Replies to post #60 on Sons And Daughters Of BBCMF , Wi-Fi Technology

[midastouch017]

The universal Net access pipe dream
Commentary: Municipal WiFi efforts unlikely to survive

By John C. Dvorak
Last Update: 6:34 PM ET Nov. 30, 2005


BERKELEY, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- Every few months we seem to hear about another initiative by a U.S. city to deploy free wireless Internet access.


The latest entry, New Orleans, is still struggling just to get the lights back on, months after Hurricane Katrina caused massive flooding, destruction and death.

Nevertheless, New Orleans looks to be the first and only big city to actually implement a WiFi plan.

This will provide great access for an entire (reduced) population. It should help New Orleans to recover. But the likelihood of it becoming a larger trend is nil and you can be sure it will eventually be killed there too.

If the Internet was struggling and it was impossible to make a buck by being the toll collector on the Information Superhighway, then free wireless (802.11/WiFi) access for the masses would be possible. As things stand today free access to the Internet, no matter how noble the rationale, will impinge on far too many vested interests.

Too many people are making money on connectivity.

This will come to a head when a newer form of wireless communications called WiMAX appears in the next two years. It's being pushed hard by Intel (INTC:
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WiMAX has a single point connection radius of approximately 10-30 miles. Thus it should become a favorite technology for municipal Internet connectivity. Many believe it will relegate the weaker 802.11x WiFi networks with their smallish 300-1500 foot radius to only local area network status.

In an ideal world you'd have a municipality covered by WiMAX for the connection to the Internet. That connection would then be redistributed through homes and offices with WiFi. The two technologies do interoperate.

In fact WiFi is now so entrenched in various pay-per-hour venues that it's unlikely that WiMAX will ever get a foothold. Powerhouses McDonalds and Starbucks, for example, are making money on the side with their WiFi connection schemes and the monthly fee they charge. With WiMAX someone could come into a Starbucks, buy a cappuccino and log on to the big municipal net with a WiMAX card thus cutting Starbucks out of the picture.

Starbucks and McDonalds are hardly the only players. T-Mobile has a WiFi roaming service they sell as do other cell phone carriers.

All the major hotel chains expect to make and extra $10 a night per guest for Internet connectivity too.

Whenever anyone offers free Internet access you begin to hear loud complaining about it. JetBlue's free Internet access in airport terminals is under constant attack, for example.

While the nation would benefit greatly from universal access with both Wifi and WiMAX there is just too much money to be made for this to ever happen. It may happen in other countries and investors should take note -- France sounds like a candidate to me -- but not in the USA.

The sad thing is that this would actually make the economy stronger and end any issues over the so-called digital divide.

The best effort to create universal free municipal access previous to New Orleans was in Philadelphia. These efforts were quickly foiled by Comcast (CMCSK:
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FinancialsMore CMCSKCMCSK26.00, -0.35, -1.3%) and Verizon (VZ: verizon communications com
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FinancialsMore VZVZ31.98, -0.17, -0.5%) , two companies that would have been hurt by local government offering free connectivity service.

Some years ago I believed that a net connection in a hotel, or anywhere for that matter, would be like running water or electricity. There'd always be a socket or faucet someplace where you could get a little of either for free. You do not pay an extra $10 a night in a hotel room so you can use the shower.

While there may be some ad hoc sharing here and there and a few stalwarts like JetBlue (JBLU:
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FinancialsMore JBLUJBLU18.44, -0.21, -1.1%) will try to maintain a free service for its customers, the trend is in the other direction. WiMAX may eventually become available for large municipalities, but it will cost money.

Perhaps small towns with less political pressure may mange to deploy some free systems. But it seems as if it will be impossible in the big cities.

To the citizens of New Orleans: enjoy it while you have it.

Dubi

[midastouch017]

Digital Living Room Isn’t Cozy

The headaches of home networks have entertainment's future on pause.
December 5, 2005

The much-hyped digital living room that promises to connect all entertainment systems wirelessly isn’t ready for mass adoption, tech experts said at an industry conference Monday.

One big problem thwarting the spread of home media centers and other devices is that tech companies can’t agree on standards, said the panelists, addressing audience members who had paid thousands of dollars to attend an iHollywood conference entitled “Digital Living Room 2005” in San Francisco.

The tech industry is forcing its products on a market that isn’t ready, said Van Baker, an analyst with research firm Gartner.
Despite growing sales of media center PCs, “very few of those are actually in the living room,” according to Mr. Baker (see Media Center PC Shipments Up). Instead, consumers are using the devices as media-focused personal computers.

“‘Necessity is the mother of invention’ is only true in about 10 percent of cases,” he said. “Most of the time, invention is the mother of necessity.”

Mr. Baker contended the biggest barrier to the digital living room was shoddy home networking technology.

“If home networking stays the way it is now, we’re not going to get higher than about 30 percent [adoption],” he said.

All the panelists emphasized a need for device makers to agree on common standards.

“What you need here is people sitting around a table willing to redefine standards, willing to give up the proprietary advantage they think they get,” said Don Norman, co-founder and principal of the Nielsen Norman Group. “That’s the problem: it’s a business issue, not a technical issue.”

Gartner’s Mr. Baker noted that the Coral Consortium, a cross-industry digital rights management compatibility group, does not include market leaders Microsoft and Apple Computer.

Squabbles and Giggles

Personal horror stories about setting up home networks, dealing with incompatible and tangled power cords, and losing files were a recurring theme of the panel.

Mr. Norman noted that despite the fact that he has a degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and led a technology division at Apple Computer, he had to hire someone to install his home television. lol...

Even Brad Hunt, the chief technology officer of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), who spent most of the discussion defending his organization’s efforts to impose protections on digital content, said he had stuck a home network product in the closet after hours of frustration over its incompatibility with his other wireless devices.

At one point, Mr. Norman, a skeptic who couldn’t name one recent product that he thought was worthwhile, sent the audience of entrepreneurs into giggles by poking fun at the long chain of acronyms used by Mr. Hunt to discuss a future of compatible devices and universal standards.

The other panelists and moderator David Pogue of The New York Times ganged up on the MPAA representative. They challenged the association’s support for restrictions such as the broadcast flag and its perceived hesitation in making its content available to digital distributors (see Court Rips TV Anti-Piracy Rule). A broadcast flag would make it difficult, if not impossible, to share copies of broadcasts carrying such a code.

Mr. Hunt said the criticism was undeserved.

“The content owners really want to enable the digital living room,” he said. “The PC is looked upon as a huge opportunity to deliver content directly to the consumer.”

Barriers and Prospects

Amid all the pessimism, IntelCapital’s Mike Buckley tried to provide a positive note.
He said venture capitalists have come back to investing in consumer companies in the two years since his company announced its digital home fund, and pointed to video search and decentralized digital distribution as interesting markets.

Mr. Buckley implied the market would be better off if it were these startups, rather than large existing companies, that were creating the digital living room from scratch.

“We’re coming in with big giants that have their own way to do it,” he said.

http://www.redherring.com/Article.aspx?a=14739&hed=Digital%20Living%20Room%20Isnג̈́...

Dubi