Wireless Future Blog

The app I am waiting for: Worksnug

MuniWireless.com — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 -0500

Worksnug is an iPhone application that uses “augmented reality” to help you find the best place in a city to sit and do your work — i.e. a cafe with Wi-Fi, co-working spaces, and more. You use your iPhone to scan the surroundings and Worksnug superimposes comments on the screen telling you if the Wi-Fi works well, whether a cafe has a warm and welcoming atmosphere, etc. It is available for London and company’s website says it will soon be in Berlin, Madrid, San Francisco, New York and other cities. Here’s an article in the Guardian about Worksnug.

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(1) Guide to the WiMAX Band (2.5 GHz): the technology, license holders and future prospects

(2) The U.S. Mobile Web Market: Taking Advantage of the iPhone Phenomenon

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Another Pro-ACTA Letter from MPAA, RIAA, et al.

publicknowledge.org — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 -0500

A number of movie studios, record labels, and other copyright-holding companies (and their related trade associations) have also written a pro-ACTA letter to Congress, which I first saw posted on Ben Sheffner’s blog. Minus the bizarre “distraction” claim, it follows the same basic pattern—that ACTA will benefit IP businesses and do nothing harmful.

The evidence for this? Still absent. Instead, the letter reiterates that changes in technology require online copyright enforcement, and thus a section of ACTA covering the Internet.

This probably shouldn’t require repeating, but I’ll say it again. A solution has to be tailored to solve the problem. Is ACTA properly tailored to solve copyright infringement? No one can tell.

Hollywood: Never Mind the Transparency, Here's the ACTA

publicknowledge.org — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 -0500

It’s not a surprise that the Motion Picture Association of America is a supporter of the so-called Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a proposed international copyright and trademark agreement that the public isn’t allowed to see. What is surprising is how willing the MPAA is to dismiss calls for an open and democratic process as a “distraction.”

In a letter addressed yesterday to Senator Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the MPAA endorsed ACTA and then went on to say this:

Outcries on the lack of transparency in the ACTA negotiations are a distraction. They distract from the substance and the ambition of the ACTA

This is a pathetic excuse for logic.

The Economist on Swindon’s muni Wi-Fi plans

MuniWireless.com — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 -0500

Swindon (UK) is getting a municipal Wi-Fi network, thanks to a joint venture with a local firm. News reports say that the network will cost £1 million and require 1400 access points, but details are sketchy and there is skepticism about the ability of Swindon and the service provider to pull this off.

Despite that, The Economist felt compelled to weigh in with its own opinion about muni wireless:

Unlike many of the American municipal Wi-Fi schemes, which aim to bring the internet to the unwired poor, this one is explicitly commercial. The project is a joint venture called Digital City UK, split between the council, Rikki Hunt, a local businessman, and aQovia, a technology firm. Free access will be restricted to a few hours a day. Those wanting more can pay for an unlimited service that will be faster than that offered by mobile-phone companies. Mr Hunt reckons that bits of local government, such as the police force and the local NHS, will want to use the network, giving it a ready-made customer base.

* * * * * * * * * *

Special offer: Get free Telecom and Wireless magazines.

* * * * * * * * *

Buy these Research Reports now:

(1) Guide to the WiMAX Band (2.5 GHz): the technology, license holders and future prospects

(2) The U.S. Mobile Web Market: Taking Advantage of the iPhone Phenomenon

* * * * * * * * * * * *

The Progress & Freedom Foundation
Presents

Let's Make a Deal: Broadcasters, Mobile Broadband, and a Market in Spectrum

Proposals to have television broadcasters return a portion of their spectrum for re-allocation and auction for next-generation mobile broadband and data services have been met with strong reactions from broadcasters. Is re-allocation of spectrum necessary to encourage broadband expansion? Would compensation for broadcasters be adequate? Will Congress go along with such a deal, or would it be blocked as contrary to "the public interest?" These and other policy issues will be discussed at " Let's Make a Deal: Broadcasters, Mobile Broadband, and a Market in Spectrum ," a Congressional Seminar hosted by The Progress & Freedom Foundation.

Speakers include FCC's Blair Levin, Coleman Bazelon of The Brattle Group, Kostas Liopiros of The Sun Fire Group David Donovan, President of the Association for Maximum Service Television, Inc., and John Hane, Counsel in the communications practice group of Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP to discuss if a "grand bargain" to re-allocate spectrum is wise and if it is a feasible option to free spectrum for mobile services. Adam Thierer, President of The Progress & Freedom Foundation, will act as moderator of the event.

" Let's Make a Deal: Broadcasters, Mobile Broadband, and a Market in Spectrum ," will be held Tuesday, December 1st from 9:00am to 11:00am in the Holeman Lounge, 13th Floor, at the National Press Club, 529 14th Street, NW in Washington, DC. Those interested in attending can register here. Questions should be directed to Allison Bringardner at abringardner@pff.org or 202-289-8928.

Your blogger presented a similar proposal in his comments to the Wireless Innovation Inquiry, Docket 09-157:

Para. 54 (of the NOI) seeks comment on “innovations in the use of renewable energy and other green technology to makes wireless networks more energy efficient or address other environmental concerns.” At the risk of saying the obvious, the TV broadcast band uses a large amount of electric power to transmit RF signals that are actually received by an ever decreasing number of subscribers. The main apparent need for these transmitters is to guarantee to broadcast licensees “must carry” status with CATV systems. The use of electric power and the RF occupancy appears to be mainly a byproduct of this desired endgoal that gives 90+% of the viewership of licensed TV broadcasters. While over-the- air broadcasting gives consumers access to broadcast signals at no marginal cost compared to the pricing of MVDS service, policy options exist to offer basic MVDS service as comparable cost. For example, part of fees from new users utilizing former TV spectrum could be used to finance “lifeline” MVDS service.

MSS has no objection to giving present TV broadcasters long term must carry status, but questions why this must be accompanied with the waste of electric power and squatting on spectrum to deny it to others. While it is no possible under present law to let broadcasters keep must carry status without transmitting largely “unreceived” signals, MSS urges the Commission to explore and make recommendations to Congress for giving TV broadcasters incentives to cease using large amounts of electric power and cease filling spectrum with largely unwatched signals while retaining today’s must carry rights.No broadcaster commented directly on this point, although MSTV and NAB in joint reply comments chose to mischaracterize it - no doubt to avoid addressing the point in question. Thus it is interesting to see that MSTV's president will be present at the PFF forum.

Automatic captions on YouTube

googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 -0500

Posted by Pablo Chavez, Managing Policy Counsel

Today, here in D.C., we announced the preliminary roll-out of automatic captioning in YouTube, an innovation that takes advantage of our speech recognition technology to turn the spoken word into text captions. We also announced that if you have a transcript of your video, you can upload it to YouTube and we'll time the captions for you.

This is useful for anyone who is deaf or hearing impaired, but it will have broader effects as well. For example, YouTube captions can be automatically translated, making video more accessible across languages. And while we've had the ability to manually caption videos for a while, automatic captions and automatically timed transcripts lower the barriers and, we hope, helps open YouTube to everyone.

Indeed, with 20 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute, captioning YouTube through purely manual means would be very difficult. That's why we're excited about today's announcement. Please note that only 13 YouTube channels will feature automatic captions at this time so that we can gather feedback, but all video owners will be able to upload transcripts and automatically time them. Ken Harrenstien, the software engineer who led this project, describes today's announcements in more detail on the Official Google Blog.

Click here for more pictures of the event.

This morning's introductions were also exciting because over 60 accessibility leaders from the National Association of the Deaf, Gallaudet University, AAPD and other organizations joined us to be the first to learn about these new features. We made the announcement in our Washington office, in fact, just so that they could be here to give our engineers their direct feedback.

Have a look at the video below to learn more about what was announced today, and check back here tomorrow for full video from the event. You can bet it'll be captioned—we'll be uploading the transcript of the event to YouTube, which will turn it into captions that are timed just right.

Why conference Wi-Fi sucks and how to improve it

MuniWireless.com — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 -0500

I was inspired to do a long article about Wi-Fi at conferences by Joel Spolsky’s article Wi-Fi At Conferences where he asks why Wi-Fi works so poorly at tech conferences. Muniwireless has organized conferences in the past and I won’t say that the Wi-Fi at our events has ben the very best either (however, it was better than at most events I’ve attended). You would think that by now, Wi-Fi access at conferences, especially tech events, would be something no one would even notice — that is, it should just work well. But that’s rarely the case.

Dewayne Hendricks (who has provided Wi-Fi at David Isenberg’s Freedom To Connect events in Washington DC, Social Capital 2009 in San Francisco, West Coast Green 2009 in San Francisco and others) pointed out that in many hotels and conference centers, the existing Wi-Fi network can handle only 20 to 25 connections at one time and the bandwidth for the network is barely enough for people who are downloading and uploading data. Conferences today have to deal with people who are updating blogs, Twitter feeds, and Facebook pages, and who are sending photos, video clips, and reports. Some attendees are also using Skype and other VOIP applications. Unfortunately, many venues are too cheap to install new 802.11n access points, and because the bandwidth that feeds into the network is too paltry, the conference organizer – if it wants to guarantee a good Wi-Fi experience – will have to bring in both the access points AND the bandwidth (for example, Covad). This dramatically increases the cost of hosting an event. (Note: Dewayne used Apple Airport Extreme 802.11n access points which worked very well at the Freedom to Connect event held in March 2009 at the AFI Silver Theater in Silver Spring, MD. I attended this event and would rate the Wi-Fi experience outstanding.)

Here is a sample quote (dated September 2009) from a well-known bandwidth provider for bringing in (wireless) bandwidth into a venue (each amount quoted below is a one-time fee). This is just the bandwidth; it does not include the access points, the fee charged by the Wi-Fi service providers for installing the access points, managing the event’s Wi-Fi network, dealing with problems and meltdowns, etc.

5 Mbps: $3999
10 Mbps: $5999
20 Mbps: $9999
30 Mbps: $11,999
45 Mbps: $16,999

Andy Abramson, founder of Comunicano, agrees with Dewayne’s assessment of hotel Wi-Fi and adds that most hotels have less than 5 MB of connectivity. Some hotels limit the number of users to 250 concurrent users. Andy believes that hotels have not realized how much Wi-Fi means to an event’s (and the hotel’s) reputation. Most conference attendees rate Wi-Fi connectivity as one of the three most important needs at a conference.

Q&A with Tim Pozar on how to improve conference Wi-Fi

I wanted to unravel the mystery surrounding what it takes to bring good Wi-Fi to conferences by asking Tim Pozar, a network engineer who has been hired by conferences such as TechCrunch 2009, Intel Developers Forum, SNAP and more. Below is our Q&A.

(1) Why is Wi-Fi service so horrible at most conferences, including at hotels where there’s already Wi-Fi and/or wired broadband? What can you do to improve Wi-Fi service?

There are several reasons. In the case of built-in Wi-Fi at hotels, they really don’t design it for conferences. They design it for general guest use around the hotel. They install a minimal set of access points and don’t use a number of the tricks we have used for conferences. Also, on-site hotel staff usually do not have technical expertise to address issues. Most of these installs were done by third parties that may not currently have a support contract with the hotel. If they do, or if the hotel supports it, it is done off-site by some remote network operations center (NOC).

Where a conference organizer brings in an company to provide Wi-Fi access and the network fails, it can be for a number of reasons. Typically I see small companies that are trying to grow larger and don’t test the deployment or think through all the failure points that can happen with a large-scale deployment. When I was called in to solve the Wi-Fi problems at TechCrunch 2008, the wireless provider had some serious problems, not the least of which was the DHCP server they were running, which only supported 250 or so leases. Needless to say, that alone stopped the use of the wireless network pretty early on in the conference until I came in to fix it.

I also notice that many vendors just don’t understand RF propagation and how to manage it. They think that more is better: more access points and/or more power. In most cases, this is the opposite of what you want to do as it just congests the spectrum even more. There are a number of tricks that we use at MSI to try to manage the spectrum.

Redundancy plays a big part of a deployment. If you have a conference that depends on broadband for the success of the event, you can’t have a single point of failure. Having multiple transit providers, DHCP servers, etc. are critical as things fail all the time. Having any service fail will likely make the deployment unusable and worthless for the event organizer.

(2) Why haven’t hotels and conference centers done much to improve the quality of wireless broadband for conference organizers who are already paying a lot of money to host events at these locations?

Good question. It seems that large hotel chains could make this a profitable item, but as with most hotels, they figure they have a captured event and don’t need to put any more effort into this. Also, as mentioned above,
they have had third parties come in and do the deployment. One size does not fit all events and they almost never have technical staff on site to address the problems of this deployment because it costs too much to keep them on the hotel’s payroll.

(3) Why do most conference organizers fail to provide good Wi-Fi? Ignorance? Cheapness? Both?

Both. You get what you pay for. MSI’s deployments include a significant staff that can deploy and address problems during the event quickly. The network engineers that MSI uses (including me) are veterans of decades of networking experience. I have seen a number of wireless providers who think all they need is a broadband connection and some access points thrown around the location. Of course, it is much more complicated than that.

Event organizers don’t have the technical background and skills to do the “due diligence” to see if a vendor has the ability to pull of a deployment. They really need to look at the vendor’s track record with similar deployments and many just don’t have the time. In other cases, the event organizer will choose the wireless vendor who is offering the cheapest solution.

(4) What advice would you give conference organizers? What should they look for, what questions should they ask the hotel or the company they are hiring to bring in Wi-Fi to the conference?

As mentioned above, look at the track record of the company. Ask for references. Ask for previous event’s reports. (MSI always creates daily reports on an event, including bandwidth and number of users. It also includes problems encountered.) Ask them about their technical qualifications. Have they done similar events? How many people attended these events? Were they “tech” events where everyone shows up with multiple devices — laptops, smartphones, etc.?

Meet with the company and discuss the event’s requirements. Ask them how they would deploy the network in detail: where they would place access points, how they are going to bring in bandwidth. Ask them about
redundancy such as transit providers, equipment, staffing. Ask if the gear they are going to deploy has been used at events of similar size recently. Ask them about how they will deal with outages and problems. Will they provide a high-level network engineer at all times? How will they be reached during the event?

(5) In terms of costs for providing Wi-Fi at an event, how much should a conference organizer budget (taking into account the number of attendees, size of venue, type of event — obviously a conference around streaming video/entertainment would suck up more bandwidth)?

This can vary greatly from $2000 a day for a small event (up to 300 people) and no redundancy; to $100,000 and more per day for larger events (up to 30,000 people) that could take over a conference hall like Moscone Center in San Francisco, and a serious build out that would address multiple failure points.

Tim Pozar has been a network and RFP engineer for more than 20 years. Past projects, besides broadband deployment for conferences, are a 30Mb/s, 50Km connection the the Farallon Islands to support personal on the island and a live streaming camera for the California Academy of Sciences. Currently he is designing and deploying a city wide fiber network for the City of San Francisco. Pozar also designs and deploys VoIP networks for national teleconferencing companies and high reliability Internet networks for enterprise and ISP companies.

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Special offer: Get free Telecom and Wireless magazines.

* * * * * * * * *

Buy these Research Reports now:

(1) Guide to the WiMAX Band (2.5 GHz): the technology, license holders and future prospects

(2) The U.S. Mobile Web Market: Taking Advantage of the iPhone Phenomenon

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Report on Internet use in Native American communities shows huge broadband gap

MuniWireless.com — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 -0500

The New America Foundation has published a report on broadband penetration and Internet use among Native American communities. As you might imagine, people who live on Indian lands have hardly any options when it comes to broadband, i.e. the vast majority don’t even have it. Where wireless broadband is available, it’s too expensive. But, until you read this report, you won’t realize just how dire the situation is. Download New Media, Technology and Internet Use in Indian Country: Quantitative and Qualitative Analyses, a two-part report that includes a survey of Native American technology use normed against other national surveys, and case studies of six successful projects.

“I’ve visited Native communities where Internet black holes exist because broadband deployment either ignored them or simply went around them. For the first time in history, we have solid broadband data that underscores the fact that Native Americans are using the Internet when they have access to it and building their own tribal centric broadband highways when no one else will. This report is timely and catapults the needs of Native Americans into the national policy making process as the FCC develops a data focused and comprehensive National Broadband Plan.”

“Our exploratory analyses defy the often-held stereotypes of limited new media and broadband use amongst Native Americans. We found a dramatic uptake of these technologies amongst tribal members,” explained Sascha Meinrath, Director of the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Initiative.

“Overall, survey participants were extremely tech savvy, utilizing digital multimedia and communications at rates that are much higher than national norms,” concludes Traci Morris, Policy and Program Analyst for Native Public Media.

I hope that this report gets everyone thinking not just about broadband availability in Native American communities, but in rural communities in general, which have been left behind because the national policy to date has been to leave everything to the “free” market (we know it’s anything but a free market). I am awaiting the NTIA’s and RUS’s decisions on who gets BTOP/BIP funding.

* * * * * * * * * *

Special offer: Get free Telecom and Wireless magazines.

* * * * * * * * *

Buy these Research Reports now:

(1) Guide to the WiMAX Band (2.5 GHz): the technology, license holders and future prospects

(2) The U.S. Mobile Web Market: Taking Advantage of the iPhone Phenomenon

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Spain guarantees right to 1 megabyte broadband connection

MuniWireless.com — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 -0500

Following the example of Finland, the Spanish government says that beginning 2011, everyone in Spain will have the right to buy broadband at speeds of at least 1 megabyte per second. The government recognizes that, like telephone service, broadband is now an essential part of daily life.

Any telecom operator that has a universal service contract has to provide reasonably priced broadband everywhere in Spain. At present, universal service obligations imposed on these operators include only fixed line telephony and directory service. The government is adding Internet access to the list of obligations.

I am quite shocked to read this because large parts of Spain are mountainous and sparsely populated — the Pyrenees, Basque country, the northwest around Santiago de Compostela, the Parque Nacional de Sierra Nevada in the south, also very mountainous, difficult terrain. I expect that the operators will have to deploy wireless broadband in those areas to meet the government’s mandate.

FCC Tackles Cell Phone Use/Texting While Driving

spectrumtalk.blogspot.com — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 -0500

FCC Tackles Cell Phone Use/Texting While Driving

FCC has taken several actions recently to look into the controversial issue of traffic safety aspects of cell phone use. The previous management of FCC showed no interest in this topic.

Recent MBTA (Boston subway) accident that injured 49 people and
was caused by the operator texting while driving!

On November 20, there will be a staff workshop on "distracted driving". This will "explore technology innovations and applications that may eliminate or significantly reduce the problem of distracted driving as well as ways to educate the public about such dangerous behavior."

On November 4, FCC announced a "a joint effort (with DOT) to evaluate technologies that may help curb the dangerous epidemic of distracted driving." The announcement went on to say

The DOT-FCC partnership will also include outreach efforts to educate the public about the dangers of texting while driving, talking on cell phones while driving, and other distracting behavior that can lead to deadly accidents.

"We must put an end to distracted driving, which is costing lives and inflicting injuries across the nation's roads and railways," Secretary LaHood told the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection. "I look forward to working with Chairman Genachowski and ensuring that FCC's and DOT's technology experts can join forces on this critical issue."

Chairman Genachowski said, “I welcome this collaborative effort to eliminate the increasingly deadly practice of distracted driving. Changing this ingrained behavior will require us to develop creative solutions using both technology and education. By combining the resources and expertise of the DOT and the FCC, I am confident that we can have a major impact on this problem.”