Traveling Geeks

Will BT let JP create the first open network operator? One scenario for the mobile Web

The Web exists because Tim Berners-Lee didn’t require any network operator to rewire its central switch. Google exists because nobody has to ask permission to create a new way to use the Web. These affordances for innovation are no accident: Sir Tim could give away the Web and Larry and Sergey could make billions of dollars for themselves because the architects of the internet’s original protocols were wise enough to reserve innovation for the edges, not the center of the network. The authors of what has become known as the internet’s realized that control of the network – technical, economic, political – could be radically decentralized, and that by enabling anyone who played by the TCP/IP rules to connect anything they wanted to the network, future media that they didn’t even dream about in the olden days would one day become possible. So the Web, cyberculture, the dot com economy, digital media, the refashioning of global economic production by digital networks, grew extremely rapidly.

The merger of the mobile phone and the internet has not grown anywhere nearly as rapidly as the web precisely because there is someone you have to ask for permission in the mobile world – the network operators. And network operators evolved from regulated monopoly telephony providers, who have done their best to prevent, rather than to facilitate, an internet-like ecology of small and large businesses, heterogeneous media, decentralized control, and a rising economic tide that lifts small boats and threatens huge ships that take a long time to turn. We have yet to see an owner of significant telecommunications network open their network by providing an open application programming interface (api)

Which brings us to JP Rangaswami:

(Source: JD Lasica)

JD Lasica’s photo was taken atop BT Tower in London, when British Telecom’s CIO of Global Services invited the Travelling Geeks to dinner in a private, revolving dining room in BT’s high-security antenna tower, a landmark on the London skyline I’ve often wondered about. How that dinner came to be is a story of how life happens online these days. A link from another blog brought me to JP’s blog, Confused of Calcutta, years ago; I read it via RSS regularly, and when I saw that the blogger was on Twitter, I started following him. When JP used Last.fm, it tweeted what he was listening to. I couldn’t help noticing that he listened to a fair amount of Grateful Dead music. So I started to correspond with him. When he visited the San Francisco Bay Area, he invited me (via Facebook) to join him for dinner. He had more than a few interesting things to say about the way media infrastructure might evolve in the future. So when I knew we were going to London, I introduced the Travelling Geeks to JP. He, in turn, invited us to dinner. It dawned on me that my blogger thinker Deadhead social media acquaintance wielded some clout at BT when we were greeted for dinner by the CEO of British Telecom.

It was probably JP’s idea to seat me next to Ted Griggs, the founder of Ribbit, a company JP had acquired. The seating was probably no accident. Here’s Ribbit’s elevator pitch. (Another way of describing Ribbit’s product, Griggs told me, as London revolved below us, would be “open API’s for [now BT’s] networks.”)

I’ve been writing about the future of digital media for a while now, and I think I’ve developed a pretty good spidey-sense for something that could change everything. When I met the people JP had collected and saw what they were doing (during a morning of demos after our dinner), I was reminded of nothing so much as the time I got to know Bob Taylor at Xerox PARC and started to realize that what they were doing on Palo Alto’s Coyote Hill Road with personal computers, networks, graphical user interfaces way back in the 1970s was going to be the foundation of the 21st centuries fundamental structuring technologies.

But Xerox management, of course, thought they were in the copier business and failed to take advantage of the fact that their research arm invented the GUI, the Ethernet, and the laser printer.

Will BT management realize that they aren’t in the telephone network operator business, and that someone in their midst has invited not only their future, but everyone else’s? Stay tuned.

Handhelds for Doctors

“Augmented Reality, GPS, RFID, things like this make the world a more beautiful place,” @IndySaha.

Backstage Pass- Login, login, login

I estimated last night that I spend 1/3 of my time trying to debug and solve connectivity issues^[1] both at home and on the road. Though perhaps when I’m at home, more of that 1/3 goes toward updating software^[2].

Please note – This video isn’t intended to put anybody on the spot, but when Susan was having so much trouble on Monday getting connected to wi-fi at the Reboot Britain meeting, it just seemed like old times to me! At big meetings like this (several hundred people) the wi-fi is frequently the crunch. Just getting an IP address, and then being able to stay connected 30 minutes or more, can be a challenge. To their credit, the venue did have really good wi-fi signals in all of the rooms at the conference center! However, I stayed on my BT Mobile Broadband connection the entire time (the little illustration is their USB modem device), and though the bandwidth was challenged (inside a brick, steel, concrete building) it was reliable.

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[1] Connectivity includes finding wi-fi, dealing with “blocking” problems (more on that later), spam overload, and helping others get connected (which is major).
[2] I probably update a program every 2 days. This isn’t just Microsoft Office, but dozens of other programs I use. I use MacUpdate as a paid service to notify me of updates, although I’d say that 1/2 of the programs I use will automatically alert me when updates are available.

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Seedcamp pointer

I’m going to just quickly mention that on Tuesday we met with some Seedcamp companies, at the  offices in central London. Craig Newmark has put up a nice quick summary with links in case you want to check them out. Craig is a fellow Traveling Geek. I will pick my favorites later, although I liked all of them, and will let you know what each technology is going to be useful for in my professional life. You will find them all fascinating and probably will end up using one or more of them some time in the near future.

I know already that my first favorites will be technologies that help find and then aggregate information that will make your blog or web site more informative for your readers. Or that make your job as a blogger easier because they help you locate not only your own writings (which believe it or not is a problem for many bloggers) but new information from sources that you trust.

BT Openzone Wireless Broadband

I wrote about the open wi-fi network in central London – back when I was just “hoping” that it would give us coverage while in London. Indeed it looks the network is around and that there are many wireless hotspots. I don’t know yet how pervasive the outdoor coverage is, but coverage at shops (coffee shops for example) seems pretty much available.

But the service that’s saving my life here is BT Mobile Broadband, which is available for £15/month (special promotion) on a “commercial” plan. (See photo of their [new] USB plug-in device above)

Advertised as providing “up to 7.2Mb (actually I would say 7.2mbps – or megabits per second) I was getting 2.5mbps on Sunday afternoon, and through the week have been getting upwards of 640kbps almost all of the time, which isn’t as good, but is roughly equivalent to a DSL line in the US. It’s also not quite as good as wi-fi, but if you’re at a public-access wi-fi spot, you’re unlikely to get anything better than the 640kpbs speed anyway.

On Monday at Reboot Britain [see Howard Rheingold’s article on the conference, where he spoke] we were inside a steel and brick building, in an inner room, and the local wi-fi was so overloaded it couldn’t maintain a connection for longer than a few minutes [this is common for large conferences of geeks], and I stayed on the BT Mobile service the entire day and it was rock solid, though at the lower data rate. That’s why I say it “saved by life.”

If you’re in Britain, need data on the road, and can’t tether your computer through a phone, this service seems like it would be indispensable. [I don’t know whether non-British national can purchase it short term…but if so, it would be great.]

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[Disclosure: BT corporate is providing the device for me and the other Traveling Geeks, along with service, for the week I’m in London. I have no obligation to write about it or promote it.]

BT’s Programmable Broadband!

BT’s Open Broadband is a BRILLANT solution to broadband issues for businesses. What is it exactly? As far as I can understand, it allows companies to easily program broadband strength with a couple paragraphs of XML for specific websites. This is fantastic for stream gaming where you’re gaming via the cloud. In short, this is perfect for any application that needs guaranteed bandwidth. I love this idea, if only someone would implement it in the US. My first site request would be YouTube (bah!).

Click here for more info on the development of Open Broadband.

“I write about Silicon Valley because it’s the most interesting region in the world, it’s the birthplace of tremendous disruptive forces,” @TomForemski, Silicon Valley Watcher. #WDYDWYD? #TG2009

“Technology has the power to unleash the imagination.” “It should be available to everyone,” says Tristan Wilkinson, Intel director for public sector EMEA. @inteltristan

Redefining Digital Inclusion

We met with Tristan Wilkinson this morning at Savoy Place in London. Tristan, who is Intel’s Director for Public Sector for Intel EMEA, wears many hats and has several interests.

Below Tristan with Perveen Akhtar, Intel UK PR Manager

He tells us about a program called One Goal which will be launched in August and piggyback off the South African World Cup. The goal is to get 30 million online signatures in an effort to help make poverty history. Take note: 75 million children still don’t have access to primary school education in the world.

Tristan asks, “do those that enjoy the benefits of technology have a moral right over those who don’t? If you don’t have access, you’re missing so much.” He adds,”for example, when did a blue collar worker need access to the Internet and many of these tools simply to get a job? It’s particularly important in this economic climate.”

He talks about the broken education system where we’re still assessed by written exams, rather than an interactive system that allows students to exchange ideas and use technology to learn.

Essentially you’ve got a 21st century learner in a 19th century environment and the two are starting to cancel each other out. And, what are the other things that allow these technology tools to be unleashed? We have to figure out a way to embrace and value informal learning, such as self-study.

The thread is one that isn’t a new one: the digital divide, largely an economic one, however it’s beyond a financial issue, it’s also attitude; attitude among teachers and among parents.

Parents have learned about the perils of Internet use but haven’t necessarily learned about about the value that it can bring to their child’s life, particularly in the classroom.

Robert Scoble asserts that the change will come from the kids, not from top down. And, adds that it’s not about the technology or being able to afford it, it’s about lack of knowledge and education – what’s out there? what tools can help me find a better job? go to a better school?

We discuss key drivers. If success and nirvana is a digitally educated population, we shouldn’t have to wait twenty years for people to catch up to embrace these changes…with technology change accelerating at such a dramatic rate, there needs to be an effort to bring those who are being left behind forward.

Tristan asserts that the problems are very fragmented and that there needs to be a more concerted effort to bring groups like us together to take action.

Sky adds, “the best thing that educators can do is to be totally open to the new devices that already have some of these services embedded….but we have legislation.” Robert has become demoralized and is one of the reasons he doesn’t get involved in this debate regularly.

We also discuss the role of the press….how do the press educate parents and educators and what form it takes. “It’s not that my children are going to get online and be stalked but that if they don’t get online and learn how to use these new technologies, they won’t get jobs, they will be left behind. Parents need to understand that the jobs of the future are going to require them to support their kids to learn how to use technology. There may not be any public or private funds for it but the change needs to happen.

We need to redefine Digital Inclusion. The definition of digital inclusion today is basic access. It doesn’t include basic skills such as understanding some of the technology and social media schools to network and make friends not just locally for globally. It increases their job and life opportunities significantly.

It’s time to move that definition beyond simple access. We need a new definition that policy makers, technology creators, parents, and educators can rally around. There will be a revolution when more and more students get their hands on some of these devices and start using them in the classroom.