June 20th, 2007

I'm in love and I got it bad (for AT&T Video Share)

Posted by Russell Shaw @ 4:29 pm

Categories: AT&T, Apple, General, NXTComm, News

Tags: AT&T Corp., Video, Russell Shaw

You know me.  I reflexively pull back when I smell overhype. My B.S. detector, just like the volume setting of that guitar player on “Spinal Tap,” routinely goes to”11″ on a scale of ten.

Yet earlier today at NXTcomm, I gave in to the absolute coolness of AT&T’s Video Share.  There I was in a conference room at the back of the show floor, holding a Samsung handset, exchanging live videos over a cell connection with a very well-informed AT&T Wireless marketing type from Atlanta.

Video and accompanying sound were crisp. We’re talking 15 frames per second- not movie quality but not the pixel-y glop you get from some other connections.

VideoShare is now being tested in three markets. That’d be San Antonio, via SBC’s acquisition of “the old” AT&T now the home base of “the new” AT&T; Atlanta, where Cingular Wireless was based, and Dallas,too.

Expect a wave of new market rollouts by the end of next month, reflecting all of AT&T;s 160 3G-enabled metros. More or less full deployment by end of 2007.

I definitely envision some relevant applications (didn’t say killer app) for Video Share. 

Phone your spouse from the farmer’s market- zero in on prospective purchases.  Hey, Kenny is coming up to bat in his Little League game- Video Share a call to your husband (presumably the kid’s father, heh) on a business trip. You’re sitting in gridlocked 5 p.m. traffic- hey I’ll be home late, honey, here’s some live video about how traffic looks. Realtor to client: here’s the kitchen. Bids due on this house by 5 p.m. Should I go for it?

Subscriptions to Video Share seem more than reasonable to me. $4.99 a month for 25 minutes; $9.99 a month for 60 minutes, pay as you go for 35 cents a minute.

Compatible handsets so far: Samsung a707, a717, a727, and the LG CU500w.  By the way, all three Samsung’s I mentioned totally rock in the form factor dept.

Final thought: it will be interesting to go to an AT&T Wireless store and see how many of the iPhone fanatics notice the Video Share signage and decide- quite against the dominant iPhone maniameme- that a Video Share-compliant device and subscription is quite the most right decision for them at this moment in time. 

June 20th, 2007

Bob Wright to ISPs: clamp down on piracy, illegal downloads

Posted by Russell Shaw @ 7:20 am

Categories: NXTComm, News

Tags: Internet Service Provider, Piracy, Russell Shaw

Now at NXTComm in Chicago, former CEO of NBC Universal and current General Electric vice-chair Bob Wright is holding keynote court.

We are all in the business of aggregating audiences and delivering them to advertisers,” Wright said. “For those who are successful at this the benefits are going to be enormous.”

As to challenges, Wright mentioned the need to develop new advertising models that will enable mobile content to be profitable for content distributors as well as telecommunications companies.

The lean back of watching television is completely different than (the viewing experience) of mobile handset, perfect place targed interactive advertising. We need to work together by mining the data while ptorecting customers privacy

Wright also touched on the challenge of protecting digital content.

“We are challenged to protect our content,” said Wright, who added that many Internet Service Providers have been and are “facilitating the theft of the same video offerings that we are seeking to sell together. It makes no sense.” 

On the other hand, Wright praised the willingness of several leading ISPs to educate subscribers about the wrongness of piracy and illegal downloads, as well as notifying illegal uploaders and downloaders that “this must stop.”

Wright demanded that ISP’s clarify the consequences of continued infringement for customers in a tone that is reflective of “education, not punishment.

June 20th, 2007

Moto's Zander talks up RAZR's forthcoming live video capture

Posted by Russell Shaw @ 6:54 am

Categories: NXTComm, News, trends

Tags: Video Capture, Video, Ed Zander, Moto, Russell Shaw

Next up at NXTcomm is Ed Zander, CEO of Motorola.

Major takeaway from Zander’s address is the evolution in the way content is created and then distributed. “It is changing from tv channels to spontaneous generation,” he said.

Ed then explained Motorola’s belief that this spontaneous generation will be enabled in the RAZR2 via an embedded video camera, as well as the device’s two hours of video storage capacity.

“Content distribution (is changing) from broadcast to ‘Personacast,’ ” Zander added. (Now) “you are a tv station, you are a radio station, you are a distributor of content. “We need to enable this with big broadband networks.”

June 20th, 2007

Verizon CEO: get ready for 4G

Posted by Russell Shaw @ 6:33 am

Categories: NXTComm, News

Tags: 4G, Network, Verizon Communications Inc., Broadband, Russell Shaw

Good morning from the NXTcomm show here in Chicago.  Several keynotes from top telecom execs. I’ll be blogging highlights as they transpire.

First up is Ivan Seidenberg, CEO of Verizon.  While Seidenberg didn’t dig deep into any philosophical meme, , but did hit the right talking points:

“Communications technologies are the disruptive force in the 21st century technology.” 

“Every job created through broadband investment creates four jobs in the network economy.”

Seidenberg then repeated the mantra of device-neutral broadband content that will be delivered any time to any screen anywhere.

Seidenberg then pointed out that by the end of this decade, Verizon expects to have built out a 4G wireless network, sufficient to support wireless broadband that will be enabled in all mobile devices.

“Today 100mb is just the beginning. FIOS is capable of 100mb and beyond. Starting this fall, we will move from megabits to gigabits. By end of decade, when our cable competitors are upgrading to DOCSIS 3.0, our speed will rival what we (are able to attain) over our most advanced business networks today.”

June 19th, 2007

NXTcomm bears witness to ROADM's major role in broadband video distribution

Posted by Russell Shaw @ 5:35 pm

Categories: General, NXTComm, News

Tags: Wavelength, Broadband, Video, Broadband Video, Russell Shaw

I type: ROADM.

You think: ah, short for “Road Map.”

That may well be the case, but not at NXTcomm here in Chicago.

One of the major themes of this major telecom industry event is greatly (I am going to make up a word here) efficientized video delivery by use of a reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexer.

Go over those letters. Yes, ROADM.

ROADM is a typ of optical add-drop multiplexer that enables carriers to remotely switch traffic at what is called the wavelength layer. This capability permits individual wavelengths- each carrying data channels- to be added or dropped from a transition without converting each signal to electronic signals and back again to optical ones.

The cool thing with such flexibility is that bandwidth assignments need not all be set in stone when a carrier’s distribution is initially configured. Instead, adjustments can remotely be implemented as the demands on the distribution channels increase and reconfig is needed.

That said, a number of ROADM-dependent solutions are being announced at NXTcomm, including Tellabs 7100 Nano OTS (Optical Transport System) and Fujitsu’s 40 gigabit a second Flashwave 7500 ROADM.

Always a major presence at NXTcomm, Nortel announced its optical portfolio has been enhanced with new features, including an enhanced PDH gateway capability and an integrated Reconfigurable Optical Add-drop Multiplexer (ROADM) into the Optical Multiservice Edge (OME) 6500 convergence platform as well as a new 2.5G global multi-service platform, called the OME 6130.

Geeky pride from Nortel:

ROADM capability will enable faster add or drop and redirection of optical wavelengths, providing the flexibility and service agility required for metropolitan networks. The integrated photonics capabilities leverage innovative technology from the Common Photonic Layer to benefit operators with proven simplified service turn-up and operations efficiency through automated wavelength performance monitoring and optimization. This will enable providers to capitalize on the high-bandwidth services such as video and multimedia.

Well, I guess we are talking roadmap.

June 19th, 2007

FCC Chair outlines view of broadband availability, rights

Posted by Russell Shaw @ 7:16 am

Categories: NXTComm, News, Regulatory

Tags: FCC, Broadband, Net Neutrality, FCC Chair Kevin Martin, Russell Shaw

FCC Chair Kevin Martin is addressing NXTComm now via a satellite hookup.

Priorities he’s mentioned include: 

• Making sure that Uni versal Service fee assessment policies are updated so that people live in rural areas can be connected to broadband. He backed reverse auctions as a way to fast-track this goal.
• Making sure that the FCC is doing all it can to facilitate video competition. 
• On Net Neutrality: Martin stressed it is important that rules are in place which facilitate innovation both in the network and edges of the network.  Martin said that it is important for infrastructure players to be able to recoup some of costs of this investment.
• Martin added, however, that it is important that net neutrality regulations in place ensures customers can access all the broadband out there today, and be able to attach any devices without harming the network.

June 19th, 2007

Cisco's Chambers: collaboration via mobile devices will drive faster business processes

Posted by Russell Shaw @ 6:51 am

Categories: Cisco, General, Mobile, NXTComm, Predictions and Observations, trends

Tags: Business Process, Collaboration, Mobile Device, Cisco, Russell Shaw

John Chambers, CEO of Cisco Systems, is now onstage, keynoting at NXTComm.

Main takeaway: collaboration will speed up enterprise innovation initiatives that had been held back by “command and control” protocols.

Chambers said that a collaboration/teamwork approach, enabled by ubiquitous broadband, acquisitions (such as webex, which was specifically cited by Chambers) and video on any device has sped up “business process change” and collaboration initiative cycles from 45 days for Cisco’s Scientific-Atlanta acquisition in 2005 to eight days for webex.

Channels of enterprise collaboration cited by Chambers include internal wikis, podcasts and mash-ups.

Chambers said that this business process speed increase will be boosted by availability of any information to any device. 

“The most important (thing) is any mode you want. It’s the way you communicate in life,” he added. 

June 19th, 2007

AT&T chief live at conference: we're gearing up for best iPhone experience on Day One

Posted by Russell Shaw @ 6:27 am

Categories: AT&T, Apple, NXTComm, News

Tags: Apple iPhone, AT&T Corp., Russell Shaw

I’m blogging live from NXTComm, the telecom industry trade show being held in Chicago this week.

The morning keynotes have just fired up. First is newly installed (June 3) AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson.

It’s under Stephenson’s watch that AT&T Mobility is teaming up with Apple to launch the iPhone a week from this Friday.

“You may have heard about this,” Stephenson said as a large photo of the iPhone appeared on the screens flanking him on the left and right.

“There are a lot of good reasons for excitement about the iPhone,” Stephenson said. “We believe(the iPhone) is the embodiment of innovation. It is sleek, fun, and is going to be a game changer not only for us but for the (wireless) industry.”

“We are gearing up for this (iPhone launch June 29) big time,” Stephenson added. “We’ve expedited (the changeover of Cingular stores) to AT&T, and are hiring hundreds of new employees, and (upgrading networks) to gear up and provide our best user experiences on day one.”

Stephenson added that around one million enquiries about the iPhone have been received on the AT&T Mobility site, with some 40% coming from non-AT&T subscribers.