Depending on your perspective, today’s ruling on the Brand X case is either good or bad. If you are a cable company that has invested in infrastructure, you are happy you will not have to share your lines. Of course this is bad for consumers. The FCC said that broadband over cable was an information service back in March of 2002 meaning that cable companies would not have to share their internet connections with other ISPs. Today the Supreme Court agreed with the FCC in the famous Brand X case.

Next up is DSL and phone companies want to make sure there is no competition over these lines either. It seems that consumers are going to have less and less broadband competition going forward. The FCC has already ruled that fiber deployed by ILECs will not have to be shared. What we will be left with are two competitors, ILECs and cable companies with the potential for broadband over power line and WiMAX making some sort of competitive dent.

Many argue that two competitors does not provide adequate competition and it is difficult to argue with this premise. The good news? Consumers can rest assured that if they want competition for internet service, they can always go back to dial up.

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HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) -- The University of Connecticut is notifying 72,000 students, staff and faculty as a precaution after officials found a computer-hacking program in a server at the school.

The server contains names, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, phone numbers and addresses for anyone with an account that allows access to the school's computer network. The personal information was not in a readable format, officials said.

University officials found the computer-hacking program this week and said it had been placed in a server at the school in 2003. They do not believe any information was compromised although there was an opportunity for someone to access it.

An e-mail was sent to all users at the University of Connecticut and the University of Connecticut Health Center on Friday, and the university was contacting people without e-mail accounts by mail, spokeswoman Karen Grava said.

The security breach was discovered Monday after a university vendor reported that someone tried to access its server with an illegal password.

Technology staff discovered that a program known as a rootkit had been installed on the server. The server was immediately taken off-line, chief information officer Michael Kerntke said.

As an alumnus of UCONN I noticed this release. Seems like there are more data security braches by the day.

You know it’s a slow news day when a press release titled Vonage Launches Its Service in Springfield, Illinois gets my attention. Perhaps its early and more interesting news hasn’t hit my desk.

Is this indeed the end of cables as we know it? WiFi is great and all and I can’t live without it. In fact, every day I wonder how I lived without it. But WiFi  -- even in its 54 Mbps variant is not fast enough for the myriad applications we would all really like to throw at the standard. I am referring to streaming video throughout your house on multiple devices simultaneously. For such applications we would need speeds in the hundreds of megabits per second. Sure you could do it with 54 if you had to but if your signal isn’t full strength, you couldn’t get the quality you really need.

Enter Metalink and their new Mt8170 Baseband Device which combined with their MtW8150 RFIC will comprise a single chipset targeting the new 802.11n standard allowing for 240 Mbps throughput!

The complete chipset provides throughput of up to 243Mbps over the air, and supports the critical whole-house coverage requirement of at least 60Mbps of effective throughput to any room within 60 feet of the transmitter. The MtW8170 uses 2x2 or 2x3 MIMO technology to deliver the extended throughput and QoS necessary for video applications. In addition to Real-MIMO technology, Metalink's chipset utilizes allows for channel bonding, advanced forward error correction (FEC) and antenna loading to increase WLAN performance, and achieves a 50 percent improvement in MAC efficiency as compared to earlier 802.11 solutions.

The chipset also supports advanced 802.11i security features and the 802.11e QoS standard. You need to be patient if you want one as the MtW8170 will be available in sample quantities in the third calendar quarter of 2005.

I found a great underwater video stream of an Amazon aquarium. It captured my daughter's attention for a few minutes and I think if there was a sound feed as well it would be even better. The feed is a bit slow but there are some great fish in this display.

Here is an excerpt of what is happening in the aquarium:

Here is a glimpse into the rich and vibrant underwater life of the Amazon. When the large, serpent-like arapaimas swim past the camera, you will get a close-up look at one of the largest freshwater fish in the world. The ones you can see here range from 5 to 6 feet in length, but may reach up to 10 feet and weigh 300 pounds. Red-tailed catfish, black pacus, and other fish share this 27,000-gallon aquarium below a living tropical forest.

I've had a number of the fish seen here in my aquarium over the years. I really don't have time these days to care for my own aquarium so I am happy to watch this one from afar.

Enjoy.

PS: You need to wait a few minutes for the feed to load. Scroll down to see it. When it appears, right click on it and make it full screen for a special treat.

I really like this e-mail marketing campaign from Aculab. What amazes me is that it is coming from an English company who describe themselves as conservative. They must think they have something really great on their hands to break the mold and come out with a new campaign that is so edgy. I have learned at TMC that when you live on the edge you sometimes can go too far. I think this is a perfect play on their product name and commend Aculab for the design and branding. What do you think? Do you consider this insulting or is it adding fun to an otherwise boring world of telecom?

This product is for grown-up developers only. We've created the most sophisticated converged technologies platform for high density speech, data and fax application development. With an onboard IP architecture, Prosody X delivers all the media processing and digital network access resources you could wish for. It’s also surprisingly affordable. And comes with the acclaimed Aculab service, support and software. Highest density, lowest cost, no competition: unwrap Prosody X. Get ahead of the competition: Call us today on +1 850 763 9281 or click here to email us. To gain further information on Prosody X click here

We are elated to have a high level keynote from Intel at our upcoming VoIP Developer conference in South San Francisco August 2-4, 2005. I hope to see you there as Intel’s Michael Stanford graced the show with an amazing keynote last year and introduced the audience to the term “ambient telephony“ which I have been reiterating to the mainstream press any chance I get.

Here is Michael Stanford’s photo and a bio:





Michael Stanford
Director, VoIP Strategy,
Digital Enterprise Group
INTEL CORPORATION

Michael Stanford is an Intel Principal Engineer, and is Director of Voice over IP Strategy for Intel’s Digital Enterprise Group.  In this role, Michael works with architects, engineers, and business managers inside and outside of Intel to design standards-based Intel® building blocks for VoIP.  Michael also works in a business development role, co-operating on several projects with the Intel Capital Group.

Prior to this role, Michael was Vice President of Engineering at Picazo Communications, a VoIP PBX company acquired by Intel in 2000 for its VoIP engineering expertise.  He joined Picazo in 1998 when Picazo acquired a computer-based communications software company that Michael had founded in 1993.
Michael is a serial entrepreneur, with 20 years of experience in the software development and telecommunications industries.

Here is the webinar on VoIP quality I have discussed recently in our communications and technology podcast:

	Are you ready to capitalize on the growing residential adoption of VoIP? As you roll-out VoIP within your organization, are you confident that you can provide employees and customers crystal-clear communication and dial-tone reliability that they have come to expect from traditional telephone service? Join us for this complementary webinar by Keynote Systems, to understand service quality pitfalls you should address when rolling out VoIP to your residential customers or within the enterprise. This first-of-its-kind study captures critical performance factors that affect the end-user experience while placing coast-to-coast calls using leading VoIP providers on various underlying T1 carriers, residential DSL and cable. VoIP providers and network carriers can gain insight into how end-users perceive their service relative to other competitors and traditional telephone service. Furthermore, providers and enterprises can implement industry-wide best practices and build a VoIP monitoring solution to: Detect call quality degradation in real-time and from the end-user perspective Diagnose VoIP equipment and network issues affecting the end-user experience Enhance service availability, listening quality and audio delay amongst other factors leading to consistent, high-fidelity communication

Here are the details of a future webinar I will participate in. The practice run was very informative and the people at NetCentrex have done a great job preparing and will have an objective and in-depth educational session for you:

	Join us for a complimentary Webinar session showcasing IP Triple Play and learn how to upgrade your IP services with an integrated voice-video-data solution for students, faculty and alumni. In this informative Webinar sponsored by the IPlay3 Consortium, you will learn how universities can migrate to a new IP service platform to build an interactive learning environment on campus and off-campus. Real-life case study examples from leading deployments will be cited. Topics include: • Voice over IP • Telco TV • Video on Demand • Video Calling • WiFi Phones and PC Softphones • Faculty IP Centrex services • Free On-Net Calling • Off-Campus Voice-Video-Data VPNs • E-Learning and Distance Learning • Gaming • Alumni Affinity Services • Migrating from existing PBX/Centrex equipment

How does Iran censor the Net? With tools from America of course. These tools are being used illegally according to the vendor that sells them. The political process is being negatively affected in Iran and the censors in this country are typically the ISPs as opposed to China where censorship is centrally controlled by the government.

I understand that Anonymyzer is being us in China and Iran to sidestep censors. I am glad such tools exist.

More from the BBC.

Yes, it is possible Verizon fudged the numbers a bit but people do want competition. The most objective way to design the Verizon triple-play survey Al Bredenberg blogged about is to ask consumers:

Do you want lower process for TV
Do you want the ability to select from more features and options.

You’d probably get 75%+ affirmative answers for each question.

Basically we can assume that more competition means lower prices and more choice for consumers is a good thing.

Who doesn’t want more choice and lower prices?

I am going to be involved in a Webinar with NetCentrex on Monday and in our dry run I couldn’t help but chuckle with the term “fiber to the pillow” when discussing how to roll out triple-play services to university students and workers.

I am learning a great deal from this dry run which I am on now.

You should be on this webinar if you are interested in learning more about how real-world triple-play solutions. For example there is a case study on San Jose State allowing them to generate revenue and provide valuable services.

Here is the link: How Universities can Foster a Digital Campus Community with IP Triple Play which takes place this Tuesday, June 28, 2005.

I like the user interface of this program and have been using it for a while. It seems to do a great job for the most part but I still have an annoying spate of popups on my laptop. I don’t know what app is responsible for this and I have searched the registry and had MIS look at it to no avail. There is a new version of MS AntiSpyware out today and I hope that helps solve my problem.

I am not sure if I have written about this before or just thought it but the concept of Micros soft charging for antivirius or anitispyware tools is very amusing as the OS is supposed to protect us from many of these  problems in the first place. If we do get charged for these apps it will be like taxing us on the OS. Still the recurring revenue model is probably too good for the Redmond software giant to ignore and as an added plus, they can use these services to verify you have a registered version of Windows.

Now if they could only find a way to install new software versions without he need for a lengthy reboot.

How does the world of lobbyists work and how can these people influence politicians? The USA Today has a story on the topic which explains how non profit groups set up directly by lobbyists are able to sidestep the rules to show members of congress the world.

Here is an excerpt of the article:

In late April, the group paid for four members of Congress - three of them accompanied by spouses - to hop aboard a corporate jet, bound for the Napa Valley town of St. Helena. The weekend for the two Republicans and two Democrats included luxury accommodations at the Meadowood resort and a series of presentations on issues facing the wine industry. Meals on the three-day trip totaled $458 for each person. The total bill: $46,000.

Congressional rules allow lawmakers and their aides to take trips paid for by private interests, with a few caveats: The travel must relate to their official duties in Washington; it must not be primarily recreational; and it must not be paid for by lobbyists or representatives of a foreign interest. When lawmakers do travel, they must disclose the trip, its purpose and who paid for it.

Lobbyists also are required to report who pays them, how much they are paid and the issues they lobby on, under a 1995 disclosure law. But tax-exempt groups have minimal disclosure requirements. Paying for trips through a tax-exempt organization exploits a seam between tax law and the ethics rules, says Frances Hill of the University of Miami School of Law.

“The ethics rules invite you to set up conduits” for undisclosed money, she says. And the IRS, which oversees tax-exempt groups, “has been remarkably lacking in curiosity about cases like this.” The agency is too understaffed to thoroughly review all of the country's 1.5 million tax-exempt organizations, she adds.
Since 2000, members of Congress have taken more than 5,900 privately financed trips at a cost of $17.6 million, according to the non-partisan PoliticalMoneyLine, which analyzes data on money in politics. More than half of the spending has come from tax-exempt groups such as America's Trust.
Here is more:

It isn't hard to find examples of lobbyists connected to non-profit groups sponsoring congressional trips:

•The Islamic Free Market Institute Foundation has paid for at least 23 trips by lawmakers since 2000, at a cost of $235,839. Most of the travel was to an annual conference in the Persian Gulf country of Qatar. The group raised $456,777 in 2003, according to its latest federal tax return, but declined to disclose its financial backers. Among the organization's founders in 1998 was Grover Norquist, a Republican activist and anti-tax lobbyist. He no longer is on the institute's board, but the organization shares an office with Norquist's group, Americans for Tax Reform. The Islamic Institute also has worked with another lobbyist, Asim Ghafoor, who represented an association of Islamic banks.

•Two groups, the Korea-U.S. Exchange Council and the Malaysia Exchange Association, set up to promote trade with Asia in part by organizing trips for lawmakers, have ties to the Alexander Strategy Group, a lobbying firm founded by Rep. Tom DeLay's former chief of staff, Ed Buckham. The groups financed $224,000 in travel for a dozen House members since 2001.

The lobbying firm set up the Korea group in 2001 with the goal of making Korean businessman Seung Youn Kim, chairman of one of Korea's largest conglomerates, the Hanwha Group, “the leading business statesman in U.S.-Korean relations,” according to a strategy memo. But because the group registered as an agent of a foreign interest, it could not legally sponsor congressional travel.

The Malaysia organization, which did not register as a foreign agent, sent three House members - Roger Wicker, R-Miss., Earl Pomeroy, D-N.D. and John Doolittle, R-Calif. - to Kuala Lumpur in February “to strengthen the bilateral relationship between the U.S. and Malaysia,” according to Pomeroy's trip disclosure.

•The International Management and Development Institute has paid $534,000 during the past five years for 60 congressional trips, most of them to Germany and other Western European destinations. The institute is run by Don Bonker, a former Democratic House member from Washington state and now a lobbyist for APCO Worldwide.

Nausea keeps me from providing further insight into this topic so I invite you to form your own opinions and post your comments below.

Michael Powell will be addressing the audience at ITEXPO and I am excited to hear what he has to say. I am sure he has much more latitude now that he is no longer a sitting chairman of the FCC. I also wonder how he feels about the strict 120 day deadline given to VoIP providers after he left. I get the feeling that if he was chairman they would given our industry have six months or more to fully comply. Indeed when he speaks we will be right around the FCC deadline making it an interesting time to hear his unique viewpoints on VoIP.

There are so many positive things that happened to technology under the watch of the FCC under Michael Powell such as the launch of WiFi that you have to think he will be remembered favorably by those in technology for many years to come.

WiFi in my opinion let the genie out of the bottle in terms of showing that giving an unlicensed spectrum out to the public can immensely change the competitive landscape of the entire information technology industry.

I hope to see you at Internet Telephony Conference & Expo this October 24-24 in Los Angeles, CA.