Russ Savage: Digital Communication

Tue, 04 Nov 2003 02:03:09 GMT

It's your number, take it with you. Carriers brace for massive churn with the arrival of number portability later this month. [CNET News.com - Front Door]

German antenna digital TV

Tue, 04 Nov 2003 02:01:46 GMT

German Way to Go Digital: No Dawdling. Berlin is the world's first major city to switch from analog to entirely digital television broadcasting. By Mark Landler. [New York Times: Technology]

Italian DSL vs Fiber

Tue, 04 Nov 2003 01:59:26 GMT

In Milan, Working to Unfurl a High-Tech Blanket of Fiber. e.Biscom, a recent technology start-up, is hoping to deliver broadband Internet access in Italy. It has entrenched competition, however. By Eric Sylvers. [New York Times: Technology]

Sun, 02 Nov 2003 02:13:17 GMT

It's The End Of The Web As We Know It And I Feel Fine

I'm at the RVC SoftEdge Conference, where I'll be speaking tomorrow. RVC is the former venture arm of Reuters and this is its technology conference. The discussion here is wide ranging but generally around the evolution of information technology.

During one of the breaks I was speaking with a senior scientist who is intimately familiar with the plumbing of the web and is currently in command of a key piece of that infrastructure. On assurance of anonymity, he described for me what he views as a nail in the coffin of email communications as we know it....
[VentureBlog]

Sun, 02 Nov 2003 01:44:29 GMT

Ubiquity Breeds Utility
VentureBlog, a random walk down Sand Hill Road

In the late 1980s, Dartmouth College was the most wired campus on the planet, running 10Mb Ethernet into every dorm room. Today, Dartmouth is the most unwired campus on the planet, with 560 access points covering 200 acres. At a recent conference here, Larry Levine, the head of computing services, challenged attendees to find a single spot on campus and surrounding areas that did not have 802.11 coverage. Even the boathouse, adjacent sections of the Connecticut river, the ski lodge, and sections of the ski slope are covered!

If you wanted to know where wired communications were headed in the late 1980s, all you had to do was go to the Dartmouth campus and look at their homegrown email application, Blitzmail. As any regular user of Blitzmail will tell you, it included a server-side address book and remote private and public folders before almost any other email application. Watching a regular user of Blitzmail, you could have predicted the rise of LDAP, IMAP, and most importantly Instant Messenger - Blitzmail was so fast and so ubiquitous, that people used it for IM-style back-and-forth conversations long before IM became popular in the larger environment.

At the conference, I looked for similar insights regarding wireless networks on the Dartmouth Campus. A few observations:...

Sat, 01 Nov 2003 20:50:53 GMT

Round one to Vonage; round two to the states? [CNET News.com - Front Door]

Judge OKs MCI reorganization plan. MCI should emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection early next year, company executives said Friday after a federal judge approved the carrier's reorganization plan. [InfoWorld: Top News]

Judge OKs MCI reorganization plan [IDG InfoWorld]

Thu, 17 Apr 2003 04:01:06 GMT

Cisco to ship Wi-Fi mobile phone in June. Device will work only within facilities [InfoWorld: Top News]

Mon, 07 Apr 2003 12:48:21 GMT

Disconnects on Wi-Fi and cell phones. He helped usher in a communications transformation by inventing the cell phone, but now Martin Coopersays that cellular carriers are making big mistakes in releasing Wi-Fi and other advanced data services across the nation. [CNET News.com]

Tue, 01 Apr 2003 01:52:50 GMT

SIP fuels communications interplay. Driven by voice and platform vendors, protocol promises to unite IM, video, voice [InfoWorld: Top News]

Technology aims to sync users' communications. Multiple devices in mix [InfoWorld: Top News]

Sat, 29 Mar 2003 17:01:03 GMT

Fast-forwarding digital cable. After spending billions on digital upgrades, cable giants have been disappointed by consumer response. McKinsey experts examine whether on-demand services will redeem the investment. [CNET News.com]

Thu, 20 Mar 2003 11:33:43 GMT

Making a Statement, in Absentia. Among college students, the away message is a form of communication, entertainment, procrastination and social life rolled into one. [New York Times: Technology] [[ t e c h n o c u l t u r e ]]

Wed, 19 Mar 2003 19:25:25 GMT

SJ Mercury: Newest phones show promise of wireless. Dan Gillmor. While it was amusing to hear all the breathless talk of mobile messaging and camera-equipped phones, which are yesterday's news in places like Japan and Finland, it was clear that the United States is starting to catch up in service and function. [Tomalak's Realm]

Wed, 19 Mar 2003 13:34:20 GMT

Wireless: Will it or won't it?. CNET News.com's Michael Kanellos wonders whether wireless computing will change the relationship people have with their computers--or wind up a hobby for techno nuts. [CNET News.com]

Wed, 19 Mar 2003 11:18:49 GMT

Nokia software to tackle corporate apps access [IDG InfoWorld]

"Mobile users will be able to access corporate e-mail, calendars, phone directories and other applications from mobile phones and other devices using software introduced Tuesday by Nokia. at the CTIA Wireless trade show here....

"Nokia One is designed to let carriers provide at lower cost the kinds of services that have been provided using server-based systems set up with large enterprises. With it, corporate applications can be accessed via voice, SMS (Short Message Service), WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) and the Web on a variety of devices, including mobile phones, PDAs (personal digital assistants), PCs and fixed-line phones."

Tue, 11 Mar 2003 10:53:41 GMT

Clique of Instant Messagers Expands Into the Workplace. Instant messaging, long used by teenagers, is moving into the workplace with an impact that is rivaling rival e-mail and the cellphone. By Amy Harmon. [New York Times: Technology]

memo to self: anticipate the unintended

Mon, 24 Feb 2003 11:17:02 GMT

Promise of intelligent networks. Homes could soon be studded with small, smart wireless relays that shuffle data around at very high speeds. [BBC News | Technology | UK Edition]

Mr Witteman said work still had to be done on security for mesh networks to ensure that data only passed through trusted devices rather than just any that happen to be available.

Fri, 21 Feb 2003 12:56:02 GMT

F.C.C. Leaves Most Rules on Network Leasing in Place. A divided Federal Communications Commission largely left in place rules that are meant to foster local competition. By Stephen Labaton. [New York Times: NYT HomePage]

Fri, 14 Feb 2003 10:16:46 GMT

Read past the headline and you find there is simply "a recent internal letter" which means they're simply thinking out loud about it.

U.S. backs merging Net, phone numbers. The Bush administration is lending its support to an international proposal to map telephone numbers to Internet addresses. By Declan McCullagh, Staff Writer, CNET News.com. [CNET News.com]

In a recent internal letter, the Commerce Department recommended that the United States participate in an emerging electronic numbering system, known as ENUM, that will allow people to use one identifier for many different purposes, including mobile phones, e-mail, instant messaging and faxes. ENUM is designed to accelerate the convergence of the telephone network and the Internet and is expected to offer a huge boost to online telephony services.

Ok, it's become official

U.S. gets behind ENUM Net phone initiative [InfoWorld: Top News]

In a letter posted to the U.S. Commerce Department's Web site Wednesday, National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) Administrator Nancy Victory wrote to the U.S. Department of State saying that ENUM "has the potential to facilitate convergence of communications networks by linking e-mail addresses, telephone numbers, fax numbers and cell phone numbers for individuals or businesses."

Sat, 01 Feb 2003 01:53:00 GMT

Preparing for convergence [InfoWorld: Top News]

Sat, 01 Feb 2003 01:42:51 GMT

Digital data chases converged reality [InfoWorld: Top News]

Windley on WiFi TCO

Wed, 22 Jan 2003 11:03:09 GMT

Wi-Fi TCO. Ever since I wrote the piece on wireless workplace wisdom for Matt Jones, I've been thinking over the whole Wi-Fi ROI issue. One side of that equation is total cost of ownership, or TCO. Here's what I've been thinking so far. [Windley's Enterprise Computing Weblog]

VoIP to everyone

Fri, 17 Jan 2003 12:50:17 GMT

The Shifted Librarian reports on various people's Vonage experiences. Early takes are positive.

Thu, 16 Jan 2003 10:25:14 GMT

Senators add Wi-Fi to broadband debate. Two U.S. senators propose Wi-Fi networks as an alternative to digital subscriber lines and cable modems for getting broadband Internet access to rural areas and small cities. [CNET News.com]

A study in threes

Wed, 15 Jan 2003 02:47:30 GMT

Motorola, Proxim, Avaya to stitch seamless wireless network: The New York Times reports on today's expected announcement -- which was made -- about these three firms' efforts to stitch together different forms of wireless networking into a seamless whole to allow roaming across several kinds of networks, like cell and Wi-Fi hot spots.
[80211b News]

Motorola promises cellular, Wi-Fi convergence. Teams with Avaya, Proxim to create single VOIP, cellular handset
[InfoWorld: Top News]

Avaya, Motorola, Proxim plan to marry Wi-Fi and cell networks. Three top technology companies plan to develop the software and systems that will allow for convergence of Wi-Fi and cellular networks.
[Computerworld News]

The Internet: One Way Street or Two Way Street

Thu, 09 Jan 2003 14:06:08 GMT

The Read-Write Web. Dave Winer's First (DaveNet) Essay of the Year is about many things, but it may boil down best to what... [Dan Gillmor's eJournal]
and
Defining Broadband in Only One Direction. Wall Street Journal: After Internet's Big Bust, Broadband Shift Went On. Much of the new content being developed for broadband... [Dan Gillmor's eJournal]