A single broadband connection is being sublet out for no cost to potentially many local nodes. I couldn’t help but take this concept to it’s logical extreme, a completely unregulated mesh network where all nodes were connected via other nodes. In a city like Boston or New York this is possible, while in more spread out cities like Los Angeles, or suburbs like my home in Suffolk County New York, this type of network is less likely.

The open global mesh could become a reality with repeater stations maintained by different individuals and organizations. Massive video data is routed through fiber optic cables today that an open mesh of wireless nodes would have difficulty routing globally. It’s not that the air can’t hold all the data, it’s that the allowed spectrum is limited which can restrict long range communication. In addition the algorithms that perform distributed routing would require optimization for a highly dynamic network such as torrents and Kademlia hash tables.

Problem 1) This left me for the first time in ~10 years without a cell phone number which was currently my only phone line

Problem 2) As a guy who blogs daily by smart phone and consumes a few hundred megabytes of wireless browsing each month, I became a little concerned (picture a large bead of sweat forming on my brow).

Being the Right Kind of Crazy

At this point I could have punted and picked up another phone or plan. My immediate options were an old Verizon phone (no) or going to the Apple store and dropping $300-600 (locked-unlocked) on an iPhone 4 and tie myself into another contract. Either way I wasn’t thrilled about another year or two of AT&T wireless prison – dropped calls, crappy reception, overpriced bits.

I turned to the fount of wisdom for all things tech, the Internet, to dig up how to setup a wifi phone account with a Google Voice number and a dream. Google Voice requires a US number and one of the services that works well with it is Gizmo5. Unfortunately Gizmo is no longer accepting sign ups after Google’s acquisition. Lucky for me, I just happened to have an old account*. But there’s one more catch, a hurdle I’m more than ready to jump to make this work. Google Voice now requires at least one “physical” line.

Virtual Physical Lines

This is where things became a bit tricky and it took clever phone hackers to bypass the barrier. I’ll need to setup a free/cheap SIP number this week in addition to Gizmo5 to satisfy the requirement of a US phone number for Google Voice. With this final piece of the puzzle I’ll have a phone number with free calls in the US and a few cents for international calls. If full mobility is needed, I can pickup a portable mifi/wifi data node (Sprint/Verizon/etc). If I can make this work (almost there) and then refine it into a smoother one click process, it may force the separation and dumbing down of wireless pipes. To hell with bit discrimination.

Save Money Every Month

Right now using this means saving money. It’ll be a much cheaper wireless bill at $50ish bucks instead of $85-120 dollars. That’s a savings of $35-70 dollars every month. With market forces driving the cheapest bit as opposed to “bullshit bundles” we can expect the price per bit to drop rapidly to a commoditized level. Most of us want tasty cheap bits.

Lessons learned: (tip of the hat to Steve Blank)

• *= sign up for anything that sounds like a good tool. You never know when Google may buy it and lock you out
• Charging more for bits of a certain colored packet is data discrimination. Businesses that rely on this are begging to be disrupted
• Smart folks in this area have been struggling on a different front by pushing open spectrum to open up the airwaves to dynamic structured connectivity like wifi. Explore open spectrum for more background info

Current wireless Internet providers use a single service provider or access point to the full Internet backbone. Whether you’re on AT&Ts network through your iPhone, or Verizon’s network for your soon to be released Droid, you send and receive information first through a local wireless connection. But there is a problem with this restricted network design, not all available paths for local wireless connectivity are equally burdened, and enforcing structure on information flow at the beginning and end of wireless access only serves to slow it down.

I made an off the cuff comment about mobile networks on Fred Wilson’s post on mobile tech this morning. What we really need is all the wireless providers to come to an agreement, and work out a solution that allows for access to ANY of their networks as a local solution. The least burdened/most capable network provider (judged by a third unbiased party/business) would always win out. The even distribution of wireless data will provide value to all users/customers and profit to the providers themselves.

How the Internet Works

Here are quick introductions to how the Internet works in regards to data routing (routing for dumbies). Real time packet navigation/routing is non-trivial because the entire network knowledge isn’t known at any point in the journey.

• How Does the Internet Work? by Rus Shuler
• The Journey of Internet Packets by Garret Wilson
• Packet Switching
• And of course The Internet as background info

As to why I believe the Internet has become so important, I refer you to another comment on Fred’s blog (I spend a lot of time commenting there) in response to a friend Shana Carp’s comment.

I was just having an old man’s mid afternoon siesta (was up till 1am playing with Google Wave, then got up at 5am with Michelle) and dreaming about network link strength (a cool visualization chart that I don’t know how to code-> much like my current foray into building a google wave robot with scala).

Google’s breakthrough information mapping was counting links, real time information quality doesn’t have time to develop links, so we require other measures. Every time I follow a link, some part of me feels like I’m strengthening a neural connection of some super smart but as of yet non-existent entity. Our usage of the Internet “teaches it” by making direct connections between abstract concepts. Loosely we train the neural network of the web. Crowd sourcing sites do this with votes, social sites do with likes, and twitter does it with retweets.

The further strides we make in building the Internet’s depth, by making it a richer experience, the greater we are rewarded. It’s a feedback loop. The more I improve Internet usage efficiency, by adding useful services, the richer I become. The intelligence of the Internet isn’t an isolated entity either, it’s composed of a billion or so people actively using it, generating and connecting content. Our attention, and shared time and thoughts here are changing the structure of the web in a real way.

Look at what became of traditional advertising, Google’s 20billion dollar plus revenue stream didn’t come from no where, it came directly out of the pockets of traditional advertising, which was a lot bigger market than 20 billion dollars. So Google shrunk the industry, and captured the revenue – classic disruption.

Information Theory

Shannon’s Information Theory provides us with a measure of information transmission capability for a channel, and it’s direct relation to the Entropy of the information distribution. The more the underlying probability distribution tends toward higher entropy (less predictable system), the greater the amount of information that can be transmitted over a channel.

This applies to dynamic network paths as well theoretical channels (this is a hypothetical leap for me, it’s a gut feeling). Restrict portions of the path, and limit the overall information transmission capability through the network. This is one of the reasons why the Internet works so well for information sharing, it minimizes network path restriction. When telecommunication providers restrict the beginning and end of a wireless packets journey (they’re own service), they are in fact reducing the choices for the network path, and ultimately the information transmission rate through the network.

As an interesting aside, in regards to text transmission (blogs, text messages, email), this excerpt describes the entropy of human language in trials (our text data can be encoded in many different binary formats though):

A long string of repeating characters has an entropy rate of 0, since every character is predictable. The entropy rate of English text is between 1.0 and 1.5 bits per letter,^[1] or as low as 0.6 to 1.3 bits per letter, according to estimates by Shannon based on human experiments

Related articles by Zemanta

• iPhone VOIP Decision: A Smart Political Play by AT&T? (blogs.wsj.com)
• Swift response to net neutrality proposals (seattlepi.com)

[wave id="googlewave.com!w+ZCtUJ1z4A"]

There they go! But at least they’re happy.

(pardon a little geek rage but I find nothing more frustrating then when company’s make boneheaded business decisions)

A Mock Business Strategy Meeting Between Apple and AT&T

Apple: “Hey we’ve got an ultra dedicated fanbase that does our marketing because they love our technology and products so much.”

AT&T: “We’re a big telecommunications company that has wireless internet.”

Apple: “So what?”

AT&T: “We’ll cut you in for some of the money if you lock us in as the sole provider of wireless Internet access.”

Apple: “We have this App Store concept where we’re the sole provider of approval for software so that philosophy sounds great.”

AT&T: “It’s a win win!”

Users: “WTF! Where do our needs fit in?”

What we as customers end up with is a terrible choice.

We can buy the best hardware, but only if we

1. lock in with Apple’s OS
2. accept App Store censoring software
3. lock in with AT&T as the only method of phone and wireless networking.

As a fan of the hardware, and the software that doesn’t restrict my decisions or choices, I picked up the original iPhone and recently the 3Gs. Now I’m actively looking for another way to get my phone/wireless support. The smart phone is in all regards a personal, and ultra portable computer. It has an attached camera, speaker and microphone. It’s important to me as a consumer, to have choices in my service, independent of the computer hardware I choose. The good news I think I found a method that will work for me towards the end of the post (but T-Mobile service is spotty in my area…).

A Step in the Right Direction

The Pwnage tool is a step in the right direction (here’s their latest post). But how many users will actively find and install a method to unlock/hack their phones in order to have a choice of providers?

This is a Video of a Linux Install On iPhone Late in 2008. I look forward to more progress in this area as purchased hardware can be “reclaimed” by it’s owners.

There is some competition coming to the smart phone market inthe form of the HTC Hero. A short review article compares the iPhone to the HTC, but the iPhone 3Gs still has an edge on processing power (although no multitasking support with the OS), and the video camera option.

Related Articles:

• JavaScript speed test: iPhone 3G S whips Palm Pre and Google G1
• Anandtech Analysis

Latest Update:

TechCrunch fills us in on the FCC’s interest on the AT&T, Apple and Google situation

Related articles by Zemanta

• Even Google Is Blocked With Apps for iPhone (nytimes.com)
• Apple, the App Store just isn’t you (macworld.com)
• Fed Up, A Popular Mac Developer Quits The iPhone (techcrunch.com)
• I Quit The iPhone (techcrunch.com)

What’s the Relation Between Creating Content and Marketing?

It is a simple question that has complex ties into other businesses and industries. If you are (or are going to be) any kind of a content creator, you will likely want your content to be visible.  You’re going to have to learn the marketing ropes or hire an expert.  A marketer will have connections and ties to different social media and crowd sourcing tools, as well as public relations channel for putting out messages on popular media.  The specific choices of interfaces (i.e. landing pages, ads, fliers) from your media to the world will be specific to the content that you are going to provide and your potential customer group. The web marketer will have to be familiar (or learn) how to connect to that niche.

In the beginning of most projects, an individual is both developing and marketing the media.  At best a small group of friends will help spread the information to see if it catches on. The good news is, you really don’t have to pay for the old advertising system anymore.  You don’t need publishers.  Although the greatest publishers will survive by evolving their into powerful conduits to existing markets.  All you
really need to do is start the engine.  After that it’ll be to your advantage to orchestrate a funnel of potential customer interfaces. The strategy is to implement a number of different virtual landing sites where people can find out about what you or your group is producing.  The alternative having everyone fall in love with your product, open business model, and design philosophies like balsamiq.

The landing sites could be blogs, social media sites, internet magazines, or PPC (pay per click) ads. For long term planning, it is relevant to understand that the specific media format you choose may come and go.  As there are new evolutions of connectivity, there might be software that sits on top of them.  They
might become operating systems or frameworks for future social media. The big winners in social media will allow their users to connect on information that they are most interested in with the least amount of
resistance.

Part of the Marketing Effort Will Be Strategically Placing Landing Pages

What does that mean to your content? After all these landing pages or virtual pipelines to your content are built, your task is creating the core of a giant snowball that your fans and customers will build into a bolder.  The virtual connection points (links) could be on a blog (my preference), Digg, Facebook groups, Myspace page, LinkedIn, Ning, or other social media (twitter/Friendfeed).  There are many potential paths for people to connect to your content. What you have is a dynamic bill board to let folks know about what you have created. As far as being a product/media provider (writer, podcaster, video maker, software developer), discovering the right content or initial product becomes a question of “is it good enough” for my current fans.  Being flexible with your initial instincts will aid in honing in on a customer/reader need.

1. At first you may be aware of a simple solution or feel
   this compulsion to share something, because you think its cool
2. there’s going to be some refinement of your message, and I’m not
   saying you’re going to have to compromise, but as time goes on you
   will learn from the people that really enjoy what you’re producing.
3. You’ll make it better, you’ll actually improve what you offer.
   You’re going to find out that people don’t see things the same way
   that you see them or perceive them.
   • That’s the whole idea behind
     social media design, but that’s another subject.

This series of developmental steps correspond to an individual or small group and the content they generate.  You’ll have a feedback loop, and you’ll be producing content.  There are people that can interact with the content/product that will give you more information about their experience.  In addition, they’ll provide valuable insight into new development directions.

Analogy to Open Spectrum

You can take that concept all the way to the wireless internet and open spectrum.  Providing wireless internet to much of our nation (and perhaps globally) could be made less expensive, if an individual or organization develops efficient methods for using the full spectrum (electromagnetic bands we transmit information on).  If telecommunication companies are unable of leading in this area, they
are in danger of becoming obsolete as wireless providers.  While massive data flow still requires
land lines, in the as technology advances wireless transmissions will become more effective over new opened up spectrum.  I suspect there will always be some mix of physical lines and wireless information flow.  Imagine all communications as local wireless packets, to ultra wide band width land lines, back to local wireless somewhere else.

Tribes and Their Leader

While recently reading Seth Godin’s book Tribes, I found much of the work is focused on the qualities of great leaders and how almost anyone can take the reigns and create a new community.  What it boils down to is: if you’re a media creator or product inventor, you can become a thought leader.

This is accomplished by:

• sharing something you perceive as necessary (or fun)
  and
• converting abstract concepts in concrete designs/media
• building a new market
  space or helping fill out existing ones.
• building a new group, a new interacting community (he calls
  this a tribe)

There are many tribe types with varied criteria and philosophies.  An example of an effective tribe is one in which the leader builds a framework for tribe members to populate.  After constructing the foundation for others to build upon, the media creators/leaders back off.  The users are encouraged to interact and develop their own utilities on a foundation designed by the organizer.  The inventor ( creator, author, entrepreneur) creates a new framework and spends their time observing usage to determine where (and when) to best offer solutions. They lead by becoming the new infrastructure and the tribe grows by users building specific content.

On the other end of the spectrum, there are hierarchical top down tribes.  Typically defined by a leader continually communicating (broadcasting) to the community.  At first I believed that without comments that’s how Seth Godin runs his blog.  I quickly realized after emailing Seth that he checks and reads all emails (and often times responds to them). This is the philosophy he lives by.  He doesn’t allow comments on his blog, as its easier for him to keep track of feedback by email.  As a reader who really appreciates his ideas, it’s difficult for me to interact with other people who also enjoy following his thoughts.

I don’t always agree with Seth (what fun would that be).  I’m confident there are others who enjoy what he does, but would like to take some of his views in a different direction. By allowing public comments, small communities can sprout up, and thoughts can be hashed out.  Seth doesn’t support this environment for his blog right now, and that’s his prerogative as a media author. He has developed a platform to allow his concepts and thoughts to spread.  Those ideas correspond to a changing market which is more concerned with the customer (which is fantastic in my book).

The First Steps and Trail Blazing

As an example, I’m currently developing my own type of soap box (this blog).  Within it, I share my views on the walls to efficiency in the way our culture cultivates work, entrepreneurs and ideas. I’ve submitted multiple posts to various crowd sourcing sites, actively participated in blog improvement communities (31 Days by Darren Rowse), and worked on developing connections with people on twitter and friendfeed (many wonderful folks).  The analysis I share in Victus Spiritus can’t be done using cold mechanical methodology, but by asking the question:

“How can I contribute my best for myself and our future?”

This lead me to a series of other questions:

• “How can each of us contribute our best for ourselves and our future?”
• What can I do that I enjoy the most?
• What can I bring the most enthusiasm to?
• What work can I do that will be most
  inspirational to others, positively affecting people around me (friends, family and coworkers)?
• What can I do that really make a difference in my life and for
  others?
• What will society value most from my efforts and time?

My solution was simple.

When I align my daily work with what I love and need to do, it has meaning to me.

I do my best with each post to generalize this approach so others can benefit from my experiences. When our daily efforts are tied directly our greatest hopes, we will be rewarded best by our community. By being selfish and pursuing a life path we love, we’re not just benefiting ourselves.  We’re benefiting humanity because the world is getting our best, and all of us deserve nothing less.

It is my belief that everyone will benefit from pioneering a path of passion.

The Excuses:

• A spokesperson from T-Mobile “Our goal is to provide an optimal wireless experience for our  entire customer base, and if it’s determined that a customer’s use of a third-party application may lessen this experience for our other customers, we will take the necessary precautions to protect and maintain an excellent customer experience on our network,” a company spokeswoman said  by email.
• AT&T responding to Skype’s petition to open things up “When one wireless user has a less efficient handset than the rest of the network, the entire network suffers. By subjecting all wireless users to the experimentation of the few subscribers interested in alternative devices, application of [such] connection rules to the wireless world acts to the detriment of all users.”

That’s it?  That’s the best they can come up with?  Those are the type of arguments holding America back from hi speed wireless broadband.  If I could grow more hair to pull out I would.  Does anyone actually believe these ill conceived comments?  At the very least our big telecom corporations need some better spin doctors and marketeers. Can anyone “in power” do something about it?  Unfortunately it may be some time before our legislators catch up with our growing demands for technology and ubiquitous hi speed internet for all devices.

For anyone else interested in this topic I highly suggest the following pertinent (and more knowledgeable) articles:

• What Is An “Aggressive Tech Agenda”?
  
• More On Open Spectrum
• Open Spectrum is Good Policy
• Google’s Brilliant Proposal by Tom Evslin
• A letter from Google to the Federal Communications Commission
• More on Frequency Regulation – It Matters by Tom Evslin
  
• Open Mobile Internet Now!
• National Broadband Plan? Dream Big, Feds, Very Big
• Net Neutrality Advocates Call For Fast, Universal Access To The Net
• Apply Net Neutrality to Skype on Smartphones, Group Asks Feds