discreet but are quietly working on their IPv6 deployment. They consider upcoming IPv6 support as implicit; IP addresses are IP addresses, their format is irrelevant to the general public.

Mobile operators often cited lack of LTE ready enabled end devices as a delaying factor. That argument is now passé. End of October, the GSA listed 197 LTE enabled devices from 48 manufacturers, up threefold since February 2011 and the list includes 27 smart phones. And If you happen to be enjoying the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas this week, LTE devices are hot!

Now that both voice and data are becoming more widely available as voice over LTE concerns move backstage, competitive pressure should start working its magic. The choice and the application versatility of LTE enabled devices associated with quality of service and adequate pricing is what turns on a mobile broadband hungry public.

We already start to feel the acceleration of the LTE powered mobile broadband bullet train. The art will be to translate this in IPv6 traffic growth forecasts. I have a vague feeling that the most accurate forecasts will unlikely be based on some prudent extrapolations.

Let IPv6 enjoy the LTE ride.

Written by Yves Poppe, Director, Business Development IP Strategy at Tata Communications

The world's congested mobile airwaves are being divided in a lopsided manner, with 1 percent of consumers generating half of all traffic. The top 10 percent of users, meanwhile, are consuming 90 percent of wireless bandwidth.

The Times article had another tidbit in it:

Arieso researchers, in their latest survey, found that users of Apple's iPhone 4S downloaded 276 percent more data from an operator's network than did people with the Apple 3G, which has been on the market since June 2008.

Arieso said that part of the reason for the increase in download volumes may be Apple's Siri voice feature on the iPhone 4S which allows consumers to dictate to the phone and enter more text and data into the network in an easier way.

Other news outlets picked up the story and lost all perspective. The Globe carried a Reuters story titled "iPhone 4S devours data twice as fast as previous model". Let's overlook the mathematical incorrectness of the headline ("twice as fast" would have meant only 100% more data, not the 276% — or nearly 4 times as much). The Financial Post carried a Bloomberg story proclaiming in its headline "Siri doubles iPhone data usage".

The Globe/Reuters story more accurately hints at user consumption patterns, rather than the device itself, but it doesn't do much more than recite raw data:

IPhone 4S users transfer on average three times more data than users of the older iPhone 3G model which was used as the benchmark in a study by telecom network technology firm Arieso.

Data usage of the previous model, the iPhone 4, was only 1.6 times higher than the iPhone 3G, while iPad 2 tablets consumed 2.5 times more data than the iPhone 3G, the study showed.

It is possible — and more likely — that the data is demonstrating important market information: that the heaviest users of mobile data are the ones most likely to own the latest devices. It isn't the device that is "devouring" data; it is power users that own the devices. These are the early adopters — the people who line-up to buy the latest device on launch day.

That was what I found most interesting, with important implications for consumer marketing and network development strategists.

Written by Mark Goldberg, Telecommunications Consultant

Top 10 Featured Blogs in 2011:

1. A Fairness 'Scorecard' for Trademark Protection Under the New gTLDs
   By Konstantinos Komaitis, Feb 23, 2011 (33,350 views)
2. IP Addressing in the New Age of Scarcity
   By Peter Thimmesch, May 27, 2011 (21,563 views)
3. Smartphones: Too Smart for Mobile Operators?
   By Henry Lancaster, Aug 03, 2011 (21,144 views)
4. On Mandated Content Blocking in the Domain Name System
   By Paul Vixie, Mar 18, 2011 (16,315 views)
5. Court Approves Nortel's Sale of IPv4 Addresses to Microsoft
   By Benson Schliesser, Apr 27, 2011 (13,173 views)
6. The Design of the Domain Name System, Part VIII - Names Outside the DNS
   By John Levine, Sep 17, 2011 (12,399 views)
7. Top Public DNS Resolvers Compared
   By Michael Meisel, Apr 07, 2011 (12,217 views)
8. Why the Lawsuit Against .XXX Maybe the Best Sales Tool Ever For New gTLD Applicants
   By Michael Berkens, Nov 17, 2011 (9,466 views)
9. Independence and Security Online Have Not Yet Been Won
   By Mike Dailey Jul 03, 2011 (9,373 views)
10. Comcast’s Impressive System for Notifying Infected Users
    By J.D. Falk, Mar 01, 2011 (9,216 views)

Top 10 News in 2011:

1. New Top-Level Domains Approved By ICANN
   Jun 19, 2011 (44,312 views)
2. ICANN Approves .XXX
   Mar 18, 2011 (20,936 views)
3. Experts Urge Congress to Reject DNS Filtering from PROTECT IP Act, Serious Technical Concerns Raised
   May 26, 2011 (12,284 views)
4. Microsoft Offers $7.5 Million to Buy 666,624 IPv4 Addresses
   Mar 25, 2011 (9,600 views)
5. Egyptian Government Shuts Down Most Internet and Cell Services
   Jan 28, 2011 (3,988 views)
6. US Government Domain Seizure Results in Unintended Shutdown of Thousands of Websites
   Feb 16, 2011 (3,962 views)
7. J.D. Falk: 1974 - 2011
   Nov 17, 2011 (3,918 views)
8. Cybercriminals Shifting Focus From Windows PCs to Other Systems and Mobile
   Jan 20, 2011 (3,823 views)
9. Researchers Report New Method for Detecting Domain-Fluxing
   Mar 28, 2011 (3,633 views)
10. Microsoft, Federal Agencies Take Down Rustock Botnet
    Mar 18, 2011 (3,607 views)

Top 10 Industry News in 2011 (sponsored posts):

1. Google Says "Think Mobile" ...and then goMobi
   By dotMobi, Feb 15, 2011 (6,120 views)
2. The Botnet-Counterfeit Drugs Connection
   By MarkMonitor, Apr 01, 2011 (4,928 views)
3. New gTLD Timeline Announced and .XXX Approved
   By MarkMonitor (4,253 views)
4. Second Half 2010 "Dashboard" Domain Name Report - Released
   By PIR, Feb 14, 2011 (3,666 views)
5. MarkMonitor Report: How Scammers Generate Significant Traffic Promoting Suspected Counterfeit Goods
   By MarkMonitor, Feb 01, 2011 (3,536 views)
6. AusRegistry Int. and Crowell & Moring Join Forces to Support New Top-Level Domain Applicants
   By ARI Registry Services, Mar 14, 2011 (3,507 views)
7. Celebrity Marketing Guru Jeffrey Hayzlett to Promote New TLDs for AusRegistry International
   By ARI Registry Services, Jun 17, 2011 (3,472 views)
8. Minds + Machines’ Parent Company, TLDH, Appoints Peter Dengate Thrush as Executive Chairman
   By Minds + Machines, Jul 17, 2011 (3,457 views)
9. DNSSEC is Just the Beginning
   By .CO Internet, Mar 02, 2011 (3,421 views)
10. Landrush for New Domain Extension - .GR.COM
    By CentralNic, Jan 11, 2011 (3,421 views)

Written by CircleID Reporter

2011 has been a significant year for the technology sector globally. Information technology is touching more people in more ways than ever before.

Developed markets will be considering a 2012 in which business innovation, competitiveness, and service differentiation are built on ubiquitous broadband, cloud computing, smarter mobile computing, and an increasing plethora of Internet-connected devices. By contrast, securing the technology future for developing markets demands that attention be placed on more fundamental issues.

Here are five key tech issues for the emerging markets in 2012.

Internet Infrastructure

The build-out of critical Internet infrastructure is critical to economic diversification and sustainable development. Initiatives to improve routing of domestic Internet traffic and provide new, more optimal routes for regional Internet traffic must be accelerated through the build-out of Internet exchange points (IXPs). One top of the exchange points must come expanded terrestrial and mobile broadband networks.

Implications: Internet service providers (ISPs), governments, and businesses must work together for a faster roll-out of national and regional infrastructure. This is the key to unleashing ICT-based innovations and spurring the market for digital content and mobile service delivery.

Incentive Regulation

The agenda for infrastructure development must be guided by informed government policy. This is particularly crucial in smaller economies where market size does not present sufficient incentive for private sector investment. Incentive regulation to improve the current weak frameworks for stimulating growth and protecting consumer interest in the ICT sector will be demanded by the private sector. At the same time, governments will increasingly recognize that national benefits of ICT-enabled growth are too important to leave to the private sector to set the implementation agenda. More stakeholders will call for ICT adoption to be set within a wider context of national development.

Implications: Regulators have to adapt more quickly to technology changes. They must take the lead in ensuring that market forces align to social development objectives. Done well, this can translate to increased business innovation, improved delivery of government services, and greater consumer choice.

Cybersecurity

Cybercrime will increasingly challenge resource-constrained businesses and governments. Businesses, especially those with large, high-value networks, like financial services providers and energy companies, will require greater support cover not just nationally but regionally. A coordinated approach is critical to guiding national action and ensuring consistency and compatibility of action among nations. If regional governments are to secure their information and communications systems, identifying and investing in a central point of coordination for cybersecurity must be a top priority.

Implications: Governments must put aside petty internal and intra-regional differences and cooperate fully to ensure that cybercrime does not disrupt already fragile local economies and markets.

Mobile Phones, Mobile Apps, Mobile Services

Growth in mobile computing uptake and the availability of mobile apps that address local needs will continue. It will be driven by consumer-focused apps, but eventually business apps will catch on. As smartphones proliferate and mobile providers upgrade their networks to provide customers with faster mobile broadband access, software developers will have greater incentive to build apps. The improved user experience resulting from faster mobile data plans means that consumers will also have greater interest and incentive to use mobile apps and services.

Implications: The education sector must evolve to supply the human resources needed to support, not only the creation of digital content, but the development of new, digitally driven innovation and enterprises. This will create opportunity in the private and NGO sectors for training and capacity building beyond the traditional approaches.

Open Data

As governments increasingly recognize the potential of open data, they will move to make their datasets publicly accessible. Progressive administrations will seize the opportunity to demonstrate their commitment to transparency and accountability. Of course, they will also benefit by shortening the timeframe of new service roll-out and shifting the burden to innovators and entrepreneurs.

Implications: A huge opportunity has opened for entrepreneurs, researchers, and society. More public awareness is needed to stimulate innovation, collaboration and, most important, more efficient, personalized services for citizens.

Onward to 2012

There is wide recognition of the value of building knowledge-based economies and of investing in technology-driven systems. These are fundamental to economic and national development. There is also no denying that the technology revolution is exposing antiquated infrastructure and institutional processes; testing the philosophy and approach to education; highlighting the imperative for new approaches to human resource development; and creating new, strategic challenges for business, education, and political leaders alike.

Advances in technology have exacerbated the vulnerability of states to externally developed and controlled intellectual capital. The central role of information and communications technology in modern society amplifies the debate on priority and significance of deliberately cultivating and securing indigenous intellectual capital.
From all indications, 2012 will be a continuation of the positive trends and innovations that gained momentum in 2011. The most forward-thinking, innovative organizations will continue to adopt and deploy technologies to improve efficiencies and better engage customers and citizens.

In 2012, these developments in emerging markets will require strong, ethical leadership to ensure that investment in technology is matched by commitment to equitable social development.

Written by Bevil Wooding, Internet Strategist, Packet Clearing House

… guide the FCC's work on technology and engineering issues, together with the FCC's Office of Engineering and Technology. He will advise on matters across the agency to ensure that FCC policies are driving technological innovation, including serving as a resource to FCC Commissioners. He will also help the FCC engage with technology experts outside the agency and promote technical excellence among agency staff. He will be based in the FCC's Office of Strategic Planning and Policy Analysis.

Henning brings an excellent background to this role, having been one of the co-authors of the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP - RFC 3261) and the Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP - RFC 3550 and 1889), the two main standards used in most Voice over IP (VoIP) systems today. Henning is also the author/co-author of over 70 other RFCs and countless Internet-Drafts and has been active with the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) since the 1990's. He also served on the Internet Architecture Board (IAB).

Given the recent FCC workshops on the transition of the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) to new technologies, it's great to have someone with Henning's background and knowledge in a prominent role at the FCC. Henning himself noted this in an email to the IETF DISPATCH working group mailing list, where he noted that the FCC is definitely seeking input from technical folks.

Obviously in this new role he'll be working not only with real-time communications but also with the wide range of other areas that the FCC covers. Regardless, it's excellent to have someone with Henning's background providing this level of advice and input to FCC activities.

Prior to joining the FCC, Henning has been a professor and chair of the Computer Science department at Columbia University. In my experience he's also just an all-around decent person and I'm very much looking forward to seeing what he'll do at the FCC.

Written by Dan York, Author and Speaker on Internet technologies for over 20 years

http://www.fcc.gov/live

The FCC's note about the workshops mentions that people watching the live stream can send in questions to panelists using either of two methods:

• by e-mailing livequestions@fcc.gov
• tweeting on Twitter using the hashtag #FCCLIVE

Given that a video recording was provided for the first workshop, hopefully a video recording of this second session will also be made available.

Today's sessions look to be quite interesting and contain quite a range of participants. The full schedule and list of participants is available on the FCC's web site (click on "Expand" in the lower right corner of the page), but here is the brief list:

* * *

9:30 a.m. — 9:40 a.m. - Welcome Remarks by Zachary Katz, Chief Counsel and Senior Legal Advisor, Office of the Chairman, FCC

9:40 a.m. — 10:45 a.m. - Impact of the Transition on the Technology and Economics of the PSTN
Participants include: University of Colorado, Carnegie Mellon, George Washington University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Gillan Associates, SIP Forum

10:45 a.m. — 11:45 p.m. - Policies of the PSTN (e.g., accessibility, reliability, affordability, and public safety)
Participants include: Tufts University, Consumer Federation of America, University of Wisconsin, Neustar

1:00 p.m. — 2:10 p.m. - Implementing the Transition to New Networks
Participants include: Verizon, Comcast, Carnegie Mellon, National Telecommunications and Information Association (NTIA), XO Communications

2:10 p.m. — 3:20 p.m. - Syncing Expectations, Emerging Technologies and the Public Good
Participants include: Georgetown University, University of Michigan, University of Pennsylvania — Wharton, Acme Packet, Panasonic Systems Networks

3:20 p.m. — 4:30 p.m. - Economic Rationales for PSTN Transition
Participants include: Queens College, Indiana University, Syracuse University, Sanford Bernstein, University of Auckland, NZ

Written by Dan York, Author and Speaker on Internet technologies for over 20 years

http://www.fcc.gov/events/public-switched-telephone-network-transition

Given that the workshop was 4 hours long, you may or may not want to watch the entire session. The workshop was divided into four hour-long panels that consisted of brief presentations by the various panelists followed by questions to each panel from the moderator and attendees. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski also appeared briefly to provide a few comments.

The order of the workshop panels is as follows (and differs from the planned agenda only in that FCC Chairman Genachowski's comments came between the first two panels):

• The Impact of Broadband Communications on Public Safety and Network Reliability
• Remarks by Julius Genachowski, Chairman, FCC
• Disability Access in Substitute Services
• Technical Capacity, Capabilities, and Challenges Facing Future Rural Networks
• Identifying, Evaluating, and Transitioning Key PSTN Edge Functionalities (e.g., alarm monitoring, medical devices, and consumer equipment)

In his comments, FCC Chairman Genachowski discussed how the world is changing and moving to an IP network. He highlighted that 19% of the nation's telephone connections are already interconnected VoIP and 30% of Americans have cut the cord and moved to wireless. He spoke of the role of IP networks in unleashing innovation, contributing to job creation, education, etc. and indicated he and the commission are seeking answers to questions such as these:

• how do we minimize consumer disruption in the move?
• how do we ensure public safety access?
• how do preserve and promote disability access?
• how do we ensure ubiquitous access?
• how do we ensure access to high quality service?
• how do we best foster innovation?

He emphasized that the current PSTN is reliable and accessible and we don't want to lose benefits of old system. He indicated that he wants to enable the private sector to take the best benefits of PSTN and bring those into the future while taking advantage of new technologies.

The panelists in each section all saw the transition as inevitable, indicated it was already well underway and raised legitimate concerns to be considered with regard to their topic area. For instance, the sheer number of installed devices connected to the PSTN will take quite some time to change over to devices that can work with IP networks. An example was given that a standard for alarm systems over IP was only standardized within the TIA in 2007 and a similar standard for smoke alarms over IP was only standardized in 2010. It will take quite some time for devices with those standards to propagate out into commercial availability and transition options may need to be evaluated. Similarly, while the use of traditional TTY devices continues to decline, there is still a huge installed base. These TTY devices are designed to work over the PSTN and the traditional protocol used does not work well over IP. These devices will need to either be replaced or have a transition device such as a terminal adapter installed to work over IP networks.

All in all it was quite an interesting session and hopefully did provide the FCC with the type of feedback they were seeking. The second FCC workshop on the PSTN transition takes place tomorrow, December 14, 2011.

Written by Dan York, Author and Speaker on Internet technologies for over 20 years

It is interesting to note that many governments have a variety of research and financial support programs for agriculture, energy and other sectors, but they hardly spend any R&D money on the greatest job engine in the economy — the Internet. There are some funding programs and research initiatives in telecoms, computation and related fields. But R&D support for future Internet specifically is very small in comparison. Given the importance of the Internet to our future economy and job creation one would think governments should make more than a token investment in this field.

The future Internet spans a number of activities including pure research initiatives such as GENI and FIRE, to production facilities which involve deployment of working networks. The deployment of real working, next generation Internet networks with an early adopter community to my mind is probably the most important of all these activities. This is where National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) play a critical role.

This is how the early Internet started. In a landmark study undertaken by University of Toronto researchers showed that the adoption and growth of the commercial Internet was driven in early stages by recently graduated students who had been exposed to the benefits of the Internet at their respective universities and community colleges. (see: "The (Teaching) Role of Universities in the Diffusion of the Internet”)

There are many viewpoints on what is the role and purpose of R&E networks. Some feel that they should be simple aggregators of traffic and deliver the lowest cost possible Internet service to the research and education community. Others believe that NRENS should focus on supporting eScience and the demands of big data flows from instruments and high performance computing. While others advocate that NRENs should be the backbone of all public sector service delivery such as education, healthcare and government services. While all these are very important roles for NRENs it is my belief that none of these roles should be considered an end objective in their own right. In my opinion, the most important role for NRENs is to lay down the foundation for development of the most important sector of the economy — the future Internet — by deploying advanced networks and services for the most demanding and largest early adopter community in the world — the research and education sector. Exposing researchers and most importantly, students to innovative applications, unconstrained bandwidth, new wireless services, open data, digital collections, federated identity, clouds, green IT, etc. will give them the insight to take this experience to the outside world when they graduate.

The biggest transfer of knowledge between academia and society is not through science journals. Nor is it through patents or commercializing of academic research. The biggest transfer of knowledge between academia and industry and society occurs once a year at graduation. The future economy is increasingly going to be based on Internet services applications in all sectors whether it is the resource, manufacturing or the service industries. Countries that expose students to the latest Internet innovation and who are comfortable in the collaborating and working in a future virtual world of the Internet will reap the rewards of a stronger economy and greater job growth.

Written by Bill St. Arnaud , Green IT Networking Consultant

But while it may feel satisfying politically, I question the effectiveness of continued broad government subsidies based on geography, rather than taking a more focused approach based on need.

That is what drives my view that our attention needs to turn to subsidies with more precise targeting aimed at those who can't afford a computer or the connectivity. The approach to date has been trying to level the prices charged in urban and rural markets, without regard to whether that price point is consistent with increased rates of adoption.

It is within this context that I read an OpEd by Susan Crawford in the weekend New York Times. The piece opened with a paragraph that has since been changed. Here is how the original read:

FOR the second year in a row, the Monday after Thanksgiving — so-called Cyber Monday, when online retailers offer discounts to lure holiday shoppers — was the biggest sales day of the year, totaling some $1.25 billion and overwhelming the sales figures racked up by brick-and-mortar stores three days before, on Black Friday, the former perennial record-holder.

This has since been changed, realizing that Cyber Monday wasn't the biggest shopping day of the year — just the biggest on-line shopping day:

FOR the second year in a row, the Monday after Thanksgiving — so-called Cyber Monday, when online retailers offer discounts to lure holiday shoppers — was the biggest online sales day of the year, totaling some $1.25 billion and overwhelming the sales figures racked up by brick-and-mortar stores three days before, on Black Friday, the former perennial record-holder.

Both versions continue "Such numbers may seem proof that America is, indeed, online." But the correction results in the entire opening making no sense. As mighty as the sales were on Cyber Monday, they were only about one-tenth the volumes of sales on Black Friday. In what way did this overwhelm the sales figures of brick-and-mortar stores? I just wrote about Digital corrections. Having the premise of the article destroyed by the opening inaccuracy, it is tough to read through the rest of the piece — at its core, the OpEd was a tired argument for strong government intervention in the communications marketplace.

A blog post by ITIF research fellow Richard Bennett does a great job destructing Professor Crawford's "old-school analysis."

Her vision of future applications is utterly pedestrian. She says: "Within a decade, patients at home will be able to speak with their doctors online and thus get access to lower-cost, higher-quality care" without acknowledging that doctors already use e-mail, can use video calling in many cases, and have been reachable by phone for several generations.

Similar misguided calls for "structural separation" have also been heard in Canada — ignoring a regulatory framework that already enables competitors to access facilities and services from the facilities-based carriers. A competitive services marketplace continues to ignore the challenge of connecting households that don't even have a computer.

Solutions for bridging the digital divide need to look beyond the myopic focus of infrastructure. How do we address adoption among identifiable groups — the most glaring being low income households. That should be a broadband target for the coming year.

Written by Mark Goldberg, Telecommunications Consultant