A Little Bit of a Blog and Podcasting Sabbatical

We have a major proposal going in to the National Science Foundation and it is time to dig in and put the finishing touches on it. The proposal is due on October 11 so I will be taking a little break here.
I want to thank all of you that read my blog and I look forward to lots of posting after the 11th.
Appreciated - Gordon

Broadband Gaming in the Sticks

I'd like to thank Karl Kapp for including my blog in his Blog Book Tour for Gadgets, Games and Gizmos for Learning.

Karl's book takes a look at members of the "just starting to retire" baby boomer generation - highly skilled individuals who will be taking with them all of their expertise. Simultaneously, a new generation of employee (dubbed by Karl and others as "gamers") is entering the workforce with a different focus and learning style. For the first time, our workplace will experience the invasive influence of video games, Internet surfing, blogging, and podcasting. Karl's personal website is linked here, the book website is linked here and you can purchase his excellent book by following this link to Amazon.

In my blog today I take a look at broadband access and availability - critical for gamers and many of the applications Karl discusses in his book. My post is a little different than most that have been posted on the blog tour - I hope it makes sense and you can make the connections to gaming, gamers and Karl's book.

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One of my passions is what I refer to as the "broadband divide" - basically the broadband "haves" and "have-nots" in the United States. In today's blog I focus on availability in some of the rural parts of my state - the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Broadband availability and affordability are critical as our online efforts in education (including gaming) move forward - whether it's bandwidth on our campuses or in our student's homes. Residential access is especially important for community colleges since most do not have dorms - students are commuting back and forth from their homes.

Let's get into some of the things going on in my state - I think you may find similar scenarios wherever you live.

When most people think of Massachusetts the first thing they think of is probably Boston and second maybe the Red Sox or New England Patriots. If you've been to Boston and the surrounding area you know, like any big city and its suburbs, it's relatively congested. The fact that it is congested is good in some ways - typically it's great for things like broadband roll out. Houses are close together with short consistent length driveways. Many of the neighborhoods are older and there are still poles carrying power telephone and cable services. It's relatively easy for providers like Verizon to come into a neighborhood and run a piece of aerial fiber down a street and then add relatively short and consistent length drops to homes on the street. As a result, people in these kinds of neighborhoods (including school kids) have lots of bandwidth available for information, education and entertainment.

Those in the more rural parts of Massachusetts (and many other areas in our country) are not so fortunate when it comes to broadband availability. Today, there are 32 towns in rural parts of Massachusetts that have no high-speed Internet, or broadband, access whatsoever. An additional 63 are under-served, with broadband access available in only some areas of the community. Many of these rural town are parts of regional school districts which can present significant problems for students living in these towns. I'll use the beautiful town of Blandford, MA as an example. Blandford is part of a regional school district that services seven towns. Blandford does not have broadband availability (no cable modem or DSL) while others do (although coverage in some of these towns is not complete). Students living in Blandford are at a "broadband disadvantage" when compared to other students that do have access.

In a podcast interview late last month, Stan McGee, Massachusetts Assistant Secretary for Policy and Planning for the Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development and also Director of Wireless and Broadband Development (try to get all of that on a business card!) talks with Sharon Gillett, Commissioner of Telecommunications and Cable for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The two discuss Governor Deval Patrick’s recently announced broadband initiative.that will invest up to $25 million over five years, and will seek to make broadband available in all under-served towns in Massachusetts by 2010 and "improve conditions" in many of the under-served communities. Here's a few quotes from the show-notes:

The main elements of the plan include creating a Massachusetts Broadband Incentive Fund. And the fund will be capitalized by the issuance of a $25 million broadband bond. The fund is proposed to be managed by the Massachusetts Broadband Institute, a division to be created within the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative. Once this management entity is in place, we believe public-private partnership developed here can be extended to under-served regions of the Commonwealth to ensure ongoing broadband equity.

The Commonwealth’s approach will be to invest public funds into essential and long-lived broadband infrastructure assets. These include things like fibers, conduits, or towers for wireless broadband services. By investing in these assets, the Commonwealth will lower the overall cost of deployment for private providers.

Public-private initiatives have worked in some situations and failed in others - several Municipal WiFi projects come to mind off the top of my head. There have also been some successful wireless initiatives in rural areas including an AT&T implementation in Alaska I blogged about recently.

The Massachusetts initiative is referred to as "ambitious" and I'll add challenging but it is something we must do. Here's one of my favorite quotes from the podcast:

We believe that any individual or community without high-speed Internet access today is educationally and economically disadvantaged, and Governor Patrick tasked us early on to prepare a plan that would bridge the digital divide that faces all too many communities across the Commonwealth.

It's great to hear this kind of spirit and ambition and I hope it does not get bogged down in state politics. I do have concerns that $25 million may not be enough to push this to critical mass in Massachusetts. It's a start though - I look forward to the day when all of my students and their families have available and affordable broadband access in their homes.

Verizon Commits to All IP Network in Three Years

Light Reading has an interesting post titled At Age 2, Verizon FiOS Evolves. In the piece Terry Denson, Verizon Vice President of FiOS TV Content Strategy and Acquisition, says the carrier's mission isn't to have exclusive content, but a better network. The piece goes on to describe how the FIOS network will be converted to all IP over the next three years.

Today technically there is not much difference in the way the Cable companies and Verizon's FiOS deliver broadcast video to their customers but that will change as the provider networks (both Telco and Cable) migrate to all IP networks. Here's a quote from the Light Reading piece:

Cable companies and services like Verizon's FiOS send broadcast video to customers, but IPTV, in contrast, runs on a request-and-send architecture. The provider does not have to send 50 Mbit/s of bandwidth to a customer's home if his computer and TVs are off. The old cable architecture, however, is constantly feeding the home whether the consumer is there to use it or not.

IPTV works differently - it runs on a request-and-send delivery system. The consumer requests a channel and the provider delivers it. Denson is quoted in the piece as follows:

"IPTV identifies what is that one piece of content that would compel someone to switch or stay."

"If both cable and us (Verizon) have the World Cup, well then that's not going to be it. It could be Indian cricket or education. The scarcity of some content is an opportunity for us. Take the Food Network for example. Everyone knows it, but not many people watch it. But for some, it’s a key selling point."

What's driving this change? Technology and bandwidth economy of course but sometimes us technical people forget about marketing and advertising. Delivering channels using IP allows an almost infinite number of content possibilities.

Let's use an example to expand the marketing concept. I enjoy saltwater fly fishing, especially for striped bass on Cape Cod and also for snook in Florida. I'm also not a big golfer - nothing personal - I've tried and am just not very good at it! So what right? Here's another quote from Light Reading:

IPTV allows providers to know what its customers are watching. That's scary, to be sure. But it does mean that there will be no excuse for not having the most compelling content on offer -- since, after all, they "know" you.

So, based on what I watch, the provider could eventually assume that I'm not a golfer (because I don't watch golf) but I do like saltwater (not freshwater) fly fishing (not spin casting) for striped bass (not bluefish) on Cape Cod (not Long Island) and snook (not redfish) in the Clearwater, Florida (not Miami) area!

IPTV will allow providers to learn and react to what I watch by providing the kind of content I like and also react by - you got it - sending me targeted ads.

Virtual Credit Cards in Second Life

If you are a Second Life (SL) Resident buying virtual things you may have another option. Most Residents currently obtain SL currency by using their Real Life (RL) credit cards to purchase Linden Dollars, the Second Life Currency but now there's another "plastic" option.

Singapore company First Meta recently launched the MetaCard that members can use in SL to make purchases in Linden Dollars. A standard MetaCard gets you a L$5,000 (read that as 50 thousand Linden dollars) monthly limit which is around $19 U.S. If you are a big spender you can also get a Gold MetaCard with a L$10,000 monthly limit. Both cards carry a L$300 monthly fee that is waived if you spend L$500 that month. The Gold card carries a standard daily percentage yield (DPY) of 0.09% and the standard card has a DPY of 0.06%. There is also a corporate card.

The September 24, 2007 edition of Business Week reported that only about 100 SL members are currently using the cards and there are approximately 140 SL merchants currently accepting them. According to Second Life insider:

It requires signing up with your RL name as well as your SL name, and for the corporate credit card a link to your RL credit card ..... Merchants will pay a fee for their credit card transactions too, just like RL credit cards.

We'll see if this concept takes off!

Book Bags and the Sony Reader

I've been meaning to weigh my daughters book bags for a while now. I've got a 16 year old in 11th grade and a 12 year old in 7th grade and each lug a stuffed bag back and forth every day to school. Here's the weigh-in results:

11th grader

Book Bag Weight = 28 lbs
Her Weight = 105 lbs
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Book Bag to Weight Ratio (BBWR) = (28 lbs)/(105 lbs) = .267

7th Grader

Book Bag Weight = 24 lbs
Her Weight = 75 lbs
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Book Bag to Weight Ratio (BBWR) = (24 lbs)/(75 lbs) = .32

So my oldest is lugging a little over one-quarter of her weight around in her book bag and my youngest is lugging almost one-third of her weight!
In addition they are each commonly carrying one or two other books that won't fit in their bags, adding another 5-10 pounds along with a 5-6 pound violin..... imagine if they each played the tuba........

I'm not sure how you feel about this but to me it is unacceptable. We've tried talking each into roller bags but they are not very popular these days in the middle and high schools..... So - what can we do? Get our kids memberships to a local gym in the summer so they can build up their muscles for the school year? Perhaps chiropractor gift certificates for the holidays?

Sony has a better solution that I'm hoping catches on in the academic community. The Sony Reader is one-half inch thick e-book reader that weighs around 8 ounces. It holds about 80 books worth of content and has a rechargeable battery that lasts approximately 7,500 page turns. It has 64MB of internal memory and an additional memory card slot. The screen is very pleasant on the eyes, using a technology called e Ink® from E Ink Corporation. E Ink uses micro-capsules instead of the glowing LCD cells on computer screens that appear as black or white depending on the charge associated with page content. According to Sony:

"The result is a reading experience that’s similar to paper - high contrast, high resolution, viewable in direct sunlight and at a nearly 180-degree angle, and requiring no power to maintain the image."

It also displays Microsoft Word and PDF documents, blogs, newsfeeds, and JPEGs (just black and white) and plays unsecured MP3 and AAC audio files (like Mike Q and my podcasts !) through an external audio jack.

Here's an interesting video from NY1 News on the Sony Reader.


I've spent some time in the Sony Style Store playing with one and an impressed with the contrast - it has a nice text-on-paper feel that I don't get with other readers that use standard computer screens. It's small when compared to academic textbooks at 6.9” by 4.9” with a 6" screen and would probably not work well for textbooks with lots of illustrations - think biology or physics.

In it's current form factor, I think it would have limited use in the classroom but I'd love to give it a try. Sony appears to be directing marketing towards travelers at this time - I've seen a few ads in airports and airline magazines recently. Right now the cost is $279.99 and comes with 100 book's Classics titles.

In addition to Sony, there have been rumors Amazon has their own e-book reader in the works, the result of the purchase of mobipocket.com a couple of years ago.

I'd love to see these kinds of products directed towards the academic market so my kids could both lower their BBWR!

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Read Show Notes and listen to Mike Q and my latest Podcast titled Micro-blogging linked here.
Podcasts also free on iTunes.
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AT&T Looking to Close Broadband Divide with WiMax

I've written in the past and Mike Q and I have podcasted about rural areas and how the lack of broadband availability (Cable modem or DSL) can handicap residents including students. WiMax is one of the more promising technologies that can help solve this problem and it looks like AT&T is moving in this direction. The company launched a trial with their Alascom subsidiary in Juneau, Alaska where customers can purchase WiMax service starting at $19.95 a month. Alascom is using Alvarion IEEE 802.16e-based WiMAX equipment to provide speeds up to 1Mbps symmetrical. According to an Alascom press release:

"AT&T Alascom is fully committed to deliver the benefits of broadband Internet service as widely as possible," said Mike Felix, president of AT&T Alascom. "Our deployment of WiMAX-based high speed Internet service in Juneau is the result of years of research into new-generation broadband technologies that are well-suited for deployment in challenging environments such as Alaska. Today, those efforts enable us to deliver a compelling new broadband choice for thousands of Alaskans, including many who have previously not had access to high speed Internet service."

The press release concludes:

"Outside Alaska, AT&T will evaluate opportunities to deploy fixed wireless technologies in other areas of the country based on customer needs and the results of its existing deployments."

DSL Reports Monday quoted anonymous sources saying the company will likely be rolling this out in some areas in the lower 48 - specifically the south:

"AT&T's limited spectrum holdings could make it hard for the operator to take on serious deployment outside of the South"

"Spectrum will also be an issue for AT&T if it wants to deploy outside the South. The 22 2.3 Ghz licenses that it holds come from the BellSouth merger and only cover some of the Southern markets that operator provided service in. AT&T sold off its remaining 2.5 Ghz licenses to Clearwire LLC earlier this year."

I've written about the Sprint/Clearwire WiMax initiative which is directed towards mobile devices (hand held computers, phones, PDAs, etc). This AT&T project appears to be directed as a residential and business broadband alternative - exactly the kind of technology we need to start closing the broadband divide in the U.S.

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Read Show Notes and listen to Mike Q and my latest Podcast titled Micro-blogging linked here.
Podcasts also free on iTunes.
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New England Patriots Jamming Wireless Frequencies?

Born and raised here I'm pretty much a die-hard New England sports team fan - Red Sox, Celtics, Bruins and Patriots. I've read the reports and listed to the commentary on national TV and a lot of the local radio stations. I found it a little hard to believe the Patriots would break a rule the way they did but it sounds like they did. If you haven't heard the news - here's how I understand it.

Apparently the Patriots had a camera guy taping the defensive coaches as they sent signals out to the team on the field. After each signal recording the guy would pan the camera up to the scoreboard to show the down and yardage. From what I've read the team could then take this after the game and synch up the signals with the down and yardage information. This would potentially allow the Patriots to determining which plays the Jets would run in different situations the next time they play each other.

I'm not sure how much sense this makes - the two teams don't play again until December 16. You would think by then the Jets will have changed their signals in fear of someone over the course of the season figuring out their signals. It only makes sense to mix things up.

Last night, while watching NBC’s Football Night in America before the Patriots played the Chargers I watched the Bob Costas interview with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. Goodell had some interesting quotes for Costas - here's a couple taken from a New York Times piece:

“I’ve notified the Patriots that if there’s information that I’ve not been made aware of, or if it’s inconsistent with what I’ve been told, I will revisit” the decision, he told Bob Costas on NBC’s “Football Night in America,” which preceded last night’s San Diego-New England game."

"He said the league was monitoring all the radio frequencies assigned to teams to determine if they were being used properly. NBC showed a crew of frequency coordinators working behind the Patriots’ desk last night."

Why are they monitoring frequencies? Here's more from the Times article:

"Earlier in the day, “Fox N.F.L. Sunday,” which showed a copy of the Patriots’ video that the league confiscated, and CBS’s “The N.F.L. Today” reported that the league may investigate the Patriots’ use of audio receivers to interfere with the Jets’ quarterback-to-coach communications."

"NBC reported that the Patriots might have wired linemen to pick up the Jets’ offensive audibles."

Quarterbacks have been wearing headsets for a while now and I've always wondered if any teams had tried to jam or tap other teams wireless communications. Jamming comes to mind every time I hear a referee try to make a call when his transmitter does not work.

I'm not sure how frequencies are allocated during games but they must be secret. I'm also assuming any communications would be encrypted so listening in could be difficult. It would not be too hard to jam though if you think about it. You are given your frequency and just jam all of the others in the frequency range being used. When it comes to a referee making a call the jammer could temporarily turn the jamming transmitter off.

Looking back on a prior game it would be difficult to prove any kind of jamming of frequencies after the fact unless someone squealed. However, you can bet the NFL will be doing extensive real-time frequency monitoring (and recording) from this point forward.

I'm still a Patriots fan.

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Read Show Notes and listen to Mike Q and my latest Podcast titled Micro-blogging linked here.
Podcasts also free on iTunes.
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