Hazards of Connected Life

One of the hazards of modern life is the stability of one's broadband access infrastructure. Circuits and services go down, from time to time. For some of us, that means acting as our own personal system integrators, creating fail-safe mechanisms.

As sometimes happens, my Covad T1 line died yesterday morning, an apparent software corruption to my Windows operating system caused one of my PCs to crash, necessitating restoring the machine to an earlier software load, and requiring me now to ignore all messages to install the latest upgrade to the operating system.

Today the cable connection was fluttering in and out of service. So while the T1 was down and the primary PC inoperable, I reverted to the backup PC and the backup broadband connection (Verizon 3G).

Comcast got the connection restored without me having to call in a trouble ticket and Covad's tech support has been superb, as usual. One never wants to have a service go down, and this isn't the first time the T1 has died. What matters is how fast service gets restored, and how attentive tech support is. On that score, Covad continues to rank as the single best service provider I've ever had.

Experiencing problems isn't unusual these days. Having a service provider respond promptly, expeditiously and with great courtesy is the key. Well, that and making sure you have a way to keep working while things get sorted out.

Update: the technician was unable to get the third Cisco router to work, so we are switching to a Netopia router instead. He says he isn't sure what the issue is, but the Netopia works, and the Cisco box does not.

A Tongue-in-Cheek Proposal

As long as we are being obsessive about the weight of aircraft (US Airways is going to remove onboard in-flight entertainment systems), why not other measures? Removing the entertainment systems removes 550 pounds of weight.

Some other airlines had removed magazines for the same stated reason: to cut weight. We understand other weight-reducing measures, such as using lighter service carts, also are being looked at. The amount of water for the lavatories as well as the amount of fuel in plane tanks already have been optimized. Bag weight also now is an optimizable element in fuel consumption.

Each jet can save perhaps 400 pounds simply by avoiding paint on the fuselages.

Heck, why not base airline tickets on body weight as well as distance traveled, then?

$4.5 Billion Annual Data Center Power Bills

Data centers in the United States consume more than 60 billion kWh of energy each year, at an annual cost of $4.5 billion, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Energy consumption has doubled since 2000. Much of that spending is for cooling systems to deal with all the heat produced by the power-gobbling servers that are the muscle inside any data center.

Additional studies by many of today's largest corporations agree that a 10 percent to 20 percent reduction in power consumption from new IT equipment is required. That, and the inability of data centers to continue to scale operations using current technology virtually assures new generations of power-efficient servers.

Some data centers already are finding that the key constraint to further growth in hosting capacity is inability to get any more power from the grid at their current locations.

Much the same can be said for end user devices, especially mobiles. Broadband mobile applications require more power consumption. That means bigger or better batteries. Since device size is crucial these days, that means better batteries.

Of course, the problem is that processors and memory advance at much-faster rates than battery technology, for example.

Watch Fonolo

Lots of people think telcos are too "dinosaur-like" to keep up with the fast-paced world of IP communications. There's a logic there, to be sure. Large organizations with lots of regulatory and technological requirements act that way. Talk to any software developer working with really large systems and the danger of breaking something while fixing something else is obvious.

While nothing will change the need for some circumspection, it is a fallacy to think telcos are so hidebound they can't see where they must go. In fact, there's now widespread recognition that rapid software innovation is necessary, and cannot be done on an "in house" basis.

That means there is widespread recognition of the need for partnerships of all sorts. So consider Fonolo, an application intended for use by large communications providers. It is the sort of third party innovation carriers are looking for, and need, to create new value.

"Or mission is to help users deal with large companies over the phone, especially when interacting with interactive voice response systems," says Shai Berger, Fonolo cofounder and CEO.

"Our key innovation is a way for you to visually preview the IVR and take short cutswithout listening to all the prompts," he says. Essentially, the application works by sending out spiders, much as Google and other search engines send out spiders to find and index Internet content.

The Fonolo spiders crawl around, investigate IVRs and build maps. Based on that knowledge, Fonolo allows users to "click the spot you want to reach, then we ring your phone and "deep dial" you to where you want to go," says Berger. "It's just like deep linking in the Web world, where you can bookmark your spots so you can go right back," he says.

Another feature is intelligent call histories. "You can use any phone and all the call history is available to you as an end user. Fonolo also supports full call recording.

Say you have an interaction with a customer service agent about a billing, technical support or other issue. Those interactions can be recorded as a way of documenting the "trouble ticket."

Then, when a user interacts with the next agent for follow up, "you can play the recording back to the agent while you are on the phone, if you need to," he says.

And note: Fonolo was intentionally built as an application carriers can use. "The key for us is carrier partnerships," says Berger.

"Even non-tech-savvy users get it," Berger says. "IVR interactions are a major consumer pain point."

No downloads are required, by the way. As every provider likes to say, "it just works."

Fonolo now is in private beta and will move to public beta in a month.Berger expects to launch formally in the fourth quarter of 2008, with pilots beginning in the first quarter of 2009.

Asked where he thinks he'll get traction, Berger says that although Fonolo already has been contacted by carriers "all over the world," he thinks the intial deal or two will come from smaller providers that can move faster. He'll work up the food chain from there.

Fonolo is an excellent example of how application developers and carriers can work together to create and popularize new applications that enhance and change the communications experience. Granted, some developers will just want to build "over the top" apps. But what really will be interesting is the emergence of a class of developers that see what can be done working with carriers.

Margin Impact: Online Vs. DVD Distribution

Factoid: Video on demand “day and date” sales--when content is available on the same release day as the same content released on DVD--has gross profit margins of 60 to 70 percent. DVD sales sold on the same "day and date" window have margins of 20 to 30 percent."

Keep that in mind as more and more experimentation with highly-popular movie and TV programming occurs. Even though gross revenue might be lower for digital delivery, so are costs. And the margin for digital products beats physical delivery by a three to one ratio.

Senate Passes Immunity Bill

The U.S. Senate voted July 9, 2008 to grant retroactive immunity to telephone companies that participated in the White House's warrantless domestic surveillance program. The House of Representatives earlier had approved the bill, which now goes to President Bush, who is expected to sign the bill.

Some people think "warrantless" means "unwarranted." I don't. Carriers acted in good faith in complying with government requests.

Has BT Bought Ribbit?

Lots of smart and experienced people think application developers will not find a warm reception in the tier one carrier community. I think that's dead wrong. Never have "telco" executives been more aware that they need partners to create compelling new applications.

So VentureBeat reports that BT has purchased Ribbit, a voice platform company playing in the "communications enable business processes" space. Think of the way voice gets integrated with Salesforce.com.

Techcrunch says Ribbit has been bought by BT for $55 million. But there's still some speculation that the deal isn't done yet.

No matter. The important thing is that the deal illustrates a trend: telcos no longer have a "not invented here" attitude about applications and services invented by third parties.

There is lots of room for application developers to create interesting features service providers will want to offer.

For my friends at Qwest: talk to Fonolo.