Smalltalk with James Robertson

I hope all of the people who've been pining for network neutrality know what they just got from the FCC - it's a huge win for the existing carriers and cable companies. Why do I say that? Take this statement:

"A commercial arrangement between a broadband provider and a third party to directly or indirectly favor some traffic over other traffic in the connection to a subscriber of the broadband provider (i.e., 'pay for priority') would raise significant cause for concern," the Commission then elaborates. This is because "pay for priority would represent a significant departure from historical and current practice."

So to take a for instance - NetFlix couldn't pay to get priority for their traffic. Meanwhile, the local cable outlet (or telco) ships video on demand down the "cable" channel (although it actually comes down the same pipe), and gets to prioritize the heck out of it.

I sure hope all the idealists are happy now. The only good news here is this: based on recent court decisions, it's likely that the FCC overstepped its authority. I certainly hope that's how this plays out.

Technorati Tags: net neutrality, fcc

The fact that the people in charge of the FCC actually seem to believe this tells me that they have no business regulating anything more complex than their utensils drawer - and that might be pushing it:

the release says that only "measured steps" to regulating wireless are necessary because "open operating systems like Android" have been released, and that it wants to see how Verizon and other 700MHz spectrum winners handle the hotly-contested openness requirement when building out 4G.

Right... because how a carrier handles bits over the air has so much to do with what OS is running on the receiving device. I'll be over here, in the corner, laughing my whatever off at all the clowns who think the FCC is doing anything useful.

Technorati Tags: stupidity

While I have a fair amount of sympathy for the "don't trust the users or the apps" approach to computing that Google is taking with ChromeOS, there's one rather huge flaw in the approach - tiered data plans:

The matte black Cr-48 won't be sold to the public, but thousands are being sent to consumers and businesses who have volunteered to test it. It introduces a new kind of operating system, called Chrome OS, that turns to the Web for almost everything.

Once you leave the comfort of your own WiFi zone, you're confronted with two things:

• Generally slow public WiFi options - some free, some not
• 3G, which is not only not free, but tends to get really expensive if you blow the cap on your data plan

Take the plan that's available for my iPad, for instance - for $30/month (if I turn it on), I get 3G, but only 2 GB. That's not a lot of data, especially if you try to stream a couple of movies or tv shows in your hotel room.

IMHO, Google's ChromeOS isn't a bad idea, but it's going to run smack into the carrier data models, which are not at all in line with the way people want to use such devices....

Technorati Tags: chrome, 3g, wifi

The EU is taking time out from its bank problems to launch an investigation of Google. As Danny Sullivan says:

I did a search at Google today for “cars” and was shocked. Rather than list links allowing me to search for “cars” on Bing, Yahoo, Baidu, Voila, Naver and Yandex, Google instead favored its own search results. I’m glad the EU will be investigating whether this favoritism violates anti-trust laws.

Oh, the humanity. Next they'll tell me that media sites favor their own content, and that newspapers favor their own stories. It's just terrible; how are we poor end users supposed to handle it all? I mean, typing "bing.com" in the address bar instead of "google.com" is such a chore...

Technorati Tags: search, eu

Update: - It's become clear that Comcast wants to charge Level 3 for customer requests for video (et. al.) that are not based on their XFinity system - so if a Comcast customer uses NetFlix, or streams from iTunes (etc), then Comcast wants to toss a tollbooth on that content. This is understandable, even if it is incredibly stupid.

Let's say that Level 3 told Comcast to go fish, and Comcast then broke all non-XFinity services on their network. Exactly who do they think would take the PR hit for the services that their customers pay for and wouldn't be able to receive? Here's a hint - none of their customers have even heard of Level 3, and Level 3 isn't the one with the phone lines that would start lighting up when this happened...

Original post below

I'm sure this makes sense to someone at Comcast, but for the life of me, I can't figure it out:

• Comcast offers on-demand movies via cable and net streaming (via their xfinity service)
• Now Comcast says that the backbone provider delivering the video, Level 3, needs to pay them
• Huh?

Comcast has demanded that broadband backbone provider Level 3 Communications pay it a recurring fee for delivering video traffic to Comcast customers, Level 3 said Monday.

So... do they want people to use this new service, or not? Why do they even bother offering it? Here's what they have to say about the fee:

Comcast said it would cut off its own customers' access to the movies and other Web traffic unless Level 3 paid the fee, Level 3 said in a press release.

I think Level 3 should just call their bluff, and say "sure, go ahead. Make our day".

Update: Comcast, masters of PR that they are, have followed up on their major east coast outage with a release calling Level 3 liars. I still say that Level 3 should just drop the traffic on the floor and let Comcast take the blame.

Technorati Tags: comcast, stupidity

Google's cloud strategy is now solidly in the enterprise zone:

Today, Google is launching a new plugin for Microsoft Office called Cloud Connect, which will tie Google Docs directly into the ubiquitous productivity suite, free of charge. Editing a document in Word? It’ll automatically sync to your Google Docs account each time you hit ‘Save’. Want to share a preview of your document without worrying about what file format your coworkers can open? Just send them a link to the Google Docs file. The plugin supports Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Excel, and it’s a big deal for Google’s strategy with Docs.

You have to wonder how Microsoft feels about that. On the one hand, it does plug into their tools; on the other hand, it gives a nice glide ramp off those tools and over to the Google suite - which is free for the small/home end, and very inexpensive for the enterprise side. If nothing else, the price points MS charges for Office should start coming under real pressure...

Technorati Tags: cloud, google, microsoft

The Stuxnet worm seems to have been designed to attack Iran's nuclear efforts - now there are warnings that it could be easily modified to attack other systems for different purposes:

A malicious computer attack that appears to target Iran's nuclear plants can be modified to wreak havoc on industrial control systems around the world, and represents the most dire cyberthreat known to industry, government officials and experts said Wednesday. They warned that industries are becoming increasingly vulnerable to the so-called Stuxnet worm as they merge networks and computer systems to increase efficiency. The growing danger, said lawmakers, makes it imperative that Congress move on legislation that would expand government controls and set requirements to make systems safer.

That's true of many worms though - Conficker comes to mind. Additionally, what's the most likely source of a worm that has a political purpose - it seems unlikely to me that the crime syndicate botnets would target that way - mostly they have commercial (i.e., making money) purposes. So ultimately, it makes me wonder about the nature of the disease, and the proposed cure....

Technorati Tags: stuxnet, security, worm

Things are looking shaky in the JCP - the Apache Foundation is distinctly unhappy:

"Why would we want to be in an organization where the rules of law don't matter? Our being on the [JCP Executive Committee] would be a sham. It would show that the community doesn't matter, that we'd basically cave into Oracle pushing stuff through, whether or not it would be in the best interest of the community," said Jim Jagielski, president and cofounder of the Apache Software Foundation (ASF), in an interview with the IDG News Service.

I'm very curious to see how this will work out for Oracle. I understand their desire to monetize Java, but it brings to mind my teaching experience (many years ago, during my first year on the job): if you're too easy at the start, tightening up later is really, really hard. And that's where Oracle is at - Java has been "loose" for a long time, and they are trying to tighten things down.

Technorati Tags: java, oracle, apache

While I'm no fan of formalized net neutrality rules (I worry a lot about rent seeking opportunities in any large dscale regulatory environment) - the way networks are blocking Google TV is over the top - and since it's aroused precious little protest, is likely to lead to a very "walled garden" sort of future, where you'll need a bunch of devices in order to get access to all of the content you want:

Now as it turns out, browser client info is not the primary blocking mechanism being employed by Hulu, NBC, and other sites engaging in GTV blocking. On all affected sites I've tested so far, the serious blocking occurs during the process of Flash video playback startup, where an "unsupported device error" will appear.

Google customizes the Flash Player ID, which can't be (easily) mucked with by the end user. This has its stupid aspects as well; all Google really needs to do is stop customizing that ID, and the problem will vaporize (at least until the networks come up with some other lame blocking scheme).

That's the thing we'll see more of, I think - stupid cat and mouse games where content is there, and then isn't. That serves the interests of the big providers, of course - they would rather keep you glued to the time slot driven, well understood ad model world of broadcast TV.

Spotted in Engadget

Last quarter was the first time ever that US pay TV subscription rates were down. Now, according to GigaOM's calculations, big cable suffered another set back in Q3, waving goodbye to over 500,000 subscribers in total. Comcast was saddled with over half of the carnage and lost 275,000 customers, while Time Warner took a 155,000 subscriber hit. Charter Communications and Cablevision fared slightly better, but still added 63,800 and 24,500 respectively to the industry pit of despair.

The easiest thought is that with a weak economy (and high unemployment), one of the simplest cost savings measures available is the cable bill. We returned one of the cable boxes that had built up around here when I got laid off, for instance, and would have done more had I not gotten offers immediately.

Here's my question though: when things pick up, will those subscribers come back, or will streaming TV (such as Hulu and Netflix) be enough? Gaming consoles like the XBox and Wii are inexpensive, hook right up to the TV, and give you all of that. Then there are the newer settop box entries, like the AppleTV. This could be the sort of disruptive event that ends up kick starting a transition...

Technorati Tags: tv, streaming tv