Sidecut Reports

Derek Slater has a good-read post on the Google Public Policy blog today, asking “What if you could own your own Internet connection?” The idea, simply, is that homeowners (or business owners, colleges, etc.) could improve their broadband reliability and choice by financing the installation and upkeep of their own “last mile” link to the Internets.

In the case Slater cites as an example, the home-owned fiber connects to a “neutral” co-location center, where any ISP who wants to can interconnect and offer services. Again, none of this is a new idea — we remember Internet co-inventor Bob Kahn voicing a similar opinion a couple years ago — but we’re guessing such plans could gain more traction especially in rural or underserved areas that will be ignored by the fiber rollouts of big telcos and the cablecos. In Kahn’s example the goverment would buy the local loop lines from the incumbents, but that’s a minor tweak from the basic idea, which is to remove the gatekeeping possibilities the current telco- or cable-controlled situation provides.

Since the Kahn link is perhaps unreliable, here’s the money quote from my old blog at Pulvermedia:

Actually, Bob Kahn (winner of the show’s Big Brain award, hands down) trumped the whole panel and maybe the whole event with a query during the open Q&A, about whether or not it makes sense for the government to purchase the local loop infrastructure from the current owners, and then set up some kind of “open central offices,” where anyone could come in, locate servers, offer services, etc. etc.

“Call it a digital extension cord,” Kahn posited. An incredible idea — one that would pre-empt all the RBOC and cable complaints about the cost of building networks. Fine, let’s pay them for their infrastructure, and open it up for business, all open protocols and interconnects.

“If someone wanted a 10 to the Nth megabit service and someone else was willing to provide it, there could be a business,” Kahn said later when I asked him to expound.

If folks are willing to drop 3 large on a swanky cookspace, why not a few more grand for FTME, or Fiber to Me?

Anyone who’s followed broadband policy matters knows that the FCC’s previous attempts to define what broadband is and how much of it is around has pretty much been a joke. Now that the Bush Administration’s promise of broadband everywhere by 2007 is seen as nothing but a hollow promise, politicians are waking up to the fact that it would be a whole lot better if this country had an actual strategic plan for advancing broadband deployment.

But as Karl over at DSL Reports so wonderfully points out, relying on the current incumbents to draft that plan may not be such a good idea. Our friend Drew Clark, who is trying to build a broadband census of his own, also weighs in on the current kerfluffle.

(Hat tip to Stacey H at GigaOM for the link.)

Back in February, we reported how frustrated FCC commish Jonathan Adelstein was at the pace of broadband deployment in the U.S. While we liked his idea of national broadband summits, at the time it seemed like a good idea without much behind it.

Tuesday, Google and a few of its friends got behind the idea in a big way, launching something called Internetforeveryone.org, which is clearly a place for Google and others to promote their ideas for open, more-available Internet to the masses.

Google, which explains the new endeavor on its public policy blog, is continuing its all-in push into public policy by backing the Adelstein/Lessig/Free Press idea. By holding the as yet-unscheduled summits, Google and its partners can also produce dialogue that with any luck won’t be as scripted or stilted as the FCC hearings that pass for the best discourse on public policy and broadband matters.

Since our next report (due out soon) is about network neutrality, we couldn’t agree more that the level of debate on broadband policy needs to be increased. No better time than now.

Maybe I should have added a “fourth problem” to my previous post on GigaOM about the challenges facing Google’s Android open-source mobile OS: The inherent slowness of anything that touches the mobile carrier marketplace, a theory Om spells out in no uncertain terms with his post today about new delays for the launch of Android-based devices.

Since Sprint is mentioned in the WSJ story as one of the carriers asking for more features, it might mean that devices taking advantage of the new Clearwire WiMax network will be delayed as well. Readers of our WiMax report, of course, were already expecting this lag since our analysis of the situation sees the big-scale marketing push for WiMax taking place early in 2009, most likely with kickoffs at the CES show in Vegas.

So are Android slowdowns a minus for WiMax? Maybe, but with multiple delays in other parts of the infrastructure, it seems like Google and Android interfaces should arrive at pretty much the same time as other mobile devices being tailored for the Clearwire WiMax launch. We are hearing noise about a big, big, big marketing campaign fueled by more Intel dollars, so stay tuned for more on Android, WiMax and mobile broadband.

Need to know more about WiMax? Order our recently updated WiMax report, with full analysis of the “new” Clearwire deal and the motivations for investors Comcast, Google, Intel and others.

Well, we said it was Game On, WiMax, and now we know the when: According to Sprint/Clearwire WiMax guru Barry West, the “new” Clearwire network will officially launch this September in Baltimore, followed by Chicago and Washington D.C. in the fourth quarter.

As I told a reporter here at the NXTcomm show, nothing beats proof of concept and the sooner the better for the New Clearwire as its battle against the still-under-development technology LTE gets underway. More thoughts on WiMax when we get back from Viva Las Vegas and the resurgent NXTcomm show, which by all show-floor accounts was much more vibrant than last year’s event in Chicago.

Was it really two years ago that I asked why couldn’t Google build a Desktop Bandwidth detector? In a post from my old blog on the Pulvermedia network, I wrote:

One idea I kicked around a bit at this past weekend’s Vloggercon (in no small agreement with fellow blogger Matt Sherman, who is about 179 degrees away from me on most net neutrality matters) was the idea of Google (or Microsoft, anyone with buckets of folding money and a desire to get into online apps) buying or building an online application that would show anyone who wants to use it exactly what’s happening to their packets as they course to and fro.

Sure, that’s a simplistic view but it’s the consumer version of what all the self-proclaimed net wizards are talking about when they tell you how to “ping” a server. Why not use some of that Google cash, some of the otherwise wasted programming talent chasing Web 2.0 dreams (how many social network/hookup/map mashups do we need, anyway?) and build something we’d all like to see — a desktop dashboard that could flash red when an ISP tries to block or degrade service, or starts narrowing the pipe for Skype?

And now, apparently, that’s just what Google plans to do, according to their top policy exec Rick Whitt, in a report from Hot Hardware:

“We’re trying to develop tools, software tools…that allow people to detect what’s happening with their broadband connections, so they can let [ISPs] know that they’re not happy with what they’re getting — that they think certain services are being tampered with,” Google senior policy director Richard Whitt said this morning during a panel discussion at Santa Clara University.

Maybe I should have trademarked the idea? From my old post:

I’ve seen all the flashy demos from the equipment providers who are mining enterprise dollars in this territory, so I know it’s possible. Maybe not easy, but one little app — call it the Google Desktop Bandwidth Detector ™ — could go a long way to keeping Big Ed and his pipes honest and open.

Stay tuned for our upcoming Sidecut Report on Network Neutrality, featuring in-depth interviews with Google’s Whitt and a host of other execs on the policy and technology front lines. In the meantime, you can order our WiMax report on the state of WiMax deployment in the U.S., with the first analysis of the “new” Clearwire deal.

Is networking hardware giant Cisco ready to throw its hat a bit deeper into the U.S. WiMax market ring? Looks that way from the press conference invite that just landed in our in-box, inviting us to a webcast on Monday, June 9, that will discuss “a new initiative by industry leaders in mobility to stimulate more innovation and new entrants into the WiMAX ecosystem.” The roster of attendees includes Cisco, Clearwire, Alcatel-Lucent, Intel, Samsung and Sprint.

While Cisco and Alcatel-Lucent already have existing WiMax businesses — Cisco bought gear supplier startup Navini last fall, and AlcaLu is behind some smaller operations in the U.S. — both were significantly absent from any previous association with the old Clearwire, the old Sprint Xohm plan, or the new Clearwire WiMax announcements. Cisco CEO John Chambers has previously said that Navini was purchased with overseas customers in mind, but that may be changing due to the new ambitious plans of the new Clearwire and its deep-pocket investors Google and Comcast. Intel and Samsung are already neck-deep in Clearwire partnering, with Intel supplying $1.62 billion in investment cash and Samsung building network infrastructure along the East Coast.

Our best guess is that this new group is forming to do some sort of clearinghouse or testing/certification for Mobile WiMax back-end gear and devices, the kind of activity that is necessary to “stimulate innovation and new entrants” by making it easier to assure customers that it will all work together. More as we learn more!

The Wall Street Journal is confidently predicting that a consortium of tech companies including Google, Comcast and Intel will contribute $3.2 billion in seed money to back a WiMax consortium that will combine the WiMax assets of Sprint and Clearwire. This long-rumored investment makes sense from multiple angles, and was the core feature of our recent report, titled “Xohm Or Go Home: Why 2008 Is WiMax’s Breakout Year in the U.S. — Or Else!”

While the entity will apparently take Clearwire’s name (thankfully shedding Sprint’s awful “Xohm” moniker), it will make use of Sprint and Clearwire’s large holdings of 2.5 GHz spectrum to deliver fast broadband to a wide market. The lure for the investors, as we said in the report, is clear:

The potential upside of a large WiMax-based network is theoretically huge, especially if the key rumored partners of Comcast and Time Warner, or Google and Best Buy sign up to help with seed money, technology and marketing. While the need and desire for more forms of broadband access is already marketable today, the promise of true mobile broadband — a combination of Wi-Fi-type speeds and cellular-style reach — could open up markets for devices and applications that are only starting to arrive in forms like Apple’s popular iPhone.

Why would cable companies and Google want to invest in a wireless network? Over at GigaOM my pal Om thinks they are dealing from a position of fear. But they could also be looking for new ways to expand that put them out of the reach of FCC chairman Kevin Martin, no friend of the cablecos. Again, from our report, some more thinking:

For Comcast and Time Warner, a Xohm investment could be a positive in several ways — on one hand, it could give the cable providers a true “quadruple play,” with the ability to add wireless access to their current “triple play” offerings of voice, video and data. And since cable companies are currently restricted by law from growing too big (regulations say no provider can have more than 30 percent of the overall U.S. market), a WiMax investment in a standalone provider could be another way to gain indirect market share.

Our quick take is that this is a deal that makes too much sense not to happen, even with the big numbers and uncertain future ahead. Winners and losers that we see include:

Winners
Clearwire – Craig McCaw plays another winning spectrum hand into a cash-out deal, while the folks at the company now have the capital and marketing might to see if this thing really can work.
Intel – By “doubling down” its own investment, the chip giant has brought a bunch of deep-pocketed friends to the table to help advance its WiMax plan.
Motorola — Partnering with Intel and Clearwire early on now assures Moto of a steady stream of WiMax infrastructure sales.
Samsung — At the very least, Samsung is now assured that its POs for all that WiMax gear being put into place in New York and Boston will be paid for.
Comcast – Brian Roberts puts his money and deal-making sense in the same place to help build another tool to attack the phone companies with.

Losers
AT&T and Verizon — If $3.2 billion is all it took, why couldn’t the telcos have bought out Clearwire and Sprint? We should start running a tab right now on the advertising, lobbying and other persuasional spending that the telcos will burn trying to convince the public, the FCC and Congress that WiMax is bunk and everyone should wait for LTE.
Sprint – You can say that caving in got them some money for their grand WiMax plan, but there is a hint of desperation in the air surrounding the surrender of the Xohm name to Clearwire.

Stay tuned to this channel for more news and analysis as details of the deal flow out (according to the Journal announcements are expected as soon as Wednesday morning). To wrap it up, we’ll offer the final conclusion from our report:

If WiMax delivers on service providers’ plans of being cheap, easy and pervasive, then there are big opportunities today for venture investors, businesses, application and device developers, as well as infrastructure and service-provider players, who still have time to get in ahead of the mass-market adoption part of the curve. How high up that curve will go is something for history to record. But any look back is likely to signal 2008 as the year WiMax started its climb in earnest.

UPDATE: Interesting reading from Google, with an official company blog post that seems to answer at least the basic questions about whether the new Clearwire network will be open and neutral.

While the continuing explorations by Dan and Om about potential backhaul hurdles for 4G wireless are required reading, I wonder if the lack of available front-end spectrum — that is, the spectrum used to deliver services to end-users — is going to be a bigger concern going forward, especially for those providers planning to use the recently auctioned 700 MHz spectrum.

One slide that stuck with me during my research for our recently released Sidecut Report on WiMax is one from Clearwire, copied below, that shows the relative spectrum width available for current 3G networks, 700 MHz networks, and WiMax networks, which right now in the U.S. is mainly the spectrum at 2.5 GHz (where Sprint and Clearwire have most of the licenses).

The question raised here seems to be whether or not the planned 700 MHz deployments will be able to scale to handle multiple numbers of users, and how much bandwidth each user will get. With 3G nets already running into capacity problems, the answer may not be as large as the pre-delivery hype may suggest.

For more information on WiMax, please purchase our inaugural Sidecut Report, titled Xohm Or Go Home: Why 2008 Is WiMax’s Breakout Year in the U.S. — Or Else! You can buy the report via direct download by clicking on the blue box to the right.

It doesn’t count as a full review, but I did take the Nokia WiMax tablet out for a short test drive on the CTIA show floor Tuesday — and I can attest that the thing does work, the screen looks nice, and if your thumbs are fat like mine you might not like the keyboard, since it is set a bit close to the bottom of the screen.

Still no word from the Sprint folks on when the Xohm WiMax network will go live, or what pricing plans would be. (Barry West, the company’s WiMax tech lead, said “don’t even ask that question” at a press reception Tuesday evening.)

But Hey, Look! Sidecut Reports via WiMax to the Nokia Handset!