ITIF: A Guide to the Internet of Things

A Guide to the Internet of Things ITIF Report

The "Internet of Things" refers to the concept that the Internet now serves as a platform for devices to communicate electronically with the world around them, creating an explosion of data that is transforming how we work and live. This report provides an overview of how the devices that make up the Internet of Things are affecting nearly every aspect of society. It also highlights policy opportunities to maximize the potential economic and social benefits of these technologies. Read the report.

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Opinion: The Case for Citywide Broadband in LA

Local Governments - Exclusive — 15 November 2013 Public CEO


By LA City Councilman Bob Blumenfield

Last week, Los Angeles marked 100 years since the Los Angeles Aqueduct, one of the greatest infrastructure achievements of the 20th Century, brought water to Los Angeles and set the stage for our City’s growth to become the metropolis it is today.

That same day, the Los Angeles City Council took an important step towards making a critical investment in our City’s virtual infrastructure that will ensure Los Angeles’s competitiveness in the 21st Century. The Council voted unanimously to move my proposal to bring community broadband, with potential for fiber and wireless capability forward by authorizing the City to draft a “request for proposals” (RFP).

Citywide broadband presents an enormous opportunity for Los Angeles to bridge the digital divide, create economic opportunity and attract new tourism dollars. It has the potential to truly transform our City, create jobs and make us economically competitive.



Other cities, from Chattanooga to Philadelphia, and from Corpus Christi to Riverside, CA are already experimenting with their own versions of wireless community broadband. LA would be by far the biggest City to do this and we would set the standard.

Los Angeles flirted with but abandoned an effort in 2007 to provide free WiFi but much has changed since then. First, technology has advanced exponentially, lowering costs while increasing functionality. At the same time the opportunity costs of not being online, for everyone from students to seniors, has grown exponentially. A recent study by the Public Policy Institute of California suggested that 46% of Angelenos do not have broadband in their home – the highest of any major metropolitan area in the State.

Another key difference from the City’s 2007 approach is the way I intend to go about it. Where previous efforts have focused on the City building out proprietary networks using general fund or bond dollars, I have proposed pursuing solutions that would not rely on new City investments. The request for proposals currently being drafted by the City is intended to create a public-private partnership that would leverage the City’s tremendous infrastructural assets, everything from street lights to parking meters, to fiber networks, VOiP and other contracts. The goal is to encourage creative solutions from the marketplace. Ultimately I envision free and universal basic access to the internet from San Pedro to Sylmar, with a premium portable service offered by providers which, due to the partnership with the City, would be vastly superior and cheaper to anything available today.

During my years representing the West San Fernando Valley in the California State Assembly, I was a passionate advocate for both technology improvements and infrastructure investment. I still believe that the first call for our limited dollars must be on traditional infrastructure; streets and sewers as well as services such as police and fire. However, we can “walk and chew gum” at the same time; we can partner with the private sector to build out our virtual infrastructure without harming our basic mission one iota.

In fact, if we plan properly, the two missions can complement each other, by, for instance, using street resurfacing opportunities as a window for laying down fiber-optics.

Now it is time to renew our commitment to a Los Angeles that sets the standard, not just in our physical infrastructure, but in our virtual infrastructure as well. William Mulholland didn’t think small when he envisioned the aqueduct, an engineering marvel that 100 years later supports a City of more than four million. And we must follow his example.

So what’s next? Following the Council’s vote, the RFP is currently being drafted and will be released for initial comment later this month. During the comment period we hope to hear from the public, experts and potential bidders on what they would like to see in our RFP before putting it out later this year. Once the technical and creative marketplace responds with their best ideas for making it happen, we will have a better idea of what ubiquitous broadband in Los Angeles will look like and how to get there.

I hope to one day echo the words of Mulholland and say, “There it is, use it,” to millions of City residents who will be able to access information via a citywide high-speed broadband network.

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New broadband report reveals £20 return on every £1 spent

Written by BUSINESS DESK Cambridge News

For every £1 the Government is investing in broadband, the UK economy will benefit by £20, an expert report published today reveals.

UK Broadband Impact Study – Impact Report, by analysts SQW (with Cambridge Econometrics) says the Government’s investment in superfast broadband will deliver a major boost to the UK economy.

The report also shows that in addition to offering outstanding value for taxpayer money the roll-out of superfast broadband nationwide will also make a real impact on the way we live - from working at home to watching TV online.

The study is the most in-depth and rigorous examination of the impact of broadband in the UK, and looks at the economic, environmental and social benefits of superfast broadband.

As well as the return on every £1, key findings include: significant short-term boost to the UK economy as the network construction adds around £1.5 billion to the economy; adding £0.5 billion and about 11,000 jobs in 2014 alone; long-term growth to the UK economy with public investment increasing annual GVA by £6.3 billion and causing a net increase of 20,000 jobs in the UK by 2024; household savings of £45 million a year by 2024 made through people being able to work from home more.

Also, benefits to be shared across the UK, helping the rebalancing of our economy. Approximately 89 per cent of the benefits will be in areas outside London and the South East of England with rural areas set to benefit most; and around 0.4 million tonnes a year of CO2e savings through reduced commuting, business travel and firms shifting to more energy-efficient cloud computing.

Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Maria Miller said: “What this report shows us is that as well as superfast broadband being good for economic growth it will make even more of a positive impact on the way we live, helping us work more productively and get online faster.

“Our broadband rollout is one of the best in Europe with almost three quarters of the UK able to access superfast speeds. This is making a real difference to people in communities across the UK from small businesses able to expand, school children being able to log on to do their homework or people being able to work from home. This investment in technology is vital for our future and will help Britain continue to compete in the global race and improve the way we live and work.”

Dr Pantelis Koutroumpis, advisor of the Broadband Impact Report said: “Looking at the evolution of broadband speeds in different geographies, and the on-going network deployments across the UK, this study brings new insights into the impact of improved broadband access on the national and local economies.

“Notably, the added capacity particularly affects small and medium businesses across industries, while the intervention helps address a growing digital divide. This motivates further research in the future as more empirical data become available - for example, in the relationship between business speed increases and productivity growth.”
Read more: http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/Business/Business-News/New-broadband-report-reveals-20-return-on-every-1-spent-20131114113934.htm#ixzz2kkYygjC3

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IBM to Announce More Powerful Watson via the Internet

 
Bob Goldberg/Feature Photo Service for IBM

Watson, which played “Jeopardy,” is now more accessible.

By QUENTIN HARDY  New York Times

Published: November 13, 2013
LAS VEGAS — Welcome to the age of supercomputing for everyone.

Jon Simon/Feature Photo Service for IBM

IBM’s Stephen Gold said, “This is the start of a shift in the way people interact with computers.”

On Thursday IBM will announce that Watson, the computing system that beat all the humans on “Jeopardy!” two years ago, will be available in a form more than twice as powerful via the Internet.

Companies, academics and individual software developers will be able to use it at a small fraction of the previous cost, drawing on IBM’s specialists in fields like computational linguistics to build machines that can interpret complex data and better interact with humans.

IBM’s move to make its marquee technology more widely available is the latest effort among big technology companies to make the world’s most powerful computers as accessible as the Angry Birds video game.

It is also an indication of how quickly the technology industry is changing, from complex systems that cost millions to install to pay-as-you-go deals that provide small companies and even individuals access to technology that just a few years ago only the largest companies could afford.

“The next generation will look back and see 2013 as a year of monumental change,” said Stephen Gold, vice president of the Watson project at IBM.

“This is the start of a shift in the way people interact with computers.”

IBM is wielding Watson in a fight to control the world of cloud computing — huge collections of computer servers connected over the Internet — with other big technology companies like Amazon.com, Google and Microsoft. It is no coincidence that IBM discussed its Watson news the same week Amazon was hosting clients at a conference here to pitch its own computing cloud, called Amazon Web Services or A.W.S.

The competition is still young, but its impact will be significant.

“Companies, governments and people will struggle to figure out what to do with all this,” said Jamie Popkin, an analyst with the research company Gartner. “It means there is going to be a new pace and velocity, making people rethink when humans make decisions, while machines make other decisions.”

Watson, a project on which IBM spent 14 years, is an artificial learning system that digests large volumes of information to find hidden meanings. Initial uses — besides besting humans on game shows — include examining medical patients and records to find an unexpected diagnosis, a bit like the genius portrayed in the television show “House.” Other uses include an online personal shopper and a virtual health aide that tailors exercises by asking questions.

IBM is opening Watson to more people in part to see what additional businesses might be created.

Watson is prominent, but similar projects are being run by other companies. On Tuesday, a company appearing at the Amazon conference said it had run in 18 hours a project on Amazon’s cloud of computer servers that would have taken 264 years on a single server.

The project, related to finding better materials for solar panels, cost $33,000, compared with an estimated $68 million to build and run a similar computer just a few years ago. Akin more to conventional supercomputing than Watson’s question-and-answer cognitive computing, the project was the first of several announced at the Amazon conference.

“It’s now $90 an hour to rent 10,000 computers,” the equivalent of a giant machine that would cost $4.4 million, said Jason Stowe, the chief executive of Cycle Computing, the company that did the Amazon supercomputing exercise, and whose clients include The Hartford, Novartis, and Johnson & Johnson. “Soon smart people will be renting a conference room to do some supercomputing.”

While revenues of Amazon’s cloud business are still small enough that the company does not have to disclose them, Amazon officials say Jeff Bezos, the company’s chief executive, believes A.W.S. could eventually dwarf Amazon’s businesses in books and merchandise, enterprises with $51 billion in revenue. This year, Gartner calculated that A.W.S. had five times the computing power of 14 other cloud computing companies, including IBM, combined.

Since then, IBM has spent an estimated $2 billion to acquire a cloud company called SoftLayer and has reconfigured Watson as a cloud product. It also hired buses that drove around the A.W.S. conference in Las Vegas, sporting ads that said they showed its superiority in cloud computing.

Besides gaining bragging rights and a much bigger customer base, IBM may be accelerating the growth of Watson’s power by putting it in the cloud. Mr. Gold said that Watson would retain learning from each customer interaction, gaining the ability to do things like interacting in different languages or identifying human preferences. IBM has taken steps to keep these improvements for its own benefit, by retaining rights in user agreements that customers are required to sign.

What is not yet clear is IBM’s plan to make money from taking Watson to the computing cloud. The company is experimenting with charging for data storage, or selling computing on a metered basis, like water or electricity. “There is no question the model will change,” Mr. Gold said. “You have to have flexibility to handle the breadth of cases we expect to see.”

It is likely that the competition among advanced computing systems will increase, lowering prices and delivering more capabilities to whatever use companies make of them.

This year, Google and a corporation associated with NASA acquired for study an experimental computer that appears to make use of quantum properties to deliver results sometimes 3,600 times faster than traditional supercomputers. The maker of the quantum computer, D-Wave Systems of Burnaby, British Columbia, counts Mr. Bezos as an investor.

A version of this article appears in print on November 14, 2013, on page B1 of the New York edition with the headline: IBM to Announce More Powerful Watson via the Internet.

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Netflix, YouTube Account for 50% of North American Data Traffic

 

by Karl Bode 10:43AM Monday Nov 11 2013  DSLReports

According to Sandvine’s latest Global Internet Phenomena Report, Netflix and YouTube alone account for more than 50% of all Internet traffic across North America. The study, which compiles data from more than 250 ISPs, also noted that P2P's share of overall network data continues to plummet, with peer-to-peer filesharing falling below 10% of total North American traffic (down from 60% 11 years ago). Some additional bullet-pointed statistics from the latest report:

•iOS updates accounted for 20% of North America Internet traffic on release day.

•In North America, the top 1% of subscribers who make the heaviest use of the network’s upstream resources account for 39.8 percent of total upstream traffic.

•Average monthly mobile usage in Asia-Pacific now exceeds 1 gigabyte, driven by video, which accounts for 50% of peak downstream traffic. This is more than double the 443 megabyte monthly average in North America.

•In Europe, Netflix, less than two years since launch, now accounts for over 20% of downstream traffic on certain fixed networks in the British Isles. It took almost four years for Netflix to achieve 20% of data traffic in the United States.

•Instagram and Dropbox are now top-ranked applications in mobile networks in many regions across the globe. Instagram, due to the recent addition of video, is now in Latin America the 7th top ranked downstream application on the mobile network, making it a prime candidate for inclusion in tiered data plans which are popular in the region.

•Netflix (31.6%) holds its ground as the leading downstream application in North America and together with YouTube (18.6%) accounts for over 50% of downstream traffic on fixed networks.

•P2P Filesharing now accounts for less than 10% of total daily traffic in North America. Five years ago it accounted for over 31%.

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Los Angeles Citywide Gigabit Fiber RFP: Is This the Future of Broadband in Urban America?

November 07, 2013  TechZone360

By Peter Bernstein , Senior Editor

There is an old saying in the U.S. that if you want to know what the future is going to look like, technologically as well as culturally, start with what is going on in California. And, while the Twitter IPO has captured the imagination of investors and content creators, and tech pubs constantly focus on the likes of Google, Apple, Facebook and their Silicon Valley neighbors, it might behoove everyone to take a hard and sustained look at what is going on in Southern California – Los Angeles to be precise.

In case you missed it, and my colleague Steve Anderson has done a nice job covering it, this week the Los Angeles City Council decided by a unanimous vote to set in motion the creation of a Request For Proposals (RFP), whose end game is the selection of a vendor to deploy a citywide fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) network to bring gigabit high-speed broadband service all 3.5 million residents and business within the city proper.

The RFP is expected to be issued in December. Responses, for the network whose initial cost for deployment is pegged at $3 billion to $5 billion, would be due back in March 2014.

Los Angeles says it has no intention of paying for the project, but has promised the winning bidder/bidders (a consortium appears to be acceptable) that the city will get rid of the red tape in the permitting and inspections processes. In return, the city will require the winning entity to open up wholesale access to the network to multiple providers so they can compete in provider value-added services. In addition, part of the plan would include free Wi-Fi access between 2 Mbps and 5 Mbps in certain public areas. Residents and businesses will have to pay for their own broadband subscriptions, which may include phone and TV service. There is also the expectations that the winning bidder will be expected to make donations of home broadband equipment to nonprofits to distribute to those who might not be able to afford it.


Image via Shutterstock

To put all of this is lay terms, LA understands that it economic vitality going forward is directly (pardon the play words) linked to the city having universally accessible and affordable broadband. In short, it is a modern version of the Communications Act of 1934, which created the FCC with a mission to do exactly what is envisioned here. And, as with the history of communications under the 1934 Act as amended and interpreted over time, the goal is to in essence make broadband access a right rather than a privilege under a regime where a franchise is granted in exchange for the regulatory jurisdiction have a major say in pricing and on the terms and conditions for encouraging competition.

On the latter front, as has been widely quoted in various news outlets, Los Angeles Information Technology Agency GM Steve Reneker told Arstechnica, “We're not looking at trying to be monopolistic and try to force anybody out of the market.”

Reaction thus far has ranged from this is the future to it is a boondoggle in the making. My own opinion is that while it certainly is going to be a wake-up call to current network service providers in Los Angeles—including Time-Warner, Cox, Charter, and AT&T—I am hopeful of a modified outcome which the RFP has a chance of setting in motion. Let me explain.

Ever since the breakup of the old AT&T in the mid-1980s I have been on record as saying that if the physical landline network operators were smart they would divest themselves of their outside plant and concentrate on becoming what we now call Over-the-Top (OTT) value-added service providers. Why communities of all sizes need two or more entities digging up streets has always escaped me on a host of fronts not the least of which is economic efficiencies. The deregulation of the electric utility business in the U.S. is a good example of this, and the physical plant that delivers communications services should be viewed as originally intended as a true utility service.

The nice thing about awarding provisioning of fiber as a utility service by a single entity, including the expansion of what would be free basic Wi-Fi services, is that regulators would have a less arduous task on a multitude of fronts. So long as there is equal access and equal interconnection (something the FCC and states have struggled with for decades) provided to qualified competitors the local entity would be in a position as overseer to assure the outside plant utility was not price gauging end users or value-added service providers and was meeting all public safety and operational metrics it proscribed.

There are a few things to highlight under such a scenario.

First, the single physical fiber network provider should be precluded from offering value-added services. It is asking for trouble. The challenge for regulators going back to the beginning of competition in the communications industry in the early 1970s has been figuring out how to let the monopoly regulated entities compete in unregulated markets on a fair basis. To be kind, they have done less than a wonderful job as technology innovation and the markets have moved a lot faster than the rules.

Second, a single entity under strict terms and conditions for deploying fiber to everyone everywhere, would be able to use the divested assets of current providers. The idea of reinventing the wheel seems counter-intuitive, especially in urban areas where broadband competition has caused fiber to be deployed to most if not all areas albeit not necessarily to residential customer premises.

I know this is going to come as a shock to my friends who are providing VDSL2 solutions that extend the life of copper by offering what are today broadband speeds, but having a single fiber utility with the responsibility universally fiber to the home and business for cities looking to gain competitive advantage long-term is less attractive than getting fiber in faster. Indeed, whether it is in Europe or Asia Pacific, counties and entire regions recognize the importance of accelerating the deployment of next-generation speeds and feeds, and the U.S. already lags several countries in terms of the average speeds we provide the average citizen and small business.

What the Internet revolution has spawned was a radical shift in value. It used to be that value in communications was a direct function of owning the network connection because it meant you owned the customer. What the Internet has done is said that owning the servers, applications and content that customers want is where premium value is to be extracted.

A good argument can be made that just being in the “dumb pipe” business is actually a good business. In fact, Google’s fiber efforts may prove this out assuming there is a watchful eye on Google using its myriad of online services in untoward ways. The fact is that Google may just be testing the waters to force others to accelerate fiber deployment. It is hard to imagine they have ambitions of fibering all of the top SMSA in the U.S.

Finally, for years the attraction of U.S. municipalities being service providers has been tantalizing. The problem, including Los Angeles interest in providing its own free Wi-Fi service, has been intense pushback from incumbent suppliers who see value in their franchises and the correct assumption that this is not an activity that government can and should be engaged in. That said, really good oversight, including protections for consumers and those who wish to use facilities to provide value-added services is a role government can play.

The reason to pay attention to what is going on in LA thus is not whether there is an RFP or whether the envisioned network under it gets built. We have entered a watershed period in the history of the converging broadly defined communications and adjacent industries, and industry restructuring is picking up speed in accordance with the roiling changes being driven by technology and consumer expectations. It is why I am hopeful the unintended consequence of the RFP lead to a future whose goal is the same as the intended consequences, but that the road taken is a cost-effective and more efficient short-cut as to how to get from here to there.

Is Los Angeles the future of urban broadband services delivery? It very well could be, and the next several months will be telling.


Edited by Alisen Downey

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How Much Media? 2013

Report on American Consumers  USC Marshall School of Business

James E. Short
Executive Summary

By 2015, it is estimated that Americans will consume both traditional and digital media for over 1.7 trillion hours, an average of approximately 15 and a half hours per person per day. The amount of media delivered will exceed 8.75 zettabytes annually, or 74 gigabytes - 9 DVDs worth - of data sent to the average consumer on an average day. A zettabyte is 10 raised to the 21st power bytes, a million million gigabytes. These estimates are from an analysis of more than 30 different sources of media data, ranging from traditional media (TV, Radio, Voice telephony) to new digital sources (tablet computers, mobile gaming devices, smartphones, mobile video). Media consumed while at work is not included.

We define media consumed as flows of data delivered to households and to people, and we measured the time of consumption and the byte throughput of the data delivered. Video sources dominate bytes, with 3.8 zettabytes coming from television and 2.46 zettabytes from computer gaming. If hours are used as the measurement, media delivered is much more widely distributed, with substantial amounts from radio, Internet applications such as social media, browsing and search, and others including messaging and email communications. All of our results are estimates, based on publicly released data from data providers including Neilsen and ComScore, media company disclosures, and analysts.

Hours of consumption grew at just over 5% a year from 2008-2013, due to a combination of increasing viewer hours per capita, from 11 hours per day to an average of over 14 hours per day, and population growth. Averaged across all media sources, media delivered in bytes is growing at a rate of 18% per year. This is less than the capacity to process data, driven by Moore’s Law, rising at least 30 percent a year, but is still impressive.

Traditional media continues to dominate our daily media consumption, with TV and Radio contributing 60% of the hours. New digital sources, however, are having major effects on most forms of media consumption. Over half of all media bytes are now received by computers, with mobile computers the most rapidly growing segment. In 2008, mobile computers accounted for approximately 3% of all bytes, by 2013 it is almost 10%, representing a year over year growth rate of 27 percent.

While in the past media consumption was overwhelmingly passive - we sat and watched TV or listened to radio - new media consumption is increasingly interactive, with time-delayed, multi-tasking and interrupted viewership fast becoming the typical consumptive behavior.

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Study: U.S. Cities Pay More Money For Less Broadband

by Karl Bode 09:40AM Monday Oct 28 2013 DSLReports

 

A new study by the New America Foundation has found that United States fixed and wireless urban broadband customers pay significantly more for less bandwidth than their overseas counterparts. The report compared fixed and wireless broadband pricing in most of the largest United States cities to international cities such as London, Berlin, Bucharest and Zurich.

Though the United States is ranked near the bottom on price in most categories (with little to no movement year to year), the comparisons are particularly stark when it comes to triple play pricing, with no United States city even in the rankings until Bristol, Virginia shows up at 32.

"....In larger US cities, we continue to observe higher prices for slower speeds," notes the study. "In the US for example, the best deal for a 150Mbps home broadband connection from cable and phone companies is $130/month, offered by Verizon FiOS in limited parts of New York City. By contrast, the international cities we surveyed offer comparable speeds for $77 or less per month, with most coming in at about $50/month."

Things don't get much prettier when it comes to wireless pricing, notes the report.

"When it comes to mobile broadband, the cheapest price for around 2GB of data in the US ($30/month from T-Mobile) is twice as much as what users in London pay ($15/month from T-Mobile). It costs more to purchase 2GB of data in a US city than it does in any of the cities surveyed in Europe."

The report's solution shouldn't be surprising if you've been paying attention (or if you recall Google is a major funder).

"Rather than allowing American cities to fall behind, policymakers should reassess current policy approaches and implement strategies to increase competition, in turn fostering faster speeds and more affordable access."

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CENIC 2014: Call For Proposals

The 18th annual conference of the Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC), Above and Beyond, will be held March 10-12, 2014 on the beautiful Sonoma State University campus. You are invited to submit a proposal through November 15, 2013.

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Fon finally launches in the US, inviting consumers to share their Wi-Fi

By Kevin Fitchard Gigaom
Oct. 23, 2013 - 8:14 AM PDT Oct. 23, 2013 - 8:14 AM PDT

Fon is introducing its community Wi-Fi model to the U.S., selling its $59 router on Amazon. The idea is to create a shared bandwidth network that any Fon member can access for free.


photo: Fon

If you thought Fon’s recent roaming partnership with AT&T was a first step toward the Spanish Wi-Fi aggregator’s launch in the U.S., then you would have been right. The company announced on Wednesday that it has begun selling its Wi-Fi routers to U.S. consumers.

Called Foneras, the devices work like any other Wi-Fi access point with one exception: they automatically partition off a portion of their Wi-Fi signals to create a shared broadband network accessible to any Fon member at no cost. Fon has been operating in Europe since 2007 and first expanded internationally to Japan in 2011 through a partnership with Softbank. It actually has a presence in the U.S. of a few thousand members (called Foneros), but they’re primarily European expats that have brought their Foneras over the Atlantic.

Starting today, Fon will begin recruiting members within the U.S., selling the latest version of its router for $59 on Amazon.com and on its website. It’s also opened up a U.S. office in New York City’s Soho neighborhood and installed U.S. CEO, Nina Sodhi, who I spoke to ahead of the launch.



According to Sodhi, the U.S. was always a target for Fon, but for the longest time the U.S. had a different view of Wi-Fi than Europe. Europeans embraced a Wi-Fi-first attitude toward connecting mobile devices like smartphones and tablets, while us Yanks seemed content to use our cellular connections, she said (perhaps a vestigial remnant of our old unlimited data plans). That attitude has shifted in recent years, and U.S. companies are starting to embrace the concept of shared Wi-Fi.

The most obvious example of that is Comcast, which recently began opening up all of its customer’s home Wi-Fi routers to other Comcast customers. “It really jumpstarted thinking about community Wi-Fi in the U.S.,” Sodhi said.

Comcast’s shared bandwidth efforts — along with those of outfits like Open Garden, Karma and the Open Technology Institute — aren’t just important to change the mindset around community Wi-Fi, but also as sources of potential partnerships for Fon. While FON has built up a global network of 12 million access points, 80 percent come from carrier partners like Softbank, BT and SFR that install Fon’s software on their residential broadband gateways are sell their own branded version of the Fonera, Sodhi said.

To scale its service in a market like the U.S., where the population is spread out and there are dozens of metropolitan cities, Fon will need to recruit many carriers to its side. It already has a deal with AT&T, but it’s only for international roaming (Fon members will eventually get access to AT&T’s public hotspot network). Foneros can’t access AT&T residential customers’ Wi-Fi networks. Sodhi, however, said Fon is in discussions with multiple carriers and ISPs.

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China achieves wireless Internet access via lightbulbs

By Ryan Huang | October 18, 2013 -- 06:01 GMT (23:01 PDT) ZDNet

Chinese scientists have made headway with successful experiments using Li-Fi technology, where wireless signals are sent by lightbulbs, according to Xinhua News.Professor Chi Nan, Fudan University. (credit: Fudan University)

Four computers under a one-watt LED lightbulb may connect to the Internet under the principle that light can be used as a carrier instead of traditional radio frequencies, said Chi Nan, an IT professor at Shanghai's Fudan University.

She explained a lightbulb with embedded microchips can produce data rates as fast as 150 Mbps, much higher than the average broadband connection in China.

Current wireless signal transmission equipment is expensive and low in efficiency, noted Chi in the article. "As for cell phones, millions of base stations have been established around the world to strengthen the signal but most of the energy is consumed on their cooling systems," she explained, but noted the energy utilization rate was only 5 percent."

Using LED signals underwater


Voice delivered by LED signals to enable underwater conversation
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However, Chi noted there was still a long way to go in making Li-Fi commercially successful. "If the light is blocked, then the signal will be cut off," she explained. The professor added the development of key related technologies were still in the experimental phase, such as light communication controls, microchip design and manufacturing.

The term Li-Fi was coined as early as 2011 by Harald Haas, a professor of engineering at Edinburgh University, with the name standing for "light-fidelity". The technology made use of LED bulbs that glow and darken faster than the human eye can see, and LED lights being semiconductors could be programmable.

Haas had suggested that the applications and capacity for data would be limitless, ranging from using car headlights to transmit data, or employing line of sight light sources as data transmitters.
 

About Ryan Huang

Loves caption contests and leisurely strolls along supermarket aisles. Ryan has covered finance, politics, tech and sports for TV, radio and print. He is also co-author of best seller "Profit from the Panic".

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IT giants back project to slash Internet costs worldwide

Computerworld UK

Google, Microsoft, Cisco and Yahoo head coalition wants to ensure broadband access costs less than 5 percent of monthly incomes

By Zach Miners | IDG News Service | Published 10:40, 08 October 13

Google, Microsoft, Cisco and Yahoo have helped found the Alliance for Affordable Internet, or A4AI, a global coalition backed by Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee that hopes to dramatically cut the cost of Internet access.

Households in developing countries pay roughly a third of their monthly income for a fixed Internet connection, according to figures from the International Telecommunication Union.
"The reason for the Alliance is simple -- the majority of the world's people are still not online, usually because they can't afford to be," Berners-Lee said in a statement.

A4AI has a specific goal: to make broadband service cost less than 5 percent of average monthly income.

It hopes to do that by promoting a set of policy and regulatory best practices, like allowing spectrum to be used in new ways, banning excessive tariffs on telecom equipment and ensuring competition.
In addtion to IT companies, A4AI is backed by UK Aid, US Aid and the Omidyar Network, an investment firm.

Bringing the Internet to developing countries isn't a new idea. Google already has "Project Loon," which aims to connect people in rural areas using a network of hot air balloons, and it wants to bring broadband to Africa via unused TV broadcast channels.

Only 16 percent of people in Africa use the Internet today, according to the ITU -- half the penetration seen in Asia and the Pacific.

The group will begin its work in two or three countries this year -- it didn't say which ones -- expanding to at least 10 countries by the end of 2015. It will also produce an annual affordability report, with the first edition due in December.

Zach Miners covers social networking, search and general technology news for IDG News Service. Follow Zach on Twitter at @zachminers. Zach's e-mail address is zach_miners@idg.com

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Governor signs bills to expand broadband in California

By Rachelle Chong posted on October 4, 2013 Techwire

Broadband advocates are celebrating after Gov. Jerry Brown yesterday signed two bills — Senate Bill (SB) 740 (Padilla-D, Pacoima) and Assembly Bill (AB) 1299 (Bradford–D, Gardena) — that will bring more broadband access to rural Californians and disadvantaged communities. SB 740 overcame opposition from the California Cable & Telecommunications Association, but ultimately, cable reached agreement with the author on amendments and withdrew its opposition when the bill was pending in the Assembly.

SB 740 will modify the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) eligibility requirements to let the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) award funding to entities such as the Wireless Internet Service providers or other advanced technologies, and add $90 million in funds from telecom ratepayer intrastate surcharges in 2015-2020 to the CASF program for additional broadband projects in areas with no broadband service or slow broadband service (below 6 megabits per second download speed and 1.5 Mbps upload speed). AB 1299 authorizes the CPUC to award up to $25 million in CASF grants for deployment and adoption of broadband services in publicly-supported housing communities and to promote broadband development in disadvantaged communities. The CASF was established by the CPUC in 2006, and codified law by the State Legislature the next year, to bring broadband access to all of California.

“This new law continues the state’s critical investment in our digital infrastructure so that every Californian has access to broadband,” said Senator Alex Padilla, the author of SB 740, praising the governor’s signature in a written statement. “High-speed Internet service is a vital aspect of modern life – everything from communicating with friends and family to access to jobs, education, health care, public safety, government services, and commerce are facilitated by broadband connections. . . [B]roadband is a key component for economic opportunity for both individuals and communities.”

“As the 21st century economy moves online, our society is increasingly defined by those who have access to the technology and services that define modern life, and those who don’t,” said Assembly member Steven Bradford in a written statement. “The future of our economy rests on broadband and other technology infrastructure. We cannot let certain unserved and underserved communities fall behind the rest when it comes to this critical resource. I am pleased that the Governor understands the value of helping our citizens climb out of the digital shadows.”

The CPUC, who had made the initial recommendation to Senator Padilla’s office for the main program changes contained in SB740, praised the Governor’s support of the bills.

“We are pleased at the signing of these bills, as they extend broadband infrastructure where it’s needed the most to increase economic growth, employment, jobs and social benefits,” commented Ryan Dulin, the CPUC’s Communications Division director. He said it is the goal of the CPUC to promote “ubiquitous availability of advanced communications services to all Californians and not just in urban areas. “

“We are thrilled that California leaders understand how critical it is to close the Digital Divide in California to keep our state globally competitive and offer all residents access to educational and employment opportunities by being connected to the Internet,” said President and CEO Sunne Wright McPeak, of the California Emerging Technology Fund. “We now will have the resources to continue to get more Californians connected to affordable, reliable broadband, and be able to expand the Smart Housing Initiative statewide to connect more of California’s 200,000 public housing units to the Internet.”

Rural broadband community leaders were also effusive in praise for SB740, which stands to benefit rural areas in particular. While disappointed that the additional CASF funding from 2015-2020 was reduced from $125 million in the original version of SB 740 to $90 million during the bill’s passage through the state Senate and Assembly, they were pleased to have the bill pass given the early opposition by entrenched broadband interests.

“Mendocino Coast Broadband Alliance is thrilled and greatly relieved that these two bills were signed into law,” said Shirley Freriks, a leader of MCBA. “Those on dial-up [access] in Mendocino rural areas cannot even access a web site these days without waiting 30 minutes or more. . . These bills will allow all students to work from home on their computers and have equal rights with other students who have internet access. Connectivity is assumed in the educational system but most rural kids cannot participate.”

Freriks added that with broadband, small businesses, entrepreneurs, medical applications, and the tourist businesses will be able to flourish in places like Mendocino, where 80% of the businesses are small, and in Fort Bragg where local resource-based industries have disappeared. She added that Broadband Alliance of Mendocino County has a grant request in to the CPUC now that would bring fast Internet to unserved and underserved areas in 16 counties.

A 2012 Akamai report on broadband speeds shows California ranked 16th in the nation.

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The Internet Is Important To Everyone Infographic

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San Francisco Hackathon September 20-22, 2013

Hack City -- a #Cleanweb Hackathon at VERGE

On September 20-22, GreenBiz Group is hosting a #cleanweb hackathon in collaboration with Salesforce.com, the White House DOE, the City of San Francisco and a number of SF Bay Area stakeholders.

For the 2nd year in a row, entrepreneurs, developers, designers, and business professionals will gather at Code for America in order to problem solve, design, and develop applications as concrete solutions for issues pertaining to transportation, material resource use, and the water, energy, and food nexus.

Show up, bring your laptop, and help others out. We'll do introductions and team formation on Friday evening, and will have a sign-up for people who are looking for project partners or teams to join.

There will be a Data Jam happening in the Ben Franklin Room Saturday afternoon for a deep dive on product development around the Soft Story Ordinance. Beer, wine and food provided throughout the weekend.

Here's a code for half price tix >> http://hackcity.eventbrite.com/?discount=innovation
Questions? Email: hackcity@greenbiz.com

Courtesy of sf.citi

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Identity Week: Burlingame, CA; Nov 11-15

TechEDge eNews Update | 2 August 2013 | http://ccctechedge.org

Leading Technology In Education For California's Future

Identity Week: Burlingame, CA; Nov 11-15



Registration is now open for Identity Week, November 11-15, 2013, held in Burlingame, California, just south of San Francisco. California Community Colleges IT staff are encouraged to attend.

The event, led by Internet2, will bring together the InCommon community, identity management technical implementers and architects, and U.S. and international leaders in the field of identity and access management.

Each meeting has a separate registration, so you can choose the one(s) right for you. For links to each of these meetings, the online registration process, and the hotel registration site, please visit www.incommon.org/idweek.

CAMP Pre-Conference Workshop: Getting Started with Federated Identity Management (Nov. 13) - Those just getting started with identity management will be interested in this Wednesday afternoon workshop. The program will focus on the primary principles that underlie an effective identity management system, look at how federated IdM fits and why it is important, and introduce you to InCommon. There is a separate registration for the pre-conference. More information is at: https://spaces.internet2.edu/display/CAMP2013/Getting+Started+with+Federated+Identity+Management

CAMP: Managing Identity and Access in an Era of Distributed Services (Nov. 14-15): CAMP will focus on the policy and technical challenges of implementing outsourced and cloud services. CAMP includes two tracks, “Ramping Up for Distributed Services,” and “Federation and Distributed Services: What’s Working and What’s Next.” The program for both tracks is posted on the CAMP website, https://spaces.internet2.edu/display/CAMP2013

The week kicks off on Monday, November 11, with a meeting of REFEDS, the international organization for operators and architects of identity federations. You can find out more about REFEDS at https://refeds.org/about_agreement.html.

If you have questions about Identity Week or registration, please see the FAQ on the website or contact Dean Woodbeck at woodbeck@internet2.edu.

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Dean Woodbeck
Program Manager, InCommon
Internet2

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Counting the Internet of things in real time

For extreme numbers people who might want to track things as they connect to the Internet, Cisco created the Internet of Everything Connections Counter.

CNET

by Dan Farber

 July 30, 2013 10:51 AM PDT

(Credit: Cisco)

Cisco loves the Internet of things. After all, the company is in the business of selling software and hardware to help enable what it says will be 50 billion things connected to the Internet by 2020. Things include billions of sensor-packed mobile devices, coffeemakers, cardiac monitors,cars, tires, roads, parking meters, supermarket shelves, cattle, thermostats, and skin, just to name a few. By Cisco's count, 50 billion things is just 2.7 percent of all the things that will be on the planet in 2020.

According to Cisco's latest revelations, 80 things per second are connecting to the Internet, and by 2020, 250 things will connect each second. For people who want to keep track of the number in "real time," the company created the Cisco Internet of Everything (IoE) Connections Counter.

Cisco has also calculated that the Internet of Everything -- people, process, data and things taking advantage of network connections -- will create $14.4 trillion of "value at stake," defined as the potential bottom-line value derived from harnessing the Internet of Everything, over the next 10 years. That figure includes $613 billion in potential global corporate profits this year. For companies taking even greater advantage of the Internet of Everything, an additional $544 billion in profits could be gained in 2013.

There's not just money in those things, however. From Cisco's view, the Internet of things and everything leads to "transformational value."

"Even more exciting is when all of these things are combined with people, process, and data via the network to deliver transformational value to the world by improving the way we make decisions, saving us time and money, and so much more. That's the Internet of Everything, and its value increases every time we connect the unconnected," the company said.

In other words, the more connections the better. But even with 50 billion things, billions more people, and zetabytes of data trying to tell us what to do, we'll still be able to make poor decisions.

Topics:

Computing

Tags:

Cisco,

Internet of things

Dan Farber

Dan has more than 20 years of journalism experience. He has served as editor in chief of CBSNews.com, CNET News, ZDNet, PC Week, and MacWeek.

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Google Donates $600,000 to Build a Free Public WiFi System in 31 San Francisco Parks

By Rachelle Chong posted on July 24, 2013 Techwire

Today, through a deal brokered by San Francisco Supervisor Mark Ferrell, Google announced that it will donate $600,000 to bring free wireless service to the public in 31 San Francisco parks, recreational centers and plazas. This free WiFi service in the City’s parks will enhance park users’ ability to obtain government benefits and services and other information available from the Internet from wireless devices like laptops, tablets, and smartphones.

The Google donation will be made to the San Francisco Citizens Initiative for Technology and Innovation (sf.citi), a 501(c)6 non-profit group headed by Ron Conway. Sf.citi’s members are tech companies who wish to leverage the power of the technology community around civic action. The proposal is that sf.citi will contract with wireless company iNet to install the necessary WiFi equipment using municipally-owned infrastructure, fiber, and right-of-ways, and then present the finished system to the Department of Technology of the City and County of San Francisco as a gift. Approvals are required by the Recreation and Parks Commission, the Planning Department, and the Board of Supervisors. The system is hoped to be initiated by year’s end and operating by Spring 2014.

In a statement, Google’s spokesperson, Veronica Bell, said that Google was hopeful the city and local groups will use the free WiFi to bridge the digital divide and strengthen their community. The Google donation will cover the costs of the equipment, installation and maintenance for two years. It is presumed that the city will foot the maintenance costs thereafter.

San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee praised the initiative as a great example of public-private partnerships that help bring better services to his city’s residents in the 21st century. Mayor Lee is a friend of the tech industry in San Francisco, placing a strong focus on making the city friendly to tech companies, workers and users.

Supervisor Farrell was quick to emphasize that the chosen 31 parks and plazas span the city including Chinatown and the Tenderloin and are focused on public spaces that get the most use. He further stated that the Google money was strictly a gift, with no strings attached.

This year, the San Francisco Department of Technology is also working on a free wireless network along Market Street that would be installed and operated by it. This will enhance the City’s work to revitalize this area with tech start-ups.

Free WiFi hotspots help close the digital divide for low income and homeless persons, who may not otherwise be able to afford Internet access but own a wireless device, such as a smart phone or tablet device. This access in public spaces also takes a load off community centers and libraries that provide free Internet access and computers to the public, but are stressed by budget shortfalls.

This news is no doubt welcomed by former San Francisco Mayor and now Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom, who originally worked with Earthlink and Google six years ago to bring a free public wireless system to San Francisco. Later Earthlink withdrew from the deal, amid much public controversy.

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OECD: U.S. Ranks in Middle of Global Broadband Pack

7/23/13 at 12:24 PM by Joan Engebretson  telecompetitor

Has U.S. broadband subscriber growth stalled?


The U.S. ranked near the middle of 34 developed and developing nations measured by the number of wired broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants, according to new research from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The OECD is an international organization that promotes policies aimed at improving the economic and social well-being of people around the world.

The U.S. has about 28.8 broadband subscribers per 100 inhabitants, according to the OECD, giving the country a ranking of 15 out of 34 OECD nations, behind 12 European countries, Canada and Korea. The top 5 countries were Switzerland, Netherlands, Denmark, Korea and France, all of which had at least 36 broadband subscribers per 100 inhabitants. Data was collected as of year-end 2012.

The U.S. saw an increase of 1.5% in broadband subscribers per 100 inhabitants between June 2012 and December 2012, ranking it in the middle of the pack there, too. Thirteen European countries, Mexico and Chile saw greater growth. Mexico topped the list with a 5.2% increase in broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants in the six-month study period, followed by Greece, Poland, Slovak Republic and Portugal. All of those countries had six-month growth rates of at least 3.9%.

In looking at broadband connectivity per 100 inhabitants, the OECD also collected data about the type of technology used – and there was considerable variation from one country to another. While the U.S. and Canada had more cable than DSL subscribers, DSL subscriptions outnumbered cable subscriptions in most other countries. Meanwhile Asian countries Korea and Japan had the highest percentage of broadband subscribers using fiber. Both countries have more subscribers on fiber than on all other broadband technologies combined.



Several European countries also have relatively high percentages of total broadband subscribers on fiber. Sweden, Estonia and Slovak Republic had between 30% and 40% of total broadband subscribers using fiber.

In the U.S. that percentage was 7.4%, giving the U.S. a ranking of 21 out 34 OECD countries.

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FCC Launches E-Rate Reform Proceeding

"[T]he Commission seeks comment on a range of proposals to focus funds on supporting high-capacity broadband, including: simplifying rules on fiber deployment to lower barriers to new construction; prioritizing funding for new fiber deployments that will drive higher speeds and long-term efficiency; phasing out support for services like paging and directory assistance; ensuring that schools and libraries can access funding for modern high-speed Wi-Fi networks in classrooms and library buildings; and allocating funding on a simplified, per-student basis."

FCC   

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