Thursday, July 11, 2002

Bits and Pieces Not much new and interesting happening this post-holiday week, but readers abhor a Blog that doesn't update even when news is slow. I conducted an interview today with a Broadband Wireless Internet Access company that put "just enough and no more" technology into their new product. If what they're saying is just mostly true, and the smaller customers who have deployed it to date aren't complete dupes, then in five years or so, we're going to be laughing about how we used to do Broadband Wireless with wires. Broadband Wireless Internet Access is entirely a technology story at this point. The fundamentals of usability, price, and performance have to be rock-solid now. There is simply no optimism or charity or "experimentation" left; any BWIA system that is being deployed now will get creamed in the marketplace if it isn't delivering "things that cannot be done with wireline" and/or "at a price point simply unachieveable with wireline." Yesterday's Wall Street Journal reported that AT&T Wireless and VoiceStream are in merger discussions. I think it's more accurate to say that their merger discussions became publicly known. I like the latter statement because it's an absolute that all mobile telephony carriers are in very active merger discussions with each other, as well as lots of plotting behind the scenes about outright acquisitions. With the FCC having caved in to repealing the limits on how much cellular and PCS spectrum any one company can own, it's inevitable that there will be a feeding frenzy of mergers. The Associatied Press and others (thanks to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer for the tip) report that Microsft will begin marketing 802.11b / Wi-Fi equipment this fall. This equipment will come from the same group that produces other Microsoft-branded hardware such as keyboards and mice. No breakthroughs on form, functionality, usability, or price are expected, just the comfort factor of the Microsoft brand name and very strong distribution. This will be interesting... one of the few times that Intel and Microsoft will actually be competing head-to-head. Updated my Stories page with a new one, running mentions of What Other People Are Saying About Steve Stroh Was browsing through the new B&B Electronics catalog and found a very cool new item - the USB to Cat5 extender. These adapters use up to 100' of Cat5 cable between a computer and a USB device. This is another piece of interesting equipment that Wireless ISPs might find of use to make use of inexpensive consumer-grade 802.11b equipment for Customer Premise Equipment (CPE) to connect to a close-in Wireless ISP Point-of-Presence, an idea I call "Micro-WIPOP". The New Adventures Of The Mad Scientists Club arrived! Space doesn't permit a complete rehashing of the virtues of these books. I read them in grade school in the 1960's and it was a seminal event for me... I wanted to learn more and be like these guys! They long lapsed out of print, and now are back from a wonderful company called Purple House Press in collaboration with the original author's son. My daughter and I are taking turns reading them to each other and it's joyous. If you have any techies in the family, these books are wonderful presents. Highly recommended! The books have their own, well done web page at www.madscientistsclub.com My daughter and I saw "Men In Black II" yesterday. The theatre was air conditioned, the popcorn was good, and it was a pleasant way to kill a few hours. The plot, such as it was, was pretty weak, but compensated by lots of site gags and humor. I've really become a fan of Tommy Lee Jones when he's allowed to be humorous. 11:50:49 AM

© Copyright 2002 Steve Stroh.