For those unfamiliar with 95th percentile billing here is as simple an explanation I can deliver. If you a using bandwidth for a month and your peak download OR upload rate is say 20Mbps your 95th of that might be 15Mbps for instance. The concept in itself involves dropping the top 5% of use to account for infrequent high bursts (in this example to 20Mbps).
Why is 95th an important billing method? It allows the supplier to account for peak demand and actually bill and make money off that peak level. If the supplier is relied upon to deliver to the end user at such a peak rate at ANY time, why shouldn't that peak rate be the billed amount since the supplier actually had to build infrastructure to accomodate for it? Of course there is oversell but in reality there is similar pattern of use between most end customers, requiring that expense asset expenditure to accomodate for peak levels of each and every end user.
Why aren't so many other things billed via this method? Cell phones, electricity, municipal water...etc.
]]> Think about electricity. The incumbent provider of electrical current is required to build for peak demand. This usually is mid afternoon when all industry is in full swing and in warmer climates when air conditioners are running full out. Think of the wasted infrastructure at midnight! If you calculated an efficiency level of the assets required to produce the electricity it would be entirely average. Why not charge the end users at their peak level of use (or 95th percentile) since the assets had to be deployed to guarantee delivery of that electricity?]]>WiFi aka "Poor Man's Wireless"
Great for coffee shops and stealing it from (mostly) unsuspecting non-tech types who leave their home router unsecured. Also good for those cities that somehow believe blanketing their downtown or the entire city with WiFi will make their city more attractive and a better place to live (which in my opinion will result in class action lawsuits by taxpayers in jurisdictions where they may have footed a portion of the bill). Dailywireless reports that there are over 300 municipal wireless WiFi systems in the USA!
]]> 3G aka "The Business Traveller's Best Friend"Too expensive for mom and dad...and even the single 20 somethings...3G is made for business. Whether it is a Verizon, Sprint, Cingular, Telus or Rogers connection...they are just too expensive except for the most desperate users (or ones that don't care about cash). For heavy business travellers it will become indespensible, especially as it becomes more embedded in the laptop as has started to happen in the USA. Recently I acquired a Spring USB 3G modem for my laptop on an unlimited North American plan. It has worked quite well, often achieving speeds well in excess of 1Mbps. While not reliable enough to be used in a fixed environment such as an office....it has been great on the road.
WiMax and Fixed Wireless aka "Real Broadband Today"
I am continually amazed how WiMAX and Fixed Wireless is overlooked by businesses for their last mile access needs. Most providers can install a multi-megabit connection within days, often compared to months for fiber or weeks for ADSL (if available). I am blown away that T1's are still ordered daily in the USA. Fixed wireless often comes in at 10-50% of competing wireline technologies. Hell, at MetroBridge we install GigE connections within a week...wirelessly!
So, in summary, we've got WiFi for students and casual web users who happen to have a laptop and carry it around with them. 3G for business travellers...and WiMAX/Fixed Wireless for business/office use. Seems simple.
]]>YVR was a mess. The normally easy to transit, verging on calm airport was transformed in to the longest line I have personally ever witnessed at an airport. No one was complaining much...it was mostly stunned looks and bewilderment in the thousand deep crowd.
The terrorists? They succeeded. Whether they were really ever going to blow up planes in mid-air is almost irrelevant. The terrorists (or extremists, or whatever you personally want to call them) managed to push up the terror alert status to the maximum (since it has come off) in both the USA and Britain.
]]> Plainly put, travel was a pain in the ass. In the US there were National Guard deployed at both LAX and SAN...standing guard over the tens of thousands of travellers who couldn't even bring a bottle of water airside. Leaving San Diego I went through the metal detector without setting it off...but I went through with my highly explosive Puma flip flops on so had to return and put them on the xray belt. The carpet had a nice sticky feel to it...like old flypaper or something ('would a small child stick to it' I thought to myself)."President" Bush no doubt benefits in his ratings during such times...which always leaves me wondering how they find that perfect balance between keeping citizens scared enough...but not wreck their economy.
]]>What is going through a politicians mind when they 'come up with the idea' that their city should have ubiquitous WiFi coverage for the masses? Maybe ubiquitious housing, education or medical aid is a more likely target?!? I'm telling you it makes me crazy. Why don't they start dealing in electricity, cable TV or countless other commercial services?!? Does WiFi makes their citizens smarter or something? I haven't seen such a study.
]]> I predict that there will be free WiFi coverage in most major cities throughout North America as ISP's beef up their networks (hell, I will be one of the people doing it...so I can atleast speak factually about one company). WiFi nodes are so inexpensive these days and with the great open source meshing protocols it is remarkably easy to extend off gateways everywhere. Today we have been experimenting with meraki mini's and their meshing work. Over the past 12 months I have also worked with 4G Systems devices, MIT Roofnet systems as well as Meru Networks. Each of these systems will extend any gateway in to the WiFi arena for little cost ($49 in the case of Meraki !!).]]>The small box takes input from your analog or digital cable box, compresses the stream as it is received and then makes it available via the internet via your home broadband connection. Even even has IR emitters for controlling hundreds of types of cable boxes, allowing you to change channels, etc.
]]> The great part about the unit is there are no fees beyond the unit cost itself and having a broadband connection. Software is installed on your laptop or Windows Mobile device allowing you to watch your cable connection from ANYWHERE you can get a half decent internet connection (>200kbps).I am lucky to have 10Mbps fiber in my residence and 100Mbps ethernet at my work (fed from a Gig connection) so I get the maximum data rate possible providing full screen viewing on my laptop.
While travelling for business it has been great to watch the local news while sitting in remote airports or while away for a week in South Carolina we were able to watch the Canucks in the playoffs.
]]>Why? Being a true entrepreneur (i.e.: neither an old family business nor a franchise) is time demanding, cash draining and can be extremely stressful and anxiety producing.
I have personally witnessed friends and colleagues completely crash and burn in their search for this perceived nirvana. It produced extreme financial hardship, heartache and personal life implosion.
Want to be an entrepreneur? Ask yourself these questions:
Am I prepared to give up literally everything I own on this planet including the ability to financially care for myself (and family)? Am I prepared to start from scratch 2 years from now if everything goes down the drain? Can I truly work 7 days a week 12+ hours a day and still maintain my sanity (and will my family disown me)?
Think hard and long about this nirvana because it can quickly turn in to hell.
Dorian
I have owned my two zone Sonos system plus controller for just over one year so I figured it was time to tell the internet world about how this amazing music system has completely 180'd how I own, manage and listen to music.
Sonos is made up of Zone Players that you place in each room where you would like to distribute music. Only one unit must be connected (somehow) to your LAN for access to wherever you store your MP3's. The storage area can literally be any drive map(s) or hard drive visible on the network. I started off story my MP3's on my PC but my collection quickly outgrew the hard drive space and I later migrated to a network hard drive (essentially a hard drive in a case with an ethernet port).
]]> The truly amazing part about Sonos (other than it's simple existence) is that each of the other Zone Players you distribute throughout your house (and property) self form a 54Mbps proprietary wireless mesh with all other Zone Players you own. This means only one of the Zone Players needs a LAN connection and all others -create- a LAN connection with eachother (all Zoneplayers have 4 switch ports essentially extending your LAN for ANY data use).The second amazing part about Sonos is that in each 'zone' you can have completely different music playing than all other zones or even link some Zones together to play the same music or internet radio station.
I have recommended the Sonos system to many people. When guests at my home see and play with my Sonos system they are truly amazed...especially if music or technology enthusiasts.
I have said again and again that Bose or Apple should be all over purchasing Sonos and exploiting their unreal technology even further.
That being said, the Sonos group is continually innovating and providing new software (which is automatically updated!!!) and hardware.
Finally, their tech support is of a quality that every company should hope to one day match. I do not say that lightly.
Dorian
Personally I had some great discussions with many individuals that no doubt have spurred me to think (even more) about our industry and the global impact it is having and going to have on communications and information flow.
I was particularly excited chatting with Tony from CWLab. I told him about our equipment woes and what a strange time it is for our industry.
]]> At no time has last mile wireless ever been so promoted and yet we have such a dearth of good last mile equipment available. At MetroBridge we were migrating to WiLAN equipment at each of our new POP sites. Just a few weeks ago WiLAN announced their exit from the hardware game to focus on their patents (another NTP)?I asked Tony what we could do to convince manufacturers to make radios that WE wanted. The features, quality and price that could help make our wireless ISP's even more successful. We both concluded that manufacturers mostly cared about getting volume orders from major ILEC's and CLEC's. Tony then began to tell me about some great ideas he has for a new generation of radios. Very exciting stuff. I am going to look in to raising some capital for R&D on the concepts. Who knows, maybe this time next year we will have a hardware company!
Dorian
]]>It was interesting to see a close to comprehensive comparison between countries on various metrics regarding WiMAX. Clearly at odds with most of the other countries in the report was the United States.
I have been deploying last mile microwave since 2000 and last fall began deploying what WiLAN termed 'pre-WiMAX' equipment (recently WiLAN announced their exit from the hardware game to focus on their WiMAX patent portfolio).
]]> WiMAX has clearly been overhyped by the media spurred by early poor communications from the WiMAX Forum (my company, MetroBridge, was the first Canadian carrier accepted in to the Forum).I am beyond confident that WiMAX (last mile microwave, truly) is one of the major events to happen this decade in the tech world. Operators (whether ISP, cellular, municipalities...) now have a window to be on board with WiMAX or be left behind.
This week I speak at WiNOG in Austin on improving ARPU for last mile microwave connections. I hope to introduce major differentiators that show why companies/groups like General Electric, Intrawest, 911, Suzuki and GM use our connectivity as their primary connection for their operations.
Exciting and revolutionary times.
]]>The show is about a very small IT department of a UK business and their (in)ability to run an efficient IT help department. If you have ever been in an IT department or had to interact with one this show will no doubt provide some great laughs.
On another note, supposedly Canada is the leader in illegal downloads.
]]>Over the past two years I have strongly asserted to anyone who asks whether my blackberry (since the 957 a 7280, 7290 and now an 8700) is useful or not, I strongly proclaim that my company, MetroBridge Networks, would be atleast 30% smaller in both sales, number of employees and number of customers with Blackberry.
Whether this growth is real or imagined the personal productivity gains I realize on the new 8700 is truly jaw dropping. While away on holidays recently I sat in the surf in 35 degree celsius weather sending emails, logging in to devices for troubleshooting and reading the news (some holiday!!!).
Dorian
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