Monday, July 08, 2002

Geek Cruises Offer Wireless Internet Access The topic for July 3, 2002 on Reiter's Wireless Data Web Log is WiFi and cruises: I'm getting onboard. Alan goes on to describe how he'll be assisting in the setup of Wireless LANs onboard cruise ships, and notes that this is being done now on selected cruises, most notably some recent Geek Cruises. I knew this would be big... really big, and the experiences related by Glenn Fleishman in and article on O'Reilly DevCenter and his 802.11b Networking News here, here, and here bear out my vision of doing exactly what Glenn describes. Shortly after Neil Bauman, founder of Geek Cruises, announced his first Geek Cruise in approximately early 1999, I began discussing with Neil that wireless Internet access, coupled with satellite communications would be big. Below is an excerpt from a July 10, 1999 email message I sent to Neil: Neil: Not to beat this topic to death, but perhaps you could combine Perl Whirl with some demos by the new generation of satellite communications companies that are evolving Internet access via satellite. You'll have a tough time attracting the geeks if you tell them they'll be isolated from their e-mail (effectively, at $3/min for low speed access). Steve Neil was largely unconvinced (at the time) that there would be much demand for Internet access even on a Geek Cruise (they're taking a cruise to get away from their keyboards), and I was saddled with a day job, lack of funds, and something of a lack of courage of my convictions and so didn't try to pursue a proof of concept experiment. Not to mention that the idea was, then, a bit ahead of its time and really required more widespread recognition of the value of Internet access via wireless LAN to make it truly feasible. (With increasing usage and intensified competition, Inmarsat satellite communications prices seem to have declined to "the high side of reasonable.") Unbeknownst to me, Internet access on cruises, via satellite and onboard Internet lounges and cafes was becoming increasingly widespread and at this point seems to have become a required amenity onboard cruise ships. I wish Neil, Alan, and all the others merrily equipping cruise ships with public Wireless LANs the best of luck. My wife and daughter have tried to convince me to join them on several cruises, but four years of working offshore in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaskan waters doing seismic survey work early in my career gave me more than enough taste of life at sea. Sometime soon, I will succomb to their requests, and I'll undoubtedly sign up for onboard wireless Internet access. 4:29:36 PM

Buffet Invests In Level 3 Communications I happily subscribe (for pay) to the Wall Street Journal Online Edition; it's a great resource. But when you get a tip on an interesting story for it, you have to go elsewhere to provide a link since stories are only available to subscribers. Of late, I've begun using Google's News Search (currently in Beta) and it's every bit the quality experience that one has come to expect from Google. I mention this to provide a reference to a story which I learned about in the Wall Street Journal Online Edition (since I can't link to the WSJOE, here's a Reuters story that I can link to, as well as the Level 3 press release), that Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway investment company announced plans, with two other investment companies, to invest $500M in Level 3 Communications. Of the various "greenfield fiber networks", Level 3 is arguably one of the best-positioned financially, technically, and managerial. Level 3 plans to use the investment to scoop up ailing competitors and strengthen its competitive position in the industry. It's particularly notable that this investment is Berkshire Hathaway's first investment, ever, in telecom or computer industry stocks. This investment, coming during the deepest depression in the telecom industry ever, bodes well for Level 3. But, I'll argue that Level 3 will not truly prosper until it eschews its "religious conviction" that it's in the "run fiber optic cable all the way to the customer" business. Instead, I would argue that Level 3 is in the "high bandwidth communications" business, and that Level 3's should utilize a mix of technologies that includes not only fiber optic cable but also broadband wireless technologies. Certain BWIA technologies are a near-perfect complement to fiber for cost-effective completion of high-bandwidth links in the last mile. A perfect technology fit for Level 3 would be to make use of AirFiber's new Hybrid Fiber Radio (previously mentioned in the BWIA Weblog): Rapid deployment Order of magnitude less expensive than running fiber where it has not previously reached Speeds of 1 Gbps at 5-9's reliability due to the complimentary nature of FSO and RF License-exempt, so deploy anywhere with no "link negotiation", spectrum payments, etc. If Level 3 CEO Crowe can get over his bias against the use of wireless technology (from accounts, earlier experiences with wireless have poisoned him on making any use of any type of wireless) then Level 3 would really be a contender to emerge a leader in what I'm now calling "The Telecom Renaissance" (as differentiated from the "Telecom Dark Ages".) 10:45:23 AM

© Copyright 2002 Steve Stroh.