Life on the Broadband Internet
The role of technology and policy in transforming online culture – chronicled by David Ellis
Digital divides: UBB as part of a much bigger broadband mess
84 days
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The blogosphere has been abuzz recently over the FCC’s bold, brave outreach initiative, Connect to Compete. Not in Canada, you say? I do say, since there are four good 
reasons why Canadians haven’t got a snowball’s hope in hell of seeing a program of this nature until at least 2015:
1) Leadership. The FCC has been making headway with a real broadband strategy over the last 18 months, along with a set of network neutrality rules, because the vision comes from the top – the White House. Harper and his cabinet have never cared about world-class retail broadband, because that would put them on the wrong side of the consumer vs business divide.
2) Social policy. The most laudable thing about the FCC’s action is the agency’s deep conviction that the digital divide is a social issue requiring vigorous demand-side policies. C2C is a people policy, not a wires-and-boxes policy based on the kind of supply-side thinking that has led our nation to the bottom of the broadband barrel, if I may mix my containers. (more…)
Get yer grimy paws off my Netflix, again (the dance mix)
89 days
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Last week the Wire Report ran a story by Nick Kyonka headlined “CRTC vertical integration rules encourage OTTs to buy sports rights: Gourd.” No prizes for guessing where the chair of the Online Broadcasting Working Group (OBWG) was headed with that worrisome observation:
The CRTC’s new regulatory framework governing vertically integrated companies may have given too much of an advantage to online content providers such as Netflix Inc., Google Inc., [and] Apple Inc.
As I explained in a pair of posts last July (“Get yer grimy paws off my Netflix”), the OTT cabal has shown they will stop at nothing to persuade the CRTC and political friendlies that new, innovative online competitors must be stomped out. They’re bad for the broadcasting system, bad for Canadian culture, bad for Canadian citizens. The group’s claims would be laughable if they weren’t part of a deadly serious attempt to win concessions. To say nothing of the fact they’re doing all this with the publicly acknowledged support of the CRTC. This time, however, the OBWG is trying to put the public interest in double jeopardy.
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One more Pew question: Apps vs Web – the winner? (4)
100 days
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IV. Apps vs Web: Winner?
[option #1 - my pick] — In 2020, most people will prefer to use specific applications (apps) accessible by Internet connection to accomplish most online work, play, communication, and content creation. The ease of use and perceived security and quality-assurance characteristics of apps will be seen as superior when compared with the open Web. Most industry innovation and activity will be devoted to apps development and updates, and use of apps will occupy the majority of technology-users’ time. There will be a widespread belief that the World Wide Web is less important and useful than in the past and apps are the dominant factor in people’s lives.
[option #2] — In 2020, the World Wide Web is stronger than ever in users’ lives. The open Web 
continues to thrive and grow as a vibrant place where most people do most of their work, play, communication, and content creation. Apps accessed through iPads, Kindles, Nooks, smartphones, Droid devices, and their progeny – the online tools GigaOM referred to as “the anti-Internet” – will be useful as specialized options for a finite number of information and entertainment functions. There will be a widespread belief that, compared to apps, the Web is more important and useful and is the dominant factor in people’s lives.
More from the Pew Internet survey: the future of money (3)
100 days
by David Ellis
in Pew
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(Please see the 2 previous posts in this series for the setup: multitasking teens + higher ed.)
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III. The future of money: What IS your “wallet”?
[option #1 - my pick] By 2020, most people will have embraced and fully adopted the use of smart-device swiping for purchases they make, nearly eliminating the need for cash or credit cards. People will come to trust and rely on personal hardware and software for handling monetary transactions over the Internet and in stores. Cash and credit cards will have mostly disappeared from many of the transactions that occur in advanced countries. People will not trust the use of near-field communications devices and there will not be major conversion of money to an all-digital-all-the-time format.
[option #2] By 2020, payments through the use of mobile devices will not have gained a lot of traction as a method for transactions. The security implications raise too many concerns among consumers about the safety of their money. And people are resistant to letting technology companies learn even more about their personal purchasing habits. Cash and credit cards will still be the dominant method of carrying out transactions in advanced countries. (more…)
WoW! CRTC moves Rogers P2P/gaming file to Enforcement (5)
101 days
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UPDATE. I noted below – citing a report by Multichannel News on the latest Sandvine traffic data – that streaming 
video is now the primary driver of network capacity requirements, a reflection of the gradual decline of P2P traffic relative to overall consumer traffic on the Internet. The Sandvine study, the company’s Global Internet Phenomena Report for fall 2011, contains fascinating revelations about just how quickly Internet traffic patterns are changing (pdf here). Two points. First, from a business perspective, the emerging problem for ISPs isn’t congestion of the old-fashioned kind, the one which formed the basis for the CRTC’s ITMP framework. Second, from a technical perspective, traffic flows present new challenges for network engineering in the local access cloud.
Take a look at these big-picture numbers from Sandvine (pdf, p.2):
The four largest Internet services on North America’s fixed access networks, by daily downstream volume, are:
• Netflix – 27.6%
• HTTP – 17.8%
• YouTube – 10.0%
• BitTorrent – 9.0%
Although BitTorrent traffic as identified here would not account for all P2P transmissions, the lead now established by Netflix is still jaw-dropping. And jaw-dropping by comparison with Web traffic (which seems likely to be eclipsed more and more by the use of apps and other highly specialized platforms, as I discuss briefly in the previous post). Then things get curiouser… (more…)
Netflix showing way too much love – for your Facebook data
112 days
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Photo Brian Solis – www.briansolis.com
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Has Reed Hastings sold us out to Mark Zuckerberg?
I never thought I’d join this crowd of complainers.
In June I wrote 2 blog posts entitled Get yer grimy paws off my Netflix: Ottawa’s big OTT scam. If you didn’t stampede to read them, that might be because they ran a total of 6,400 words. The posts were part love-in. I’ve been a big fan of Netflix since they launched here – for the interface, the support team, the way they handle bandwidth fluctuations (helpfully), and, of course, because of folk hero and CEO, Reed Hastings.
As widely reported since August, our hero has made a number of surprising missteps – starting with the price hike for the combo DVD/streaming pack in the US, and, more to the point, the silly idea of Qwikster as a completely separate DVD service, plus the silly way it was announced. The market hammered them for their sins, pushing their share price down from just under $300 in August to $116 as of last Friday’s market close (Bloomberg).
I thought all the cancelled subscriptions, howls of protest and marketplace beatings were, forgive me for putting it this way, a little over the top. That’s easy to say if you’re Canadian, of course, since Netflix is streaming-only up here – no abrupt DVD service changes to bitch about. But then it was Friday night, I went looking for movies and this unsolicited grab for my attention popped up on the monitor:
David, get the most out of Netflix!
<Click to CONNECT>
- See what your Facebook friends are doing on Netflix.
– Automatically share all your Netflix activity with your Facebook friends, including what you’ve watched.
– Try it—you can disconnect at any time. (more…)
More Pew Internet futures: whither higher ed in 2020?
115 days
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Question 2 from the 2011 Internet experts survey
In my previous post, I explained how Pew Internet and its partner Elon University run their global survey of Internet stakeholders (aka experts), on where the Internet is likely to be by 2020. I also provided some links to their resource pages. The survey is now in its 5th edition. Some 800 or 900 participants respond to questions framed in “tension pairs” – opposite points of view on issues currently getting a lot of notice from, well, Internet experts. (Btw, last year that group included the likes of Clay Shirky, Doc Searls, David Clark, Susan Crawford, Howard Rheingold, Craig Newmark and Esther Dyson.) Everyone is then asked to dig up an opinion or two and elaborate. (more…)
The Internet in 2020: the Pew-Elon experts survey, edition V
118 days
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The folks at Pew Internet (aka the Pew Internet & American Life Project) produce terrific research on what Americans do online. They have a visitor-friendly website teeming with information about Teens, Broadband, Health, Social Networking, Mobile, Technology User Types and the Digital Divide – and those are just the popular topics. Their work is a boon to my students, who have no source anything like Pew for Canadian data (with the partial exception of Statistics Canada and its Canadian Internet Users Survey, which is still very limited in its scope). (more…)
