Ged Carroll

Category: telecoms | 電信 | 통신 | テレコム

I thought about telecoms as a way to talk about communications networks that were not wireless. These networks could be traditional POTS (plain old telecoms systems), packet switched networks including ethernet or some hybrid of the two.

I started my agency career working during the dot com era. What was happening in the broader technology space was one wave of technology cresting, while another one rose.

In the cresting space was:

Enterprise software (supply chain software, financial systems, database software, middleware software tools).

NIC cards (network interface cards, a way of getting your computer to be able to communicate with an ethernet network. It was a little circuit board that connected on to the mother board and allowed.

Mainframe and  mini-computers. It was around about this time that company owned data centres peaked.

In the rising wave was:

Servers –

  1. Unix servers and workstation grade computers were what hosted the first generation of websites. Names that did particularly well were Sun Microsystems (now part of Oracle) and Silicon Graphics Inc. (SGI). Sun Microsystems ran everything from investment banking models to telecoms billing systems. It’s hardware and software made great web servers. SGI was facing a crisis in its core market of 3D modelling due to Moore’s Law, but its operating systems was still very powerful. They managed to get some work as servers because people had them around in creative agencies.
  2. You also had a new range of servers on the low end. A mix of new suppliers like Cobalt Networks and VA Linux, together with existing companies like Dell who were offering Linux and Windows web servers that were really repackaged local area network file servers.

Enterprise information management software. The web posted its own problems for content management and publishing and companies like Captiva and Open Text rushed in to plug the gap.

Traditional vendors like HP and IBM rushed into provide a mix of software and hardware based solutions including e-business by IBM, which morphed into ‘Smarter Planet’

Telecoms companies – two things happened.

  1. Phone services were deregulated opening up former state owned incumbents to competition in fixed line and mobile telephony
  2. Data services really started to take off. Multinational companies like Shell looked to have a global data network for routing their calls over, so in many respects they looked like their own telecoms company. Then those data networks started to become of interest to the nascent internet providers as well. Mobile data started to gain traction around about the time of the dot com bust

So it made sense that I started to think about telecoms in a wide but wired sense, as it even impacts wireless as a backhaul infrastructure. Whether this is wi-fi into your home router or a 5G wireless network connecting to a fibre optic core network.

  • Looking back at Enron and the net in 2000

    Enron: even now is a byword for dodgy dealing and corruption. Back in the summer of 2000, Enron was a large respectable corporation.  Three people came over from Portland, Oregon to London. They looked to pioneer a new way of thinking about broadband capacity and they came to Europe to do peering agreements and business deals. They were ‘Enron Broadband Services’.

    The whole thing was moving at ‘internet speed’, which is a euphemism for crazy fast and with money flittered everywhere.  So I ended up working agency side arranging everything from pre-paid mobile phones to a dinner for 150 internet geeks at The Hempel – a luxury hotel with a minimalist restaurant that used to be in Bayswater.

    Enron acquired Portland General Electric (PGE) back in the mid-1990s. This was part of Enron’s play in deregulated electricity markets. With PGE also came an optical fibre network. The company had been dropping fibre into the ground every time it did reinstatements. Enron then built and leased optical fibre from the likes of Level3.

     

    While I was trying to get these guys in front of the European telecoms press I was hearing from my media contacts that Level3 were actively briefing against them, saying that their business model was full of shit. They were right it was. Enron Broadband Services depended on their ‘Enron Intelligent Network’ a set of proprietary technologies that was supposed to prioritise traffic for quality of service and commercial traffic reasons.

    Like many things at the time the technology was less developed than one would believe. Much of the functionality replicated existing technology such as MPLS. IBM developed their e-commerce offering on the back of ‘suckered’ customers like Boxman.com. Technology was a sketchy business at the time; but it seemed to matter less as the world was being changed. This was pre-9/11 and Gap was convincing many people that khakis were cool.

    https://youtu.be/OLSjcGjLQ7s

    In the case of IBM, they seem to be still doing similar practices two decades later; this time with their Watson machine learning offering.

    The problem was that the ‘Enron Intelligent Network‘ was a relatively minor sin compared to everything else that was going on in the corporation.

    What happened to the companies mentioned in the Enron slides?

    • ARC
    • Atom Films – Founded in 1998, Atom was bought in 2006 by MTV Networks, Google had considered buying it when it eventually purchased YouTube. Eventually it was absorbed into Comedy Central
    • Avici Systems – was hit hard by the dot com bust. It eventually pulled out of the core network router business and changed its name to Soapstone Networks
    • Ciena – Ciena still exists as a networking equipment and software company. It managed to ride out the dot com bust by diversifying its portfolio of networking equipment
    • Cisco Systems – continues to be one of the world’s largest companies in networking equipment
    • Compaq – never managed to fully integrate its acquisition of the Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) and ended up being acquired by Hewlett-Packard. In 2015; Hewlett Packard split into two businesses. HP held the PC, printers and related businesses. Hewlett Packard Enterprise contained business software (subsequently merged with Micro Focus), services business (merged with Computer Sciences Corporation) and a hardware business.
    • CountryCool.com – started as a country music site and seems to have morphed into an analogue of Comedy Central
    • The Drew Carey Show – ABC situation comedy that finished its run in 2004
    • EasyStreet – ISP that is still going, mostly reselling other vendors products
    • Epoch Internet – was the first tier one ISP on the west coast when it was founded in 1994 and played a crucial role in some of the first commercial peering points. It was eventually acquired by MegaPath in 2004. MegaPath in turn is owned by Fusion Connect, who were recently acquired by Birch Communications Inc. as part of a further consolidation of business ISPs in the US
    • Firstworld
    • FlashNet – FlashNet now only exist as a legacy domain that AT&T supports for customers. FlashNet Communications was founded in 1995 as a Fort Worth, Texas-based internet service provider. It had an IPO on the NASDAQ in March 1999 and was acquired by Prodigy Communications in November that year. Prodigy was acquired by AT&T in September 2001
    • FYINet.com – FYINet was a Houston, Texas based company that provided training materials on CD ROM about networking technology. They then moved their content to the web and promoted their 3D animation and interactive design capabilities. They seem to have disappeared sometime around 2002.
    • GST Telecommunications
    • GTE Internetworking – GTE Internetworking became Genuity when its parent company merged with Bell Atlantic to found Verizon. It was eventually acquired by Level3, which was in turn acquired by CenturyLink 2017
    • Inktomi- Inktomi was one of the leading providers of web caching for both content and streaming. It became a key provider for early content delivery networks. It was eventually acquired by Yahoo! in 2003. Yahoo! was acquired by Verizon and merged into Aol as part of Oath
    • iStream TV encoding – iStream continues to provide solutions for both video on demand and live streaming. Turner acquired a majority share in the business during 2015
    • latinsoccer.net – Mexican based site that covered Latin American football news. It featured both video and audio which wasn’t the norm for the time. According to Archive.org’s Wayback Machine, the site didn’t survive the dot com bust
    • Lucent Technologies – acquired in term by Alcatel and Nokia
    • MShow.com – Chicago-based Mshow provided interactive broadcast services. It was founded in 1986, had one round of funding in 2000 and is no longer in business
    • NetRail – provided backbone networks and hosting to ISPs. It was acquired by Cogent Communications Group in 2001
    • NextVenue – specialised in video and audio streaming, it was acquired by iBEAM Broadcasting – a satellite networking company. iBEAM went under in 2002, its assets were acquired by Williams Communications LLC. Williams is now owned by Level3
    • Oracle – Oracle remains a leading provider of enterprise software
    • OrcoNet.com – was a US ISP, eventually filed for chapter 7 bankruptcy in California
    • pdq.net – was an ISP. It was acquired by Internet America. Internet America was acquired by JAB Broadband and folded into Rise Broadband
    • Q4i.com – defunct online brokerage with video component for independent brokers
    • RCN – Boston-based ISP that has gone on to become the sixth largest cable and broadband provider in the US
    • rmi.net – Rocky Mountain Internet was an early provider of dial-up connectivity. It moved into e-business for SMEs and eventually became part of EarthLink, which went on to consolidate with Windstream
    • showdigital – provided broadband to the hospitality industry. Its assets were acquired in 2001 by STSN
    • Sun Microsystems – Sun Microsystems never managed to recover from the dot com bust and was eventually acquired by Oracle. Oracle now sells its own brand of hardware that can run Solaris UNIX – Solaris is now owned by Oracle who continues to maintain it alongside a distribution of Linux
    • Sycamore Networks – Sycamore Networks was wound up by its shareholders in early 2013. During the internet boom it had a market capitalisation of $44.8 billon. It was worth just $64 million when wound up.
    • TeleCommute Solutions – Atlanta based ISP that specialised in providing workforce connectivity to companies. Crunchbase lists it as closed
    • Telescan – founded in 1982 as a provider of stock charting tools, it eventually became part of TD Ameritrade’s Thinkorswim
    • TotalCricket
    • USWest – one of the original ‘baby Bells’. It merged with Qwest in 2000. Qwest was acquired by CenturyLink in 2011
    • Verio – founded as an ISP in Denver. Acquired by NTT of Japan in 2000
    • VillageNet – small Canadian ISP which is still running

  • iPhone Xs launch

    Random notes as I watched the iPhone Xs, iPhone XR and Apple Watch Series 4 launch.

    Phil Schiller

    Watching the introductory clip, this felt like an event designed mostly for an internal audience. The events have become a parody of themselves with very well worn tropes.

    Company and eco-system update

    • Apple stores: 500,000,000 visitors per year. The stores have free wi-fi and classes, so this isn’t just about purchasing or building loyalty with customers. It has become public private space.
    • 2 billion iOS devices – many users will have replaced at least three devices so the community of likely iOS users is probably closer to 600 million. iPad tend to end up being communal devices in family homes and so have a longer life.
    • Apple Watch is the number one watch – I found this clip suprising. I find that hard to believe given the ubiquity of the Casio G-Shock range, or the F-91W family of basic digital watches

    Apple Watch series 4

    It is clever in some of the engineering: mass producing a ceramic back. the way Apple has managed to squeeze an ECG function in there. But there is a lot not to like about the watch
    The case design preportions seem off in the video, it may look better in real life. I am guessing that part of the move is about the cellular aerial, but then you have the ceramic back

    • They still haven’t sorted the crown positioning and protection – it will still fire up Siri for no apparent reason
    • The device is only minimally waterproof
    • The awful information design in the face used on Apple Watch hero images

    apple-watch-series4_watch-front-training_09122018
    Which got me rooting through old copies of Wired magazine. They used to have a ‘Future of’ section on the back inside cover. And lone behold
    watch

    iPhone Xs

    I was really unimpressed by the iPhone Xs. Don’t get me wrong it looks ‘nice’ and takes a lot of engineering. There isn’t an upgrade reason for X users. I find the AR applications are gimmicks rather than necessarily being regularly used apps. The notable exception would be the measuring tape app included in iOS 12

    Screen pixel counts are now getting ridiculous – you won’t be able to see the difference in terms of pixel refinement. Contrast may improve in HDR.

    The sound on the device doesn’t recognise that consumers use headphones. It was all about louder speakers.

    For iPhone 6/7/8 users the battery life descriptions for the new iPhone Xs devices were weasel language that would make me be wary of upgrading on this cycle.

    Facial recognition but no in screen biometric touch sensor means that you still have a notch. It also means that there is a dissonance in experience between the touch sensors on the latest MacBook Pro models and iPad models. How will Apple be handling websites that have integrated Apple Pay validation?

    As a MacBook Pro user, this told me to hang on to my current device. Wait and see if Apple changes the authentication again on the next round.

    A12 Bionic chip. 20 years ago five trillion instructions per second would have been impressive as this would have been a super computer. Now it is pretty much in line with what one would expect in Moore’s Law. Intel are squeezing double the rate fo computing power out of FPGAs. You’ve got all that power and you get animojis…

    How the software handles the paralellism of the chip is key. That is something that Sony found in the Cell architecture of the Playstation 2. Don’t expect that power to be obvious in 3rd party applications. The addressable memory claim surprised me. Its a 64 bit processor, so of course it could address 512GB of memory.

    • How much of the A12 chip is required to get FaceID to work?
    • How will the software get the most out of the cores?
    • There isn’t modem integration which helps rivals with their circuit board designs.

    iPhone camera ‘breakthroughs’ seem to come from intellectual property that Lytro developed?

    Dual SIMs – it is definitely a minority interest. It is likely to annoy carriers in mature markets with the exception of challengers like T-Mobile US.

    The SIMs are all non-standard formats which is a pain in the backside. eSIMs are only supported by EE and Vodafone in the UK. The nano-SIM is yet another smaller format of SIM which will be hard to sell to carriers. The most attractive model is the China market one with two physical SIMs.

    This could be:

    • Because China Mobile, China Unicom or China Telecom wouldn’t get on board with eSIMs
    • To screw with the Chinese grey market for iPhones (which is on the decline anyway
    • An unfortunate side effect is that it makes the China models more desirable for a (minority) consumer like me. So the grey market is likely to go the other way

    iPhones are coming with a USB rather than USB C cable in the box, which raises questions about the longer term commitment to Thunderbolt 3…

    iPhone Xr

    Why did Apple create so many colour versions. It has too many colour variations. One of Apple’s historic strengths has been keeping a tight leash on the product portfolio.

    More Apple related content here.

  • Crimson Hexagon + more things

    Facebook Suspends Analytics Firm Crimson Hexagon on Concerns About Sharing of Public User-Data – WSJ – Crimson Hexagon will likely get out of the penalty box soon, the co-founder works at a joint Facebook academic research partnership… Its also not that surprising what Crimson Hexagon did, given how crap Facebook is at providing data to social insights platforms like Crimson Hexagon or Brandwatch

    Congress is wrong to question Huawei’s academic partnerships | FT – op-ed by Eric Xu of Huawei, you could cynically interpret it as a plea for easier espionage and an interesting use of ‘freedom’ (paywall)

    INTERNET: Baidu Sambas Out of Brazil | Young’s China Business – There are lots of reasons for the inability of China’s Internet companies to succeed outside their home market. One is simply inexperience. But another is really the direct result of Beijing’s determination to set up what almost amounts to a parallel Internet in China that in some ways is identical to the global Internet but in others is very different. That strategy has helped to keep out most of the major global competitors in any meaningful way, allowing Chinese companies to thrive on their home turf thanks to their booming local economy. But that approach has also made these companies quite unprepared to compete globally, since they engage in many practices that are either unacceptable outside or simply undermine trust of local people. – China’s Galapagos syndrome: WeChat has NO end-to-end encryption, is censored worldwide for instance. Will only succeed in low risk categories – photo altering apps or casual games

    Why Hong Kong’s property bubble won’t burst anytime soon | HKEJ Insights – Hong Kong’s property market no longer serves only the city’s seven million people. We now must also serve a country of 1.3 billion with a growing number of rich people anxious to get their wealth out. Hong Kong’s red-hot property sector is a perfect place for rich mainlanders and international investors to park their money. Their hot money, combined with the local psyche that prices will continue to climb means the bubble will never burst. – You could substitute most of the world’s major cities as hot money from fast developing economy entrepreneurs and rent seek oligarchs park their hot money in property safe havens. Hong Kong isn’t going to see a tailing off of house prices until China deals with corruption.

    Amazon’s new Part Finder helps you shop for those odd nuts and bolts | TechCrunch – so cool,  I am just really scared that if I showed this to my Dad this ‘tinkerer’ element of his character would go into overdrive

    Publicis Groupe: First Half 2018 Results | Publicis Groupe – poor job done at controlling market expectations

    Android has created more choice, not less | Google Blog – yeah right. Basically we can’t get paid in data so pay us a licence fee. I wonder how much Google will have to pay to keep Google Search in the device if they do that. It could also create an opportunity for Oxygen, Yandex app store, Jolla and home grown distributions by the likes of Huawei instead

    Mark Penn on his update to MicroTrends

    Media – Twitter’s guide to getting the most out of the platform

    MEDIA Protocol – WTF

    Looking Through the Eyes of China’s Surveillance State – The New York Times  – I tried the glasses out on a group standing about 20 feet away. For a moment, the glasses got a lock on a man’s face. But then the group noticed me, and the man blocked his face with his hand. The minicomputer failed to register a match before he moved. Seconds later, the people scattered. Their reaction was somewhat surprising. Chinese people often report that they’re comfortable with government surveillance, and train stations are known to be closely watched

    Amazon crashes just minutes into Prime Day | The Drum – makes you wonder about AWS availability and uptime…

  • PornHub VPN & other things this week

    PornHub are one of the more interesting brands out there at the moment. Yes I did just write that last sentence. They’ve been hosting content that might be considered transgressive but isn’t porn, they have their own clothing range and a collaboration with New York streetwear brand Richardson. Their Asa Akira t-shirt is well tasteful and office-friendly. Seriously.

    They’ve now launched their own VPN service, which makes sense given what they know about getting streaming to work across networks.

    2B-Alert Web – is US department of defence funded research on optimising your caffeine intake. They are looking to have personalisation options and apps in the future.

    Liquid crystals can be trippy to look at through a microscope. I remember seeing something similar to this eons ago when I spent a bit of time in a Corning lab in North Wales. The lab is now a grass field next to a Toyota engine factory.

    Audi is in the process of launching its new Q8 SUV. They’ve taken a leaf out of BMW’s book; creating an online-only mini-series that initially reminded me of BMW’s The Hire. Good on Audi for signing off on a project like this.  I was a bit disappointed in the execution, it needs work: Q8 Unleashed.

    I’ve talked here before about the market dynamics driving streetwear upmarket to the point that it resembles the eco-system around Hermes’ Birkin bags – part luxury good, part financial investment. This Google talk from Stock X riffs on the theme. Stock X aren’t alone; there are a number of competitors as well as traditional online auctions eBay and Yahoo! Japan.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hd8lpHIIEc

  • Three and Superdrug + more

    Three and Superdrug launch new UK MVNO | total telecom – the MVNO deal with Three and Superdrug is a natural deal. Three and Superdrug are both owned by CK Hutchinson Holdings. The interesting bit is the cross business CRM where Three and Superdrug have got together to Superdrug drive loyalty card adoption. More retail related content here.

    THE LONG AND THE SHORT OF IT needs THE WRONG AND THE SHIT OF IT – BBH – interesting essay. The challenge is where do you get ‘crap’ campaign data from and how well will it be documented?

    Meet Kakao: How Korea’s Largest Mobile Giant Is Embracing Blockchain – CoinDesk – some smart critical thinking

    The Canard About Falling Incomes – WSJ – not an argument that I agree with, but Kessler argues that increasing digital features (like ABS on cars) compensate for the hollowing out of the middle classes (paywall)

    Tesla Model 3 Gets CR Recommendation After Braking Update – Consumer Reports – Teslas inspire a ‘true believer’ type following. I am leery of their ‘always in beta’ car software approach because its a car. So I am more concerned rather than delighted the that company managed to bring its braking distance closer to standard using an other-the-air software update

    Right Media, Creators of the First Ad Exchange | NYMag.com – the rise and fall of Right Media

    Chinese firms pile in to sponsor World Cup 2018 amid Fifa fallout-Sino-US – “Chinese companies get two things from sponsoring the World Cup. The first is access to western audiences that they will sooner or later be trying to win over, as their companies expand. The other is a cosmopolitan veneer to their brands, which they hope will resonate with their sizeable domestic markets.” – interesting that BBK’s youth brand Vivo rather than Huawei is the smartphone sponsor

    Grace Dent: ‘The processed food debate is MSG-sprinkled class war’ | Life and style | The Guardian – I would align it more with a Neo Victorian patrician attitude towards the working class

    Cross border insights finder – handy Facebook ad tool

    ‘I make £45k a month buying clothes for other people’ – The FT catches up with diagou 15 years after everyone else. China’s changes in luxury tax, increased travel of consumers, restrictions on capital flight, clampdown on corruption and e-tailing has had its toll on diagou

    Smart bulbs turn dumb: Lights out for Philips as Hue API goes dark • The Register – I get the benefits of technology but why does heating, lighting or other smart home controls have to be mediated through the cloud?

    Holiday Rentals, Homes, Experiences & Places – Airbnb – AirBnB launches stories which seems to be a continuation of its magazines

    What is a smartphone? | ASSA – really nice essay on smartphones and consumer behaviour

    Shenzhen’s tech innovation hothouse overheats – it’s been going on for the decade or so that I have travelled there. The unaffordability, maker spaces which are a real estate ruse to suck government grants and a grinding life pace. Financial services and design have already moved in. Your in less need of maker spaces when workshops can build working prototypes for you