Disqus - Latest Comments for egubbins

Re: Clouds vs. outages

egubbins — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 09:53:53 -0000

See also:
Rackspace Server Also Hit In Google Attack
http://www.crn.com/storage/...

Re: Should users finance fiber-to-the-home?

egubbins — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 16:37:32 -0000

A reader commented via email:

Though this is a new approach, I don't think it is as wildly different as you might think...

"If we’re paying for broadband deployment with federal taxes anyway, should we be able to buy our own fiber connections?"

First off, broadband deployments are not fungible. Though some projects will be subsidized by the stimulus projects, most won't - including the Brigham City one (though I believe other parts of the UTOPIA network are looking for funding from stimulus).

Beyond that, we have always paid for the connections to our house. It is baked into the cost we pay each month to Qwest or AT&T or whoever - and they have a return far greater than the cost of the connection.

I think the glaring problem with this approach is that it could easily leave renters and the poor behind where those who can afford it buy their own connection. This is the biggest problem with that approach. That said, I think it makes sense in a number of areas. Attaching the cost of a long term investment to a property is a fantastic way of financing it because if you move after 3 years, the cost will be paid by the new occupant, who is benefiting from it.

Regarding renters, undoubtedly some landlords will get in on it to boost the value of their units. However - I would guess that most
will not.

Cable franchises, for all of their problems, did solve the problem of universal access.

Unfortunately, overbuilders (public or private) often cannot get into MDUs for a variety of hurdles but mostly because the building owner
sees little reason to deal with rewiring the building when the owner stands little to gain financially -- anecdotally, it seems that
overbuilders can deal with this best by offering kickbacks, but UTOPIA is not a position to do that.

Re: Shared residential Wi-Fi as a service

egubbins — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 15:12:26 -0000

Also, check this out:

In a couple of years, crossing the 1-Gbps threshold with a WiFi access point will be routine.
http://tinyurl.com/yb9o6zt

Re: Shared residential Wi-Fi as a service

egubbins — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 14:39:22 -0000

>what happens if both my neighbor and I decide to save a few bucks and just share the cost of a single connection

That's already possible today, isn't it? But I don't think it would be in the example cited in the article, which requires multiple connections for the added bandwidth.

Re: Shared residential Wi-Fi as a service

egubbins — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 14:36:34 -0000

From another reader:

Ed,
This is an interesting concept but I envision many hurdles to overcome, the biggest 2 being security and ISP issues
1. As you mentioned in your article security (sharing my broadband with my neighbor) is not something I’m comfortable doing considering that I may be shopping or banking on-line and don’t want to add yet another potential security hole in my connection.
2. An even bigger issue is what are ISPs going to think about this. ISPs/carriers are already complaining that they are being forced to build out their networks but they aren’t getting any more revenue. This will only make that problem bigger since now I’m not just using my bandwidth but that of my neighbors. Another follow-on issue is what happens if both my neighbor and I decide to save a few bucks and just share the cost of a single connection shared across both households. I’m sure ISPs will do more than just frown on this practice.
I don’t mean to say this is never going to happen, only that there are many issues that will have to be resolved (and most are non-technical) before this can even see the light of day.

Re: Shared residential Wi-Fi as a service

egubbins — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 14:33:03 -0000

From a reader:

There have already been opportunities for home users to share their wireless bandwidth. Speakeasy had a deal, which allowed you to sign up your neighbors to share your DSL via WiFi. The billing would be handled by Speakeasy, and the party hosting the WiFi access received a small credit against their monthly DSL billing.

The problem I see with dynamically sharing excess bandwidth is the opportunity for freeloaders to take advantage. What's to stop one neighbor, in the middle of 4 connected homes, from dropping his paid service altogether and leaching off the others?

Also, how do you fairly account for the 1 neighbor who uses a great deal more bandwidth than the others? There should be some sort of compensatory model, such as when a homeowner generates their own electricity and sells the excess back to the grid.

I remember when I occupied the second floor of a 3 story row-house with apartments above and below and neighbors on both sides. After sealing up the front and back windows with 3M clear film, I found that I could heat the entire flat with a small space heater in the front room and a fan in the hallway to circulate the air.

I'm sure I was also benefiting by the warm residences above, below and beside mine, which allowed me to disconnect the baseboard heat and use those circuits for my video, stereo and computer equipment. The building was so old it was very short on outlets and breaker capacity for so many modern appliances otherwise. The space heater vs baseboard heat cut my heating bill by 2/3.

Re: Shared residential Wi-Fi as a service

egubbins — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 14:12:59 -0000

narfboy, thanks for your comment. But the poem I'm referring to is not about working together to keep livestock penned:

There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'.
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.

Re: Skype enterprise SIP service enters public trials

egubbins — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 10:31:33 -0000

NOTE: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that ShoreTel, rather than Acme Packet, was supplying session border controllers for Skype's SIP service. Connected Planet regrets the error.

Re: Voice, video, data: Which one should you give away?

egubbins — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 15:21:07 -0000

AT&T appears to be getting on the six-months-free-DSL bandwagon as well. I live in U-Verse territory and got a flyer a few days ago advertising 6 months of free 3-Mb/s data service if I signed up for both TV and either wireless or home voice service. Unlike Verizon's offering, it doesn't look like AT&T is requiring a contract, though the fine print mentions a 2-year contract for wireless service that may or may not refer only to renewals.

Re: MEF president launches carrier Ethernet exchange startup

egubbins — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 08:30:57 -0000

Not content to be upstaged, Equinix today announced early customers for its own Ethernet exchange, which include Level 3 Communications and AboveNet:
http://tinyurl.com/ycg6sz3

CENX won't disclose its customers yet.

Re: Qwest: Fiber to the cell is hot, fiber to the home (FTTH) is not

egubbins — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 12:45:44 -0000

One research report has quoted Qwest as saying it plans to run fiber to 7,500 of the 17,000 cell sites in its territory.

Level 3 is charging hard at this space, too. Read more here:
http://telephonyonline.com/...

Re: Measuring broadband shouldn�t be this hard

egubbins — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 16:14:17 -0000

I wonder if this could be crowdsourced.
http://tinyurl.com/yldnsoq

Re: Ciena CEO: Nortel deal would make us �largest� in North American optical Ethernet

egubbins — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 17:41:35 -0000

Note: In a conference call today, Smith said the acquisition would NOT include Nortel's multiservice switch platform -- the products formerly known as Passport -- nor its Ethernet access gear.

Ciena also said it could collect as much as $21 million in breakup fees if the assets end up in someone else's hands.

Re: How big are Zayo�s big-city ambitions?

egubbins — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 12:02:51 -0000

Zayo CEO Dan Caruso, in his blog, replies to this story and adds another answer to the question of what the company is becoming:

"A bandwidth factory," Caruso says. "Nothing more. Nothing less." (http://bearonbusiness.com/w...

"Zayo is a provider of bandwidth infrastructure," he adds. "Where we see good bandwidth assets available at a fair price, we attempt to buy them. Through multiple different, but highly focused, business units, we slap up infrastructure for those who need it."

That description seems to leave out Zayo's voice and videoconferencing services, for example. But it is the official word on what Zayo is and wants to be.

Re: Broadband stimulus: The first round

egubbins — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 14:54:40 -0000

A reader writes:

"The database would have been MUCH more "handy" had it permitted searching by project state and not simply by the state listed in the applicant's address, such information being of dubious value."

True enough. I also would appreciate being able to search by applicant "type" (telco, municipality, etc.).

Re: The Missouri plan for broadband stimulus

egubbins — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 15:48:43 -0000

A reader writes:

This plan is contrary to the primary objective of the broadband stimulus, which is to provide universal broadband coverage throughout the US while at the same time encouraging innovative solutions to overcome the poor economics of rural broadband. Missouri has decided to blanket the state with fiber in order to serve 95% of the state's businesses...The NTIA RFP calls for serving everyone in the selected census tract, not 95% of the businesses. These un-served and under-served areas will never be economically reached by fiber. Wireless is the only real alternative. The Missouri approach also ignores the fact that residential landlines are being discontinued at the rate of 11% per year.

Re: AT&T said to be narrowing suppliers to eight

egubbins — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 13:54:21 -0000

My apologies for the earlier headline that left off the word 'pairs.'

Re: Broadband stimulus exempted from �buy American� requirements

egubbins — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 23:15:14 -0000

Thanks, LL. I corrected it.

Re: AT&T and Verizon both are nudging up broadband speeds

egubbins — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 14:15:33 -0000

The trend continues:

Free speed upgrades for SureWest's California customers. From 10 Mbps to 15 Mbps and from 20 Mbps to 25 Mbps, with an upload boost for the 3-Mbps tier.

http://ir.surw.com/phoenix....

Re: Smart grids and telecom

egubbins — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 15:51:57 -0000

A reader commented via email:

I spent many years in the telecom industry with Lucent in the fiber optics area. We worked with EPRI and the Southern Company on a "smart grid" almost 15 years ago and had discussions with Bell South at the time. I remember meeting with a BS VP who was a very good/smart guy,and he said it'll never happen--why I said. Because the power allowed rate of return was less than the regulated rate for BS, and BS didn't want the risk of having their rate dropped because they were in the "power business."

Re: Ciena reported bleak fiscal second quarter today, as customers continued to delay projects and purchases due to macroeconomy

egubbins — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 15:23:43 -0000

A previous version of this story said Ciena's CEO referred to the upcoming "Centaur" product as "Release 7" of the CoreDirector. Release 7 is a feature package for the existing CoreDirector, not Centaur.

Re: IPTV installers also the best sales people | Telephony Online

egubbins — Tue, 12 May 2009 13:03:05 -0000

Bell Canada is using broadand installers to sell video:

http://telephonyonline.com/...

Re: Fairpoint warning | Telephony Online

egubbins — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 14:38:05 -0000

We may all have long beards by the time that happens, eh?

Re: Verizon: no iPhone, no problem | Telephony Online

egubbins — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 09:13:31 -0000

Re: KGP Logistics formed through Embarq Logistics acquisition | Telephony Online

egubbins — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 13:51:37 -0000

EDITOR'S NOTE: A previous version of this story implied that the combined company was being named KPG Logistics. The combined company retains the name KPG Telecommunications, and KPG Logistics is its subsidiary.
The new version also clarifies that the deal more than triples KPG's headcount and more than doubles its revenue.