Working Anywhere

Cisco Goes To The BallPark

This move to wire up a ballpark in the bay area is a tremendous move by Cisco and will provide them a playground to demonstrate their breakthroughs in a vary high profile environment.

I grew up in the sports and arena business, from the time I was 14 and worked daily in that world until I was 28. It is not a market that I'm unfamiliar with and actually back in 1999 had a similar idea. Technology though wasn't ready and the market sure wasn't then.

While this is being looked at initially as "look what we can show off" at the Yard, is really just the beginning. Once the technology is in place the ability to transport what goes on at the venue to anywhere that is IP connected really happens. So while you won't be able to taste the brat, smell the beer on the steps (not yet) the whole "networking" aspect of being at the game opens up.

Fantasy leagues take on new meanings and more...this is a huge step for Cisco and what's more was done without any intervention by Major League Baseball, as the entire deal seems to have been done solely at the team level which is the smart way to do things. Of course MLB will find a way to try to intercede, the same way that the NHL tried to stick their hands into the San Jose Sharks Sun Microsystems deal back in the 90s.

Story About Internet Speeds and Slowdows

What people fail to realize is today's cable modem and DSL experience is very much like the party line of old in the early era of the telephone.

I am constantly amazed that we think a shared pipe even at what we get from the cable MSO's is going to deliver the same kind of experience as a real T-1.

I for one am looking constantly at how I can have "my own" pipe, not a shared connection.

First Impressions on the New EvDO Rev. A From Sprint

First I'm fortunate to live in a Rev. A community, San Diego. And as Sprint rolls out more markets the usefulness of the EvDO USB modem from Novatel Wireless, the U720 will only increase.

With that, my first impressions are:

1) It works great for reading web pages

2) Is solid for sending and receiving email

3) Provides the kind of stability you need to have to maintain an uninterrupted Instant Messaging Presence

4) Speeds have been at just under 900k for download and under 800k for uploads on a test done indoors.

What I have not tried yet are:

1) VoIP calls

2) Video conferencing

3) Web conferencing

A smooth and broadband like experiences with those three application types for me, and for many nomadic types is essential. If the cards and the new Rev. A networks can't deliver a low latency, jitter and packet loss environment, then all the companies involved from Qualcomm, Sprint, Novatel, Lucent etc. on down, who make up the technology chain that delivers the experience will have failed. We're at 3G now and the throughput is there to support those two way, interactive, circuit switched world replacement technologies.

My New EvDO Cards Arrive Today

For those fortunate enough to live in an area where Sprint has upgraded EvDO to Rev. A, like my fiance (Sacramento) and myself (Del Mar, CA) the promise of really fast mobile broadband is supposed to be here now.

While I've been a user of both Sprint and Verizon's EvDO service since their inception, the services are really back up for me to WiFi hotspots. Sometime I just end up where there isn't any. As a Mac and PC user with varying slots (PCMCIA/Express 34, None) I opted to go with the USB modems as they will provide more utility overall to my growing staff, fiance and myself.

With the new release, and with what Cingular has rolled out with HSPDA, those who are mobile and nomadic may enjoy a $59.99 or $39.99 (carrier and plans vary) plan with these new cards that supposed to give you a real broadband experience (download and upload).

To me the real key will be how they handle:

Voice/VoIP

Streaming Media

P2P applications

The cards arrive today and more on this will follow.

SF WiFi Project

It appears the highly touted San Francisco WiFi project continues to hit speed bumps.

The fact that only 12 concerned citizens (if they were all citizens and not PR and Policy representatives) is a bigger source of concern. 12 in a city as digital as San Francisco...What are we talking here? HomelessWireless? Maybe GrandCentral can give away cheap WiFi phones like they give away free voice mail boxes for the homeless to have a phone number which a great humanitarian effort by clients Craig and Vincent.

Under the current scenario voice will be limited to 10 calls per access point at any one time, and according to well informed sources in the mesh space, this is not a problem that is getting solved this year by the mesh industry.

If I was advising Earthlink and looking at spending the kind of money it will take to build this out, vs. the return rate I'd try to figure out a way to use less access points that cover the same distance, reduce overall installation and Total Cost of Ownership, ramp speed to market and get this up and running in some kind of early test in a few communities to determine acceptance and usage before spending the kind of money quoted.

Mr. Blog Is Right (Again)

Mr. Blog takes a stance on the Skype pricing plan and goes nose to nose with Russell Shaw in a post a few days back.

He's right but one reason I would never consider Skype as a replacement for MY phone service is that it doesn't show Caller ID and that's an essential part of 2.0 calling. The other reason after spending time on the road using softphones, it was Gizmo Project and SightSpeed that were my primary means of staying in touch.

Gizmo provides the Caller ID that lets someone know who is calling, and while I have a Skype In Number, I would not use that as it doesn't pass the Caller ID or ANI over. What I did was point my phones to Webley and Grand Central and then let them route to Gizmo or my cell phone number in Spain, France or Germany. When I was in my hotel (except for my last night here in Frankfurt) I was able to receive calls over Gizmo or Truphone on the N8i or E61 from Nokia complete with Caller ID (most of the time).

My Dinner Meeting With Bob

Last night I had a dinner meeting with long time friend and uber blogger Bob Cox. Bob is best known as being the blogger who outed New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd for misquoting President George Bush and standing his ground against the Grey Lady and winning during his run with The National Debate a blog he has since retired, despite it being one of the best ever from the Blog 1.0 era.

For those of you who don't know Bob, he's also the mind behind a very cool and socially important organization, the Media Bloggers Association (MBA). In the sake of full disclosure I'm also the Treasurer and a board member of the group that is working with leading media organizations and media attentive organizations in the public eye to provide a working framework that will enable bloggers to be viewed in the proper light, and with the proper respect.

Bob and I have a long history and friendship that spans now ten years. As a matter of fact, if I had to put the root of how I met my future wife, Helene, Bob was the cause, as he pretty much insisted that I attend the 2004 BloggerCon at Stanford and while Bob and his family live in New Rochelle, NY we do our best to stay in touch regularly using all the tools available.

At the dinner meeting Bob brought me up to speed on all the current and near term things that are happening with the MBA. Some are right on course and others are downright mind boggling how Bob has been able to make some very impressive things happen. I mean the new web site is nothing compared to what Bob and the MBA has coming in 2007.

Bob shared all this with me in real time as we collaborated on ideas and caught up on what's going on with friends, family, bloggers and some cool concepts we've been passing back and forth during our 90 minute or so dinner meeting.

Given the distance it's not often I see Bob as much as we'd both like to. As a matter of fact it was great to see how fast two of his children have grown up when the happened by, and for me it was fun to orient them on some very good cooking at a lovely little bistro in Paris' 12th district.

Oh did I forget to tell you, I was in Paris for this dinner, but Bob, was still home in New Rochelle, NY and since I was dining alone, and had the laptop with me, I fired up SightSpeed and "had a dinner meeting with Bob."

Since the bistro, Jean-Pierre-Frelet, was pretty much mine at 930 PM in Paris, as Paris is pretty much deserted for the holiday weekend, and because there was an open hotspot with amazing speeds, SightSpeed allowed Bob and family to enjoy a dinner with me, and as a result his wife now has a dinner reservation when she and her sister visit Paris in early 2007. The family that owns the bistro was intrigued, but since they met Bob too, they seemed to chalk me up as a tech savvy dude..Nice...

If you don't believe me. Just ask Bob!

As you know I'm into Working Anywhere, and based on the collaboration which Bob and I had last night, I can feel comfortable knowing I can literally be anywhere working. The SightSpeed video was perfect, the audio better than phone quality and the ability to look over between bites and talk to Bob while dining was a great use of time management. As a responsible board member knowing what's going on is important and beyond reading the MBA Wiki, hearing from Bob always brings more color to things.

Oh and to go one step further, this post is coming to you from the Cafe Du Metro and their SpotCoffee hotspot...you see, Working Anywhere is really easy!

Mobile Monday Mobile Peer Awards

In what is shaping up to be a great event in Barcelona during the upcoming 3GSM Conference, the Mobile Monday group has announced a one day rapid fire presentation event called the Mobile Peer Awards. If I was in Barcelona, I'd want to be at this as the organizers don't want the old, tired, big and fat companies presenting. Instead they want the upstart, disruptive types in the same vein as Telco 2.0 does for their next event.

To me, this is the future of the conference world, not the so called established events which have become the standard for the many industries that the 2.0 world is playing in.

While I still see a place, and lots of success, for the established events, these upstarts will only make the big events better, so hopefully the establishment embraces the new ideas that are out there, instead of viewing them as threats and finds ways to bring them into the fold, not

Say Cheese

Wed 20/12/2006 14:52 20122006090

All you need is Internet access and working anywhere is so easy

Andy In the New York Times and Elsewhere On Working Anywhere

The timing of ZDNet's Marc Orchant's post could about my launching the Working Anywhere project could not have been better.

Call Mark clairvoyant, but his post was just a few hours ahead of the New York Times article that I was quoted in today about Hotel Broadband.

A few points I made to the reporter that didn't make the story.

1. I use VoIP tools a lot to stay in touch with colleagues, clients and friends. Right now Gizmo Project for Voice is the cat's meow for me as it's resident on the Nokia N80i and so so cool with some of the tricks I've got working via Grand Central. I'm also using TruPhone on my E61. Bottom line, while it's not Fixed Mobile Convergence the ability to make and receive phone calls via WiFi is a sweet deal using the same phone I'm using as my mobiles.

2. Video-I can't say it enough. SightSpeed lets me see the people I need to see when i need to see them, regardless of where I am, as long as there's broadband.

3. Unified Messaging....between Webley and GrandCentral I'm easily found or not found at all.

4. Web conferencing..Services like WebDialog's Unyte make presentations easy when you're on the road.

5. T-Mobile, Boingo and Wayport are the best wireless and broadband providers hotel to hotel, but the experience within hotel brands varies by location. Until the hotel operators get this right, the experience will never be the same twice.

6. Blocking of ports or bad router deployment. I run into some NAT traversal issues. Largely this is caused by just not knowing how to "wire up" the property the right ray. Double NATing leads to a less than happy customer experience.

7. The need for "bandwidth on demand." I related the story of being at DEMO in February and staying at the Pointe South Resort outside of Phoenix and the abysmal bandwidth we all had to live with. The hotel blamed a) some kids downloading music b) the ISP. WRONG. I called Wayport and learned that no one told them DEMO was going to be there. That was the hotel's fault. I actually went so far as to call Loews Hotels and shared my views with them. I hope things have improved. Bandwidth on Demand means it's there when you need it. My guess is that T-Mobile uses this approach.

8. My experiences in Europe. Consistently better. When in Munich last year I executed computer repairs with my assistant using SightSpeed. I could see what needed to be done and was able to guide her. This year hotels in France the times I've been over here have been stellar. Orange has it nailed. In Austria during Thanksgiving in 2005 the bandwidth was so good Ken Rutkowski remarked how much better I sounded vs. being in Del Mar.

More in the next post of Tips On Working Anywhere..

Oh...don't miss pal Om's Web Worker Daily. They have more on this and the fun of what we both will do will be your daily one-two punch on how to work away from home and the office.