Wi-Fi in the Sky!

In a follow-up to my earlier piece, it's finally available: Lufthansa is now offering onboard wireless broadband service on scheduled flights. They've started with the popular Frankfurt - Washington D.C. (Dulles) run. Lufthansa's press release announcing the service is here.

4:30:43 PM    Google It!    

2002 Top Ten Forecasting Follies

From Light Reading: 2002 Top Ten: Forecasting Follies. "We’ll soon be saying goodbye to 2002, and lots of people will be saying good riddance. It turned into an annus horribilis for many in the telecom industry...".

11:34:27 AM    Google It!    

DigiPens Search for Write Market

DigiPens Search for Write Market. Some observers believe digital pens will make traditional writing on paper obsolete by 2020. A Swedish company is at the forefront of pushing the technology. Michael Stroud reports from Stockholm. [Wired News]

11:52:05 AM    Google It!    

Internet Metering, Measurement and IPDR

"Sender-keeps-all" or "bill-and-keep" accounting mechanisms are simple accounting schemes common in the deployment of new telecommunication technologies. However, in asymmetric traffic environments or where highly diversified service offerings emerge (e.g. those requiring guaranteed bandwidth), these models tend to shift to revenue sharing mechanisms among operators and/or content providers. In some cases, this can lead to new market dynamics. One example is the success of NTT Docomo's i-mode service, which some argue is mostly related to its billing gateway technology, permitting revenue sharing and encouraging the growth of new external content providers.

Many previously "free" Internet services are shifting to subscription or metered-based schemes and there's a lot of standards activity underway focused on charging, accounting and cross-operator settlement schemes for IP-based networks. In the public switched telephone network (PSTN) world, which is focused on a single service, voice, accounting mechanisms are primarily built around call detail records (CDRs). In the IP-based world, the service offerings can be much wider (voice, email, web, streaming access), so the challenge has been to develop a more flexible format that can capture the relevant metrics for a wide range of service classes. An interesting development is the Internet Protocol Detail Record (IPDR).

ITU-T Study Group 3, who deal with tariff and accounting principles including related telecommunication economic and policy issues, are currently meeting at the ITU. At this meeting, the Internet Protocol Detail Record Organization (IPDR), has given an interesting presentation (PDF) on its latest activities, particularly with regard to the emerging Network Data Management Usage (NDM-U) specification. This is a development to keep an eye on in the future.

11:24:02 AM    Google It!    

Blogging in Rio

It's a wonderful evening here in Rio de Janeiro and the view over the bay at Barra da Tijuca is stunning. I'm here to give a talk at II Rio Telecom. I plan to post a link to my talk after I give it on Tuesday.

10:48:43 PM    Google It!    

Isochronous mesh networks

Talk about timely. CommsDesign has a recent piece on the development by Motorola of an "isochronous network, developed with input from Nintendo Co. Ltd., Sony Corp. and other game platform developers, [that] will be extended into other markets to serve as a "feeder" for future ad-hoc mesh-based piconets that use 802.11 wireless technology as their underlying infrastructure". Slashdot also has a related thread. Isochronous ad-hoc mesh-based piconets? Wow. This almost seems like it could have been generated by dack.com.

12:27:53 PM    Google It!    

Doonesbury on Wi-Fi poaching

Doonesbury on Wi-Fi poaching.

10:32:09 AM    Google It!