Disruptive Tendencies

Mobilizing Web 2.0

(Originally posted at http://www.von.com/blogs/guest/2008/11/mobilizing-web-2-0.aspx )

The launch of the iPhone by Apple and AT&T in June 2007 was a seminal event in the evolution of the mobile Internet. For the first time, a handheld device delivered much of the usability and functionality that is available to laptop and PC users, in a form factor and interface that people wanted to use. The iPhone allows users to stream YouTube, purchase from the iStore, upload pictures to Facebook, and of course, make plain old phone calls.

Entire ecosystems are being enabled, as we speak, by companies like Apple, Google and RIM Blackberry releasing software development kits (SDKs), and creating a revenue-sharing business model that gives these developers a route to market (Apple App Store). Marquee VCs, like Kleiner Perkins, are committing hundreds of millions of dollars to fund startups focused narrowly on Mobile Web 2.0 application development.

The Mobile Internet is happening. Now.

But all is not idyllic. Many iPhone users report being frustrated by the limitations of current cellular networks. In many respects, it’s analogous to driving your Ferrari over a dirt road. Much of the functionality described above is only available over a Wi-Fi network, when available.

A short-term answer for the Mobile Internet is more ubiquitous Wi-Fi. We’re not advocating blanket, citywide coverage, but rather strategic deployments in areas where it makes sense to do so. This may be as simple as re-thinking the hotspot coverage area — perhaps placing a high-powered, highly sensitive access point on the outside of a location, rather than placing a low-power, enterprise AP inside. Conceivably, this simple step would provide coverage inside the establishment and its patio, just as the indoor AP, but it also could create a “virtual patio” covering about 10 times the area of the indoor AP alone. If you think about it, the location’s SSID could be used as an advertising beacon, pulling in more customers from the surrounding area, not simply serving those customers already inside the establishment.

Other locations where it might make sense to deploy Wi-Fi access include convention centers, hotels and resorts, sporting venues, commuter rail stations and lines, shopping malls, urban cores, multi-tenant dwelling units, etc.

The long-term bet carriers are making is LTE, 4G. In April 2008, the FCC raised $19.6 billion from 4G spectrum auctions and the major LTE equipment providers have agreed on an intellectual property model to accelerate adoption. 4G trials are expected to begin in 2010, with wide-scale rollouts beginning in the 2012 timeframe.

Whether Wi-Fi, WiMAX or LTE, or most likely some combination of all three, the challenge of deploying a network with the capacity capable of delivering applications and content to many of these devices simultaneously, at rates approaching 100mbps, is not trivial. Wireless networks are constrained by the laws of physics, notwithstanding the unfortunate hype that inflates expectations with every new generation of technologies. The infamous WiMAX promise of “70mbps over 70 kilometers” sounded good to the marketing department, but the reality is that this is an either/or proposition. Distance and power dictate data rate. Handheld devices are, by definition, low-powered, range-limited devices. For 4G to deliver on anything approaching its promise, much smaller cells (micro and picocells) will need to be used outdoors, with even smaller femtocells expected to provide an answer indoors, in the home and office.

That’s my .02!

Martin Suter is vice president of business development at BelAir Networks, a provider of broadband mesh solutions for Wi-Fi, WiMAX, 4.9 GHz Public Safety and 5.9 GHz ITS networks. Previously, Martin was the CEO at Cohda Wireless, where he raised the company’s profile and negotiated a licensing deal with a Fortune 100 vendor in its core franchise. Prior to Cohda, he was vice president of business development at MeshNetworks Inc., a classic tech transfer/disruptive technology success story that achieved a major liquidity event for its investors in Q4/2004 with its acquisition by Motorola. Martin also was responsible for building several high profile alliances with and for leading technology companies, including Fujitsu, Microsoft, Netscape, Sun Microsystems, and Teradata. Additionally, Martin has successfully negotiated technology transfer, distribution and/or licensing deals with companies like 3Com, BioChem Pharma, Dow Chemical, Exodus, Fujitsu, IBM, Microsoft, Motorola, Netscape and Sun.

The Big Three: Evolve or Die

Talk about conflicted. I filled up the tank this week and paid $2.09 per gallon of gas. It’s been a long time since a fill cost me under $35, and with the rest of the economy in the tank (no pun intended), a little part of me was OK with saving some money. But a bigger part of me is thinking: Stop the madness!

At $4.25 per gallon, it hurt to go fill up, and as a result, people’s behaviours changed. SUVs and pick-ups weren’t moving off lots, major car dealerships shut down, and those that manufactured the vehicles to feed this craving, The Big Three, have admitted that they’re no longer capable of being self-sustaining and are looking for government bailouts. Why are they dying? They have ignored innovation and resisted building high mileage fleets, choosing instead to convince the US public that it needs 8 cylinder, 8 passenger, 12 mpg behemoths that cost over a hundred bucks to fill.

Evolve or die. They didn’t evolve as the 20^th century came to a close, and in fact openly opposed evolution. It’s time to let the market economy do what it does, and allow the next wave of innovative start-ups room to transform the automotive industry in the 21^st century.

Politicians don’t do “tough love” well. No politician, blue or red, will risk alienating entire swing states, so I expect there will be some kind of package put forth. Personally, I think it’s keeping the patient with multi-organ failure on life support. Does anyone think that the tens of billions of dollars that will be spent to transform The Big Three or will we be extending the suffering? Imagine if, instead, a portion of that money was invested to build a national distribution system for renewables? Or hydrogen refueling stations?

The government needs to man up, and act with an iron fist in a velvet glove. Bail them out, if you must, but use it as an opportunity to avoid a national crisis that threatens our future.

 

1. Add a bailout tax of $2 per gallon, so that every American is paying a user tax commensurate with the vehicles they’re driving.
2. Tie all monies to real mileage targets that will make a difference, not the abysmally minor gains currently on the books.
3. Legislate that ten percent of all vehicle sales must by electric by 2015.
4. 50% of vehicles produced must be hybrids by 2013, etc.

Put some teeth in the package. Give the Big Three a choice: evolve or die.

Stop the madness.

That’s my .02!

Martin Suter

(martin.suter at iplicensing.net)

Some Thoughts on Wireless Standards

(Originally posted at http://www.von.com/blogs/guest/2008/11/some-thoughts-on-wireless-standards.aspx )

To many outside the industry, standards bodies often appear as an arcane group of eccentrics who spend years debating minutiae. Actually, they appear this way to many of us in the industry as well! However, standards bodies play a critical role in industry, as they drive toward consensus related to supported use case requirements, and technical means of achieving these. While representatives from most companies participate in these meetings, there is an element of democracy contained within the process and overt politicking is severely discouraged.

Many have suggested that the reason the U.S. lagged behind Europe in wireless deployments and adoption was that there was no unifying technology standard, in contrast to Europe, where GSM was widely adopted as the consensus standard. This enabled seamless roaming across the continent and allowed handset manufacturers to achieve economies of scale more easily.

If you look at the wireless industry holistically, there are two main standards bodies: 3GPP and IEEE. Each will say that they’re very different from the other, with 3GPP focused on cellular standards, while IEEE is focused on a broader range of standards, from wireless personal area networks (WPAN), wireless local area networks (WLAN) to wireless wide area networks (RAN).

Historically, there has perhaps been an acceptable rationale for this bifurcation. The cellular industry was focused on the delivery of voice-over-legacy circuit-switched networks, and used a whole host of air interfaces (time/frequency/code division), each designed to support large numbers of users in very narrow bands of licensed spectrum.

The IEEE was focused on the delivery of data across IP networks, and has developed a series of air interfaces based on particular use cases. With the exception of 802.11b, which uses a direct sequence, spread spectrum modulation, every other flavor of 802.11 (i.e. .11a, g, n, etc.), 802.16 (aka WiMAX), 802.20 (aka Mobile Broadband Wireless Access or MBWA) use OFDM (orthogonal frequency division multiplexing).

What the industry is finally seeing is a degree of convergence, although not yet formally.

There is some debate as to which technology becomes the official “4G” standard. There are proponents of 802.16-2005 (Mobile WiMAX), while others support the proposed 3GPP 4G standard, LTE (Long Term Evolution).

Notwithstanding this debate, legacy circuit-switched voice networks are becoming packet switched, and increasingly capable of supporting significant data traffic. Data networks are increasingly capable of supporting significant voice traffic, with applications like VoIP and VoWLAN. 3GPP standards, such as LTE, are migrating to OFDM and IP.

The debate about which standard is “best,” is largely irrelevant. One could make a strong argument that 802.16 (WiMAX) is a better outdoor standard than 802.11 (Wi-Fi), or claim that its performance exceeds current 3G systems. Yet many remain skeptical as to the widespread adoption of Mobile WiMAX.

Time will tell.

“Best” is not only a function of waveform or data rate. Cost, ubiquity, market timing, industry uptake and standards roadmap all impact the commercial success or failure of a particular technology. At the end of the day, it is too much to expect that a single technology will be “best” in all use cases. Seamless, transparent interoperability is what matters, as both 3GPP and IEEE standards are likely to co-exist and ultimately, complement the other.

That’s my .02!

Martin Suter is vice president of business development at BelAir Networks, a provider of broadband mesh solutions for Wi-Fi, WiMAX, 4.9 GHz Public Safety and 5.9 GHz ITS networks. Previously, Martin was the CEO at Cohda Wireless, where he raised the company’s profile and negotiated a licensing deal with a Fortune 100 vendor in its core franchise. Prior to Cohda, he was vice president of business development at MeshNetworks Inc., a classic tech transfer/disruptive technology success story that achieved a major liquidity event for its investors in Q4/2004 with its acquisition by Motorola. Martin also was responsible for building several high profile alliances with and for leading technology companies, including Fujitsu, Microsoft, Netscape, Sun Microsystems, and Teradata. Additionally, Martin has successfully negotiated technology transfer, distribution and/or licensing deals with companies like 3Com, BioChem Pharma, Dow Chemical, Exodus, Fujitsu, IBM, Microsoft, Motorola, Netscape and Sun.

High Octane Intellectualism

Coming off an election where “elite” was an insult, “Joe the Plumber” was a hero, Obama was “too articulate” and Sarah Palin was sold as being capable of assuming the Presidency, I was despondent about how dumbed down America appeared to have become. Part of that comes from living in Florida, a southern swing state, where there’s tremendous gravitational pull for the worst of partisan politics, but it seemed to be more pervasive this cycle than in previous elections.

Then, last week, I travelled to Boston to take a 2-day course on “Technology Negotiation” put on by Harvard, MIT and Tufts. Spending 3 days in Cambridge was like a shot of adrenalin right to the brain, and I realized that there is intelligent life out there!

But not just intelligent, people with big brains thinking big thoughts. There are people who are smarter than Spock everywhere you look.

The program itself was excellent, with a top-notch faculty and about 70 attendees from all over the world. Lawrence E. Susskind, Dr. Hal Movius, and Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld spent the full two days working with us, answering questions and inspiring the group. During lunch on Day 2, several of us began discussing the nature of technology. I brought up a concept that I love by Nicholas Negroponte, who describes the transformation that is occurring as the move from the production of atoms to the production of bits. From “stuff”, to information, content and software. The implications are profound.

As I mentioned Negroponte’s quote, Joel C-G chuckles and says that his brother runs the “MIT Center for Bits and Atoms’ Fab Lab” lab at MIT and starts to describe some of the things they’re working on. Some of the research that is going on reminded me of Ray Kurzweil’s concept of “the singularity”, so I said, “It sounds like the singularity is near”, which is also the title of Kurzweil’s book. Joel chuckled again, and said that he lived two doors down from Ray in Boston.

It was like being brought back to life. I forgot how much I missed intellectual sustenance, and for 48 hours last week, I was able to refill the tank with the highest octane intellectualism that I’ve had the privilege of meeting in a long time.

That’s my .02!

Martin Suter

(martin.suter at iplicensing.net)

(PS – For anyone interested in learning more about the premise behind “The Singularity is Near”, TED.com has a 20 minute video of Kurzweil speaking about it. Watch it, and then go buy the book!)

I guess God voted Democrat

So what do you think Sarah Palin, James Dobson, her pastors Larry Kroon and Ed Kalnins, Pastor Thomas Muthee, the Wasilla Assembly of God members and 30 million evangelicals are thinking this morning?

Apparently, the Big Guy voted Democrat.

In an interview with James Dobson, Ms. Palin indicated that she was "putting this in God's hands, that the right thing for America will be done at the end of the day on Nov. 4."

"When we hear along the rope lines that people are interceding for us and praying for us, it's our reminder to do the same, to put this all in God's hands, to seek his perfect will for this nation, and to of course seek his wisdom and guidance in putting this nation back on the right track."

She went on to talk about her support for the Republican platform on three issues important to evangelicals: abortion, a constitutional ban on gay marriage, and banning embryonic stem cell research.

If, indeed, the outcome was in God’s hands, as Sarah and others claim it to have been, then there are only two possible conclusions.

God is pro-Choice, pro-gay marriage and pro-embryonic stem cell research.

 Or there is no God.

Take your pick. But Sarah, let go of the delusions of somehow being Chosen. You weren’t.

That’s my .02!

Martin Suter

(martin.suter at iplicensing.net)