Bear Flag Republic Radio Weblog

Industry analysts say there is no business case for power companies to pursue BPL Internet access. I have read several reports like this recently, questioning whether BPL systems will ever serve many users. Lots of trials, yes. Probably some systems too. But it may never be as big a deal as the FCC has hoped. Interference problems are likely to remain. And it may be hard for companies used to generating and delivering power to invest and step up to the challenge of running data networks.

Another important consideration is that alternative data transmission rates are climbing. DSL, locally, started out as a 256 kbps service but is now up to 1.5 Mbps. In some places, it is starting to be offered at 3 Mbps. Cable modems began at 1.5 Mbps service, but are now offering 3 Mbps, with faster rates definitely coming. The same day that the FCC approved BPL, it also approved allowing phone companies to have exclusive use of any fiber they install to homes. SBC Communications, a huge telco, announced they would immediately accelerate their deployment of fiber to the home. This will likely lead to 10 to 50 Mbps services.

Can power line technology keep up? I do not think so. The nature of the medium is that it is not likely to carry the complex modulation scheme needed for extremely high data rates. They need to fit their signal into a 2 to 80 Mhz bandwidth that is absolutely loaded with noise, and which will require various notching filters. Once the signal goes on to the power line, even if isolated into line segments, it will be shared with many, many houses. While cable is also a shared medium, they keep their signals (usually!) inside their coaxial plant and have opportunities to use broad sections of bandwidth, if they need to.

Power companies will be looking to partner, most likely, with ISPs to deliver Internet services, and perhaps network management firms to deploy the infrastructure. These are big investments - but they could be for naught as their technology may rapidly appear to be "too little, too late".
[Edward Mitchell: Common Sense Technology]
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"It is the United States' most lopsided trade relationship, with U.S. imports from China ($152 billion) outpacing exports to China ($28 billion) by more than 5 to 1. The goods involved range from consumer items to advanced technology products. At the same time, U.S. firms continue to invest heavily in China, moving manufacturing capacity and, in some cases, research and development along with this investment."

Translation - U.S. firms ship our jobs to China, and China ships us products. Period. And that's a statement from an official U.S. government agency. Usually, when people speak of the benefits of "free trade" they mean two-way, balanced trade, or better yet, benefits in our favor. As we enter the 21st century, our international trade scenarios are becoming increasingly lopsided in ways that harm the U.S.

The same government agency says that we have doubled the number of jobs we are shipping offshore in the three year period from 2001 to 2004. Other researchers, such as Gartner, predict that this trend will accelerate into the future.

Left out is that the number of temporary workers we import from elsewhere is quite a bit larger than the number of jobs estimated to have been lost to offshoring. When the H-1B visa, for example, authorized up to about 200,000 workers per year, that translated into displacement of 600,000 to 1,200,000 U.S. workers (the visa was good for 3 years or renewable once, up to 6 years). Simultaneously, there has been an explosion in the use of the L-1 visa (no caps) to import workers into the U.S. The use of imported workers may  account for the current "jobless recovery" that has confounded economists.

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We've read plenty of articles that tell us that offshore outsourcing is a non-issue. Hardly any jobs are leaving the U.S. Those claims though, are very misleading - as job creation is obviously moving elsewhere.

Wipro, one of the largest Indian offshoring firms, just posted a profit increase of 79% on sales growth of 44%. Infosys, Satyam, TCS, and so on, all posted similar results. All of these countries and more, including many U.S. firms are hiring tens of thousands of new workers in India. Almost every day in the The Economic Times of India, Hindu Business Line, and other publications, you can read announcements of Company X plans to hire another 5,000 workers over the coming 12 to 24 month.

A related issue, that explains some of our balance of trade problem, is that in the past, we produced products in the U.S. and exported products to other countries. Other countries, in turn, produced products and exported those to the U.S. We had a "balance of trade". Today, U.S. corporations tell us that they are "Global businesses" and now must manufacture their products overseas to support those local markets. Thus, we lose jobs in the U.S. and produce fewer goods here for export. But we still import products from abroad. The result is we have simply stopped adding new jobs in the U.S. Big surprise - we have a jobless recovery.

What is the solution? I do not know. Jobs will go wherever the work can be one for the least cost. Is it a problem that needs solving? Will the issue get worked out by the economy, on its own? Is it a problem that should be solved by government or the private sector? In terms of the government, neither Mr. Bush nor Mr. Kerry have said anything useful or meaningful to address this issue except to typically argue that we must improve middle school math and science classes so that we can train more U.S. workers for non-existent jobs.
[Edward Mitchell: Common Sense Technology]
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