Resources and analysis for community broadband
AT&T’s Rob Hyatt and Verizon’s Ed Ruth spoke today about the music business at the Mobile Entertainment conference at the CTIA show in San Diego. Neither were upbeat about their success to date, and both seemed to be waiting for something to happen. They seemed to define that something as “innovation” in the market place, but what they really seemed to want are innovations that allow them to keep music downloads and streaming within their walled gardens.… More
Steve Blum, Tellus Venture
Associates, doing project
due diligence in HuamboTelecommunications and transportation make the difference between subsistence farming and sustainable commercial agriculture in Angola’s Huambo province, where Tellus Venture Associates is supporting a development project through Rotary International. The physical infrastructure was obliterated during nearly 30 years of civil war, but mobile phone applications could soon provide a life-saving solution.
Potatoes sold in Huambo might earn $175 per ton, but could fetch $500 or more per ton in coastal markets, hundreds of kilometers away.… More
The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) put on a great show in San Francisco on Friday. Hosted by Commissioner Rachelle Chong, and featuring State of California CIO Teri Takai, Susan Walters from the California Emerging Technology Fund (CETF), and several very well prepared staffers, the workshop covered the essential details you need to know in order to apply for NTIA’s BTOP (Broadband Technology Opportunities Program) grants or RUS’s BIP (Broadband Initiatives Program) money, and to have a hope of getting matching funds from either CPUC via the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) or CETF.… More
Tellus Venture Associates is supporting a comprehensive development effort in Angola’s Huambo province. The project combines agricultural and marketing education, infrastructure building, seed (literally) capital, market development and microfinance. I became involved a couple of years ago when I helped my Rotary district raise $250,000 for the project, amounting to 25% of the first phase. The remaining 75% is from World Vision, a development and relief-focused NGO, and the Angolan government.
Manuel de Sousa, president of the Rotary Club of Luanda (left),
and Steve Blum (right) at the EU/World Vision agricultural
training center in Huambo province
In June 2009 I traveled to Huambo, with several fellow Rotarians, for due diligence on the current project as well as future needs assessment.… More
A story making the rounds — and it might even be true — is that the National Institute of Health received 15,000 applications for stimulus grants that it’s administering. Of those, about 400 got funded in the first round. Based on the accelerating interest in the broadband stimulus program, it’s very possible — likely, I think — that we’ll see a similar response.
The broadband stimulus money is still sitting in the pipeline. Latest word is that NTIA will release the grant criteria on 30 June 2009, and allow a month or six weeks for applications to be prepared.… More
Checking out ISC show at Sands, lots of vendors, buyers & energy. Bull market for security these days.
WiMAX vendors split between ISC & CTIA, focus is on 2.5 GHz for Clearwire, lots of competition at other frequencies.
Back at CTIA, LTE has the support of the big guns at this show. WiMAX US hopes are pinned on Clearwire, more happening internationally though.
Finally found disruption! Magmito.com is phone-top publishing, can do for mobile apps what Pagemaker did for newsletters.… More
CTIA head Steve Largent talking at keynote sez wireless a bright spot in dismal economy.
Tmobile-USA CEO Robert Dotson also upbeat, so far speech is bland banalities, invoking Obama, Charles Lindbergh.
Dotson showing video talking up open source, sez on indy devs to drive innovation.
Dotson links stimulus bill, wireless broadband, rural connectivity & tmobile, guess who’s lining up for government cash?
CTIA survey sez people don’t want more taxes or regulation or to pay higher mobile phone bills.… More
Zannel pulls together video, photos, text and pushes it to your social nets. Take video on phone, upload to Zannel, push it to Facebook.
Zannel site provides portal for video, photo, text microblogging, can mash it up, for example on map via geotagging.
Supported sites include twitter, facebook, blip, blogger, wordpress, flickr.… More
Following a couple weeks of meetings and conference calls with industry, government and community people, and doing some reading, the broadband portion of the stimulus package isn’t looking so stimulating…
Notes from the Silicon Valley Telecom Council’s Policy Luncheon
The prevailing view amongst the private sector people who have been talking to contacts with the Obama team is that the lion’s share of the broadband money will go to incumbent carriers. “Jobs are created through the existing structures,” was how Mike Masnick put it, quoting a highly placed source in the administration.
Yesterday’s Silicon Valley Telecom Council policy luncheon in Santa Clara was sponsored by AT&T, but big carriers by no means dominated the panel.… More