The Article in Mobility Techzone was about the use of Opticals for Ethernet in support of backhaul. It also mentions the TV Incentive Virtual Event we ran with TMC.

These were the articles of the week.

The problem now is that I have about 8 blogs to keep active as well as obligations to write 10 articles a month and then there are those damn tweets and posts.  What are they suppose to be about.

Worse the articles and blogs are suppose to be easily compartmentalized.  HTML5, Mobility, M2M, Small Business, etc.  However, I am eclectic and as Richard Bach said to his wife,  ”It’s all One”

Take the interviews I am working on right now for M2M, with Jerry Coumo and Gari Singh of IBM.  We hit mobility, Instant Messaging and JavaScript.  And that was just in an hour discussion.  I am working on breaking it up for easy reading but its like that.

In this SEO world, I am suppose to find the metatag subject and make Google and Bing happy with the content so it bubbles up to the reader’s interest.

But as Gari Singh said in the interview, its a Pub/Sub world.  So my strategy now is to be prolific and hopefully the sub side will dominate the pub side.

Anyway, if you are still reading this after me pushing out most of my blogs on other sites.  thank you.  I intend to write here daily on what I am doing everywhere else.

It’s new year’s the mayans were wrong, and absent a stray meteor, it should be a good year.

G-d bless us all, everyone.

The value of the spectrum can be enhanced by the way the broadcast industry partners work together.

This spectrum shift requires planning.  To help we are gathering industry experts for a virtual event that will be streamed on October 19^th 2012 and will be available in archive as this event.

http://www.tmcnet.com/webinar/crossfire/incentive-auctions.htm

The discussion will focus on challenges facing the television broadcasters as they decide whether to participate in the auction and how to calibrate their bids for optimal results. Participants will discuss the requirements in the Spectrum Act, the FCC’s recent Notice of Rulemaking Proposal (NPRM) as well as unresolved legal issues. Other panels will include a discussion of valuation and policy issues facing broadcasters.

As a virtual event there is a charge of $150 to attend, however government employees (this means you Congressional staff, FCC, NTIA etc.) should email me carl@crossfiremedia.com for free or per diem rates as needed.  3 hours of CLE credit are also available.

AGENDA

8:45 AM – 9:00 AM Introduction – Opening Remarks:

• Harold Furchtgott-Roth, Former FCC Commissioner (Opening Remarks)
• Barlow Keener, Keener Law Group (Introduction)

9:00 AM – 10:00 AM       Legal Perspective:

The Rules of the Auction Process

The opening panel will provide an overview of critical elements of the broadcast incentive auction as well as unsettled issues in the FCC’s recent NPRM. It will compare the upcoming reverse incentive auction with prior FCC auction processes. The panel will also discuss legal appeal process for the reverse incentive auction and potential pitfalls auction participants should consider.

• Rebecca Hanson            FCC
• John Hane                       Pillsbury Law
• Brian Madden                  Lerman Senter
• Marty Stern                      K&L Gates
  Moderator

10:00 AM -11:00 AM       Valuation:
Valuing The Reverse Auction Assets and Related Business Issues

The second panel will build on the legal explanation of the first panel. It will consider how the auction process and other factors will impact auction valuations and broadcasters decisions to participate. Panel topics will include general auction valuation expectations, variations in spectrum value by type of broadcaster and geography, and valuation considerations for broadcasters to consider when participating in the auction.

• Coleman Bazelon            Brattle Group
• Mark Fratrik                     BIA / Kelsey
• Major Investment Bank   (Invited)
• J. Armand Musey            Summit Ridge Group

Moderator

11:00 AM – 12:00 PM     Policy Perspective:

Important Social, Political and Economic Policy Implications

Our final panel will step beyond strict legal and economic considerations and evaluate the FCC’s goals versus those of the television broadcast industry. The panel will discuss issues including implications for news access in rural areas, implications for other FCC license holders, and other policy concerns.

• Preston Marshall             Univ. of S. California
• Fred Campbell                 CLIP
• Trey Hanbury                  Hogan Lovells
• Barlow Keener                 Keener Law Group
  Moderator

As you can see, we have gathered leading experts in the legal, financial and policy files to discuss the implications of the FCC’s upcoming television broadcast incentive auction on the television broadcasting industry.

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Now I have to get us focused on improving the initiatives particularly in Congress.

Here is some homework for everyone.  Here is Al Franken’s website.  I can make a case that it is “Good Enough”, but I think you should have the ability to comment on every issue to your Senators and Congressman.

Now look at Congressman Scott Garrett’s website and tell me if you think you are getting to tell him what’s on y0ur mind.

For my issues, the Net, Telecom, etc. even the best is pretty bad.

I think we need a better egov strategy for people to express themselves.

What do you think?

Stay connect and get up to speed by reading the book.

But rather than be stuck trying to choose do I want to track Smart Grid more than Green Initiatives I have decided my solution is in multiple email accounts.

I would rather have a curation tool, but alas that is not in the cards right now.

However, at the end of the day I am still not sure this makes sense.   We will include this in our discussion on Apple Tel to be held on August 16^th.   Join us by clicking here to register

To Review here are the market caps that matter

I dont find the tablet particularly as strong as everyone else does.  As a matter of fact.  I find it less and less intriguing for business work.  While most of meetings were innudated with iPads a year ago the PC has come back strong.

I believe companies are lemming like when it comes to decisions.  Google made GoogleTalk and Froogle at the sametime which made ebay knee jerk to buy Skype.  I can make a case that Microsoft made the Skype acquisition just to get it out of proximity to Avaya which could have really used it.  But like other Venture funds Silver Lakes goal was maximize revenue not find synergies.

Now comes the integrated hardware story and candidly i don’t like it. I can not afford to buy an Apple toaster everytime they decide to screw around.  I find myself in the apple store these days almost as much as I am in the grocery store putting up with the near genius of barring me from touching my machine in a useful manner.

Candidly Apple’s biggest genius is the fact they have “insourced” the truck roll to retail outlet.  I never walk into an empty store.  It’s clear I am in the Whole Foods computer market.  I make an appointment and wait.

If this is the future of computing we should stop talking about the cloud.

I am having a rough time buying that hardware integration is essential for today’s software.  I think the history of Nokia’s Symbian problems should make Microsoft shy away (since it can’t resolve its own legacy issues).

At least RIM has a JAVA story that can match well to the Windows  Server migration strategy.  One other thing we should notice.  RIM has hired ex Microsoft exec Alec Saunders, who is evangelizing development efforts and I think he is making headway.

However, the story is not about a phone, it’s about the network of resources

Given the fact that we use a smart phone only 15% of time to talk I think the term smart phone is rapidly becoming the 2012 version of Vint Cerf’s “Horseless Carriage”.  I think Microsoft should as Henry Sinnreich says, “Leave the Dead to Bury the Dead.”

If you are looking for the blue ocean strategy for Microsoft,  I think the launch pad is xbox.  They have included augmented reality and what they should do is embrace and expand beyond the iPad.

What should Microsoft do next?  I think the answer is to get Voice Recognition rock solid.  From that point of view, I would suggest that Nuance is the only company in the market worth buying.

If we are going to get to our Star Trek future the voice recognition is the path.   However, almost everything I know about voice recognition is based on software not hardware.  I cannot make a case that the hardware is the important part of this equation.

I don’t think the device of our future has fallen into our lap yet.

And if Apple wants to own a network, someone is going to have to show me how the margins improve for them.

However, CenturyLink seems to have merged the worst parts of its acquisitions. The US West assets that became Qwest and were merged with Century Links’s other acquisition of Embarq seems to have given us a less than perfect discussion. While Craig Moffet has been a fan of Qwest’s “leave it in” strategy of keeping the cash cow copper milked in the outside plant, Qwest has been doing some very nice solutions with Ethernet for other wireless carrier’s backhaul.

However, my former colleague Peter Copeland was given the task of advocating the copper DSL alternative in favor of WISPs. I feel for Peter. He is a brilliant guy. Peter did his best in his analysis to paint the picture that CenturyLink wanted to defend a century of copper being used to link things together today.

However, the analysis shows the problem with the FCC’s transition of the “voice” network. As I have pointed out several times, we are becoming a wireless not a wireline world and we are only using our smart phones 15% of the time for voice. The burden of migrating the old infrastructure is not about maintaining status quo copper, it is to “ensure universal availability of modern networks capable of providing advanced mobile voice and broadband service ”. In my area I have had fun showing the shucking of copper http://youtu.be/PnEb3bT_ctY that is going on by my local operator.

More is the pity.

When Peter is charged with defending the cash cow and suggesting that WISPs are not an alternative, he has to ignore the impact of Cooper’s law on wireless and Metcalfe’s law on network build outs. In other words, he has to isolate the future from the current moment in time. The technological arguments made in the separate document run against the commissions own experience in looking at the opportunities with Wi-Fi and TV White Space. Brough Turner does a great job exploring the future here http://blogs.broughturner.com/2011/10/valuing-the-white-spaces-above-3-ghz.html and for the real engineers his further link to Wikipedia should be read.

However, this is a simpler discussion. Is it time for the USF replacement CAF to be a step forward or merely a maintenance plan. In Centurylink’s arguments the old is advocated without a migration strategy and that flies in the face of the CAF goal to “minimize the universal service contribution
burden on consumers and businesses ”. As our friend Richard Shockey would point the technology that CenturyLink is advocating is suffering from an end of life cycle that is going to keep increasing the costs.

After a century of copper and quarter century of USF, the time has come to see the future fulfilled with something that expands the core of competition and not lifelines links to the past.

If I am making sense to you and more importantly if you have a goal of seeing the unserved or underserved have access to the same experience as the rest of us. Please file with the commission your comments http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs// .

My other invitations to participate:
To all my US readers Happy Independence day, The Internet has given us all a lot of independence, I am hoping that it will always do so. Even if the ITU wants to mandate the way our equipment works.

For my friends hoping to see the product guys exert some power, I wrote this article http://www.mobilitytechzone.com/topics/4g-wirelessevolution/articles/2012/06/27/296580-apple-tel.htm Join us on the conference call August 16th to see if Apple Tel is the answer. http://www.zipdx.com/Form/EventCall/vWN3lxlgEW?embedded=1

And on the M2M side, Matt Gleeson tells me I am about proactive systems. I think I am just advocating logically. What do you think? http://m2m.tmcnet.com/topics/m2mevolution/articles/296575-will-video-surveillance-jo-the-rest-us-m2m.htm Join us on the webinar. July 11th. http://bit.ly/QifrOn

Tell us about your use of the Internet http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/internettime and your concerns about Net Neutrality http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/NetNeutrality .

Again, I appreciate your reading these articles to the end and I look forward to hearing from you.

@DevConFive since when is HTML considered a ‘programming’ language? hint: ‘M’ stands for ‘markup’

While the statement is true the reality is that Programming gets embedded into the markup and with the browser acting more like a client server model the programming calls are coming from the blend.

That is why Peter Lubbers now at Google who wrote the book Pro HTML5 Programming. It is also why Programming in HTML5 has over 45 M results.

But more importantly the reason its called #DevCon5 is that #HTML5 is the glue for the mix we are showcasing at the event. You should come and see the whole picture

So when someone says that Apple is going to buy a carrier, I have to question if they were in the same business as I was.

Now to their credit these Apple Tel advocates are looking at the financials and making the market cap analysis that does normal M&A.

However, if you look at the balance sheet you discover that the subsidies to the consumer which is killing the carriers would go away.

Additionally this would add to the regulatory nightmare that Apple would have to navigate. And finally and most importantly their sights are set on China and not on the US so why buy a carrier that only serves a smaller percentage of the market.

Still not convinced? Neither are some friends. So join us for the discussion. August 16th.