Meeting Without Traveling?

Making more sales should be the top priority for every business in 2009. In order to do this, people will need to get in front of as many people as possible. In the past this meant either getting in a car or on a plane. In 2009, these meetings will take place virtually. We will see more video business communication and web collaboration.

The meetings in 2009 will happen face to face for sure, but it will be either video phone to video phone or monitor to monitor. Communicating while looking at the other person is quite a bit more effective than a simple phone call. When a video call take place it is easy to see when the other person is instant messaging, or talking to someone else, or even if they are completely checked out. The psychological aspect of video calling makes each meeting more effective.

Advances in technology have made video calling much easier to adopt. For starters, the cost to install a system is a fraction of what video business communications was even a year ago. Next if there is a high speed internet connection, then a video call can take place. Or better yet, wherever there is a VOIP connection, there can be a video call. There will be a time, in the not so distant future, that voice only calling will be very scarce.

Having a face to face meeting is not all that is required to make a sales these days. In the old days, people carried a bag and a pitch book. Building value in a controlled process is critical to the sales process.

Companies like Webex have opened up the presentation process so that all parties can see the same information but they do not allow for a two way communication. In 2009, people will see more and more true web collaborations where both parties can have a say at the presentation table.

The in personal meeting and the presentation will never go away, but in 2009, companies will find other ways to get their points across.

China's 600 Million Cell Phone Subscribers Just Got A Little Faster

The Chinese government announced that it would back 3 standards of next generation wireless. According the the New York Times, China's 600 million subscribers will now have faster downloads for data, video and web browsing. China said it would issue licenses for each of the three major standards, the home-grown TD-SCDMA standard, as well as two international 3G standards that are favored in the United States and Europe.

The cell phone operators will benefit greatly because their users will be able to download more information, faster in more places.

The Chinese telecommunications industry is not fully open to competition. This means that opening up the wireless spectrum at the government level really only can help China. Since they have the most users in the world, they really have a solid revenue stream for years to come.

FCC Backs Off Wireless Filter on Porn

The Federal Communication Commission Chairman Kevin Martin has backed off their stance on filtering of pornographic material for the 25 megahertz of wireless spectrum that will be auctioned off.

In an interview given to CNET, online he said, "I'm saying if this is a problem for people, let's take it away," Martin told Ars Technica. "A lot of public interest advocates have said they would support this, but we're concerned about the filter. Well, now there's an item in front of the Commissioners and it no longer has the filter. And I've already voted for it without the filter now. So it's already got one vote."

There is a lot of opposition for this auctioned space because companies like T-Mobile who have already spent $4.2 Billion for their wireless network. For T-Mobile, it seemed they were out in front of the pack with only a few gaining on them, such as the new Clearwire initiate. For the FCC to auction off space and allow for competition is somewhat unlucky for T-Mobile, but very good for the United States.

This wireless network is very important to the growth of our economy. It will allow people to do more business more often. The easier it is to do business, the more that will get done. As for the ban on porn, if the FCC is sprinting to get this free WiFi, the actual content discussion will have to take a back seat.

It will be a very reactive project for a while. As we know people are going to complain. Either too much nudity, or in the Facebook breast policy, not enough.

It is good to see we are working toward a functional solution which will begin to allow the American people to get online faster and more often.

Undersea Cable Breaks Again, Just After Repair.

Repairs for the severed SEA-ME-WE-4 undersea cable were scheduled to be completed Monday, December 29, 2008. The New York Times reported France Telecom had a group of engineers who completed the first repair, only to find another breakage this time off the coast of Alexandria, in Egypt on the SEA-ME-WE-3.

The cable sits roughly 9800 feet below the surface. Reliance Globalcom , who manages the project projected the ship to arrive at the new cut on December 31, 2008 and repairs won't be complete until 1/4/2009.

The undersea cable system is a significant source for transferring content between the Europe and Asia. There are a lot of companies that rely heavily on this path. Once they complete the repair, a giant sigh of relief will be heard.

Facebook Breast Policy Challenged

I think we have officially run out of things to protest. There is a group of mothers protesting the Facebook Breast Policy. They are contending that it is natural act and mothers should be able to express themselves. The San Jose Mercury News reports, online that the protestors were afraid that is Facebook would not allow the mothers to show their fully exposed breast, it would send the message that breast feeding is shameful.

Facebook has encouraged their users to post everything about their lives, but they can't post nudity. They do this because it is a slippery slope in some cases. It does go to show that anything can be protested.

Adaptix Files Complaint Against Clearwire for Patent Infringement

Adaptix has filed a complaint against Clearwire for patent infringement. Adaptix believes Clearwire has encroached on 6 of their patents. The major issue being the way in which users are dynamically assigned to the network, according to an article online.

Clearwire is not the only company in the WiMAX space right now, others such as Towerstream, Wavemax and DigitalBride are also taking advantage of the IEEE 802.16 standard.

The motive for this complaint is not totally clear to me. I don't see how Adaptix is going to keep every other company out of their space. This feels a little like the CDN controversy between Akamai and Limelight. Even if they win the first one, what do they do about 2, 3 and 4?

It could be that this is a nice opportunity to get their name out there, which it has done a nice job of. If you subscribe to the theory that any press is good press, then the complaint has already paid for itself.

Level 3 Raises an Additional $400 Million. Will that be enough?

Level 3 Communications in Broomfield has long been one of the only major telecommunications carriers not to file bankruptcy. If you are a company like, Level 3, money is very hard to come by these days and the money that is available is very expensive. The Rocky Mountain News reports that in an attempt to mitigate 2009 and 2010 cash issues, the company has borrowed an additional $400M from it's stockholders. As I said, it does not come cheap, they will pay a staggering 15% annual interest rate.

Fifteen percent on $400M on it's face seems like blood money. But if the cash well runs dry, Level 3 might have to pay double. If they use it and can't pay it back, this will most likely lead to bankruptcy and the interest rate is a moot point. Either way, I see no way Level 3 can't borrow this money.

A major challenge is they will need to keep sales up just to make this $400M do anything for them, if not their share holders are going to get very uneasy. Doing this in a competitive telecommunications industry is much easier said than done.

Any way you slice it, Level 3 might have too much debt, at some point in 2009 we might see them try and restructure it. It might be inevitable.

Google Hands Out G1 Phone for Christmas Bonus

Google handed out their G1 phone as a Christmas Bonus. Not totally clear if this is all the bonus their employees get or not. Reading a number of sites, including Internet News, some believe the giant tech company held off on their traditional bonus, which some times went as high as $20,000 per employee, and handed out a phone.

This can go one of two ways, the first is the employee already has a phone and this could be viewed as an impersonal way to say thanks for your blood sweat and tears. Or one can look at this and think, well the employees get to work for one of the only true sure things left in todays economy. They could be happy they have a job and that their employer appreciated them enough to say a little extra thanks. I mean after all, the real thanks is a stable pay check. Personally, I think what they did was a very nice gesture.

Laptop Tray with a Fan? PERFECT

We began our Holiday season as we do every year on December 23rd. Once again, my wife took care of business. It really is the little things that matter. Just about every day, we work a full day in our respective professions and after dinner, rather than watch TV, we would sit with our laptops and get caught up in the living room. Unfortunately there seems to never be enough time in the day.

The problem, was my laptop would get so warm that I would either have to sit a huge pillow under the machine or just find a table or desk to put it on. It is amazing how a little heat has the ability to agitate me.

After listening to me complain for years, she decided to do something about it. Belkin International has a laptop tray with a fan that plugs into the USB port on the machine. It works like a dream. If any of you have ever run into the same heat problems, I strongly recommend this tray.

Man Tweets From Plane Crash

As some of you may have heard there was a plane crash in Denver, CO over the weekend. There were a few of you who knew a whole lot sooner than the rest of us. The first thing Mike Wilson, a passenger on Continental Airlines Flight 1404, did as soon as he was safely off the plane was hit his Twitter, and I am sure he is happy he did. The airplane skidded off a Denver International Airport runway and slid almost half a mile on Saturday night. I read about his tweeting in the Washington Post, which is quite far from Mike's hometown of Denver, CO. Since then he has received a lot of attention and fielded a number of interviews.

Twitter's micro-blogging is sweeping the nation. Twenty percent of Twitter followers have signed up in the past 60 days. Micro-blogging allows people to show anyone interested what they are doing right now. In the world of reality television, this take reality to a whole new level. Thank you Mike and thank you Twitter.

Browser Wars

Have you ever had a friend send you a link on Instant Messenger, just to find that it did not open with the browser you typically like to use? Or did your search results come up differently depending on your choice of browser? These are all symptoms of the browser wars that are going on, and they are not getting any easier.
A very nice Washington Post article pointed out that Firefox, who receives 91% of it's funding from Google, might have an up hill battle. Google took the beta tag off of Chrome earlier this month and now is positioned to go head to head with Microsoft for the preferred browser tag.
Commercially, the fight has been between Apple and Microsoft, where Apple has quickly been replacing the legacy windows machines. These Mac users are now up for grabs, since it is a no longer a given that the default will be Internet Explorer. What I do know is that I wish Mozilla good luck these next few months. I also know we as consumers should see some accelerated benefits while the competition heats up.

10GE Over Copper Getting Attention

Solarflare just raised an additional $44M bringing the total raised to $170M. Their software allows a network to run 10 Gig E over copper. In a New York Times article it said Solarflare is going to launch this new chip in 2009.

This raised an interesting discussion in within our engineering staff today. Half said they believed in the software and hardware of Solarflare, the other half wondered if the copper could sustain the signal. Many carriers and data centers have gone down the Ethernet Over Copper route so we know people are doing it. Obviously, there are about $170M reasons that someone believes in this new initiative.

Lets keep an eye on this one.

The Value of a Data Center

With the ever increasing need for Enterprise companies to have multiple Collocation facilities it is very important to understand how to value a Data Center. In all major cities there are Data Centers that support the needs of local and international enterprise companies. Some facilities demand a premium for the space that is available while others in the same market have unfilled space. The primary features of a Data Center that allow owners to rapidly fill the space at a premium price is a.) power b.)connectivity to the site c.) Facility owner / operator d.) location. Each feature will be addressed in detail to ensure that a complete understanding is presented.
Power:
Power is the most important factor to ensure that a Data Center will be successful and meet the needs of enterprise clients. There are two (2) main factors that are looked at in terms of a facilities power. 1.) How the power is delivered to the building and 2.) Power density at the site.
Power should be evaluated from the grid level, then feeder level as well as the individual power circuit to the cabinet or cage.
For a facility to be looked at as truly power fault tolerant the site should be connected to multiple grids within the region it is located. This will help prevent a utility level outage should a catastrophic event occur on a single grid.
The datacenter should also be fed from diverse substations within the respective grid. The feeders from the substations should come in the building through diverse power vaults from different sides of the building. This ensures that the site will have power if a substation goes down and helps prevent a single point of failure should the feeder be cut do to human error.
Once the power feeders have been delivered into the facility and terminated. It is critical to understand the redundancy that has been built into the power delivery system within the facility. There should be an Automatic Transfer Switch (ATS) in place to ensure power can flow from the redundant feeder should the primary have an outage or the utility company needs to perform maintenance on their infrastructure. Behind the ATS the power circuits should flow in to at a minimum Two (2) sets of UPS devices. This will allow for redundancy at the UPS level and is often referred to as n+1 UPS configuration. Should the primary UPS device go down the second one will serve as the main UPS for the datacenter.
Continuing power redundancy to the cage or cabinet level will require delivering power from both the primary and secondary UPS system. On the data center floor RPP’s or breaker panels will be installed to deliver individual power circuits or “whips” from. Having panels from different UPS systems on different feeders allows for power to the cage or cabinet to be delivered redundantly or in what is commonly referred to as A&B feeds.
Each step of power delivery can be verified by looking at single line diagrams that are created by Electrical and Mechanical Engineers prior to building the space. These documents are usually housed in the property manager’s office.
The Second key factor to evaluating the power within a facility it to look at the total number of Mega Watts delivered to the building and what the IT load is for the data center you are considering. If you understand the total power delivered to the building and has a rough understanding of the total square feet of the facility then a rough idea of what the IT load of the data centers with the site can be put together.
At a more granular level the actual IT load of the data center is the driving factor to a facilities value and scalability. Older facilities are spaced out to operate at 70w/sqf-110w/sqf per. The newer high density sites are being built to support 150w/sqf to 300+w/sqf. This allows for the client to fully populate the new blade server environments that are on the market and keep them in the smallest foot print possible.
If you understand how power is delivered to the facility from the utility company all the way to the cabinet as well as the overall power available you can get a good idea of what a data centers value is. This will be directly correlated to the IT load within the datacenter and the cost per Sqf that enterprise customers will have to pay to take down space within the facility.


RDM

Three Undersea Cables Cut: Traffic Greatly Disturbed between Europe and Asia/Near East Zone

Three undersea cables were cut this morning causing massive outages in the Mediterranean Region. The cables affected are the Sea Me We3, Sea Me We4, and FLAG. France Telecom is sending its Telecom Marine Cable ship based at Seyne-sur-Mer out to see this evening to begin repair work. This is the second time this year that this type of incident has happened. “For this to happen twice in one year, on the same cable, is a serious cause for concern” says Jonathan Wright of Interoute. Interoute manages part of this optical fibre network. At this time the cause for the damage is unclear although some seismic activity reportedly took place near Malta shortly before the cut was detected. Officials are stating that it could take until December 31’st to repair the cables. Right now the main damage is to the submarine cables running across the Mediterranean and through the Suez Canal. Reports are stating that 65% of the traffic to India was down and that service to Singapore, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Taiwan and Pakistan have been severely degraded. This incident raises several questions. The most obvious being: What steps are going to be taken to deliver more redundancy along these routes? As a service provider, it is necessary to always discuss redundancy options with our clients. It is hard to imagine the amount of revenue that is lost when an outage of this magnitude takes place. Serious ROI studies in regards to redundancy need to be examined as global networks continue to grow and more and more applications become dependent on these global networks. What is the cost of an outage? Does it outweigh the cost/benefit ratio of having stronger infrastructure? These are all things to look at when building out global networks that are so critical to so many people.



Jake Cummins

Loopt Branches Out

Loopt, a mobile social media site began with the iPhone and now is available to every major US mobile carrier. Tech Crunch reported what was once dedicated to the iPhone now is available on 3 phones on the AT&T network, now Loopt is making the service available to all Carriers. The Article points out that Loopt is trying to chase Facebook and Myspace in the social networking space. Sounds like a big hill to climb. Lets keep an eye on these guys.

Group from Japan Asks Google to Stop Map Service

A group of lawyers and professors has asked Google to stop their map service, which drill down the the street level with a 360 degree view. The article had a quote which said "We strongly suspect that what Google has been doing deeply violates a basic right that humans have," Yasuhiko Tajima, a professor of constitutional law at Sophia University in Tokyo, told Reuters by telephone.

Coming from someone who thinks the Google map is a wonderful tool, I think they are a little bit paranoid. Or full of themselves. Either way I think the request is a little bit out there.

Panasonic to Buy Sanyo

New York Times reported that Panasonic will buy Sanyo for $9 Billion. If this deal went down 12 months ago, I think this transaction is quite a bit larger.

Just a nice reminder that in the technology sector, companies are really going one of two ways, up, or down.

France Telecom Apple Agreement Deemed Excessive

France Telecom was oh so close. A report online reported a watch dog group stopped the partnership. They almost had a five year exclusive with Apple to offer the 3G iPhone for the largest provider in France. The five year exclusivity agreement was deemed "excessive, and poses a serious risk to competitors in the mobile market."

This would have been a major victory for Orange. They will still be able to sell the iPhone, but the exclusive is what makes the partnership incredible. Lets see how this plays out, they are surely going to appeal.




TG Daily

WiMAX is here to stay

High bandwidth media content is driving so much of the feeding frenzy for more access to broadband speeds. WiMAXpromises to increase access and availability to wireless devices and households with a 30 mile radius of a tower. Many ISPs are looking into using WiMax for last mile connectivity and promises to deliver up to 75 Mbs of symmetric bandwidth. With wireless becoming more of a preference among users, WiMax will be a growing technology in the future as companies like Clearwire roll out implementation across the US.

Earlier this month Clearwire announced a major partnership with Sprint Nextel, to work with their next-generation wireless internet business. Clearwire also completed it's funding round to the tune of $3.2 billion. Investors included, Time Warner Cable, Google, Intel, Comcast and Bright House Networks, all household names.

As you can see both Clearwire and WiMAX are here to stay.


Danny Kim

Delta to Offer Free Wifi

Delta Airlines announced that they will start offering Gogo Inflight Internet Access on select flights throughout the continental U.S. This is great news for all of those who are looking to maximize productivity while traveling. Customers will be able to Access the Internet, Corporate VPN’s, Corporate and Personal Email, as well as send text and instant messages. Being someone in the connectivity business , this is very exciting news. Having the ability to IM and send email at 35,000 ft. traveling at 500Mph is huge and will sure make those flights from Denver to New York go by much faster. Voice calls are still prohibited and obviously some sort of “surfing etiquette” will be enforced. I am just not clear how your differentiate between a data call and a cell call. It will also be interesting to see how they monitor the content.

If you are flying on Delta between December 16th through December 31st you can try the service for free, after that the Gogo Service will be offered for $9.95 for flights under 3 hours and for $12.95 for flights over 3 hours. Gogo is a subsidiary of Aircell. Aircell is the company that delivers the inflight WiFi systems. Customers should experience download speeds comparable to surfing the web with your Blackberry or using your wireless card on your laptop. Airlines are hedging that this service will improve their customer experience and help sway customers to travel on their jets versus airlines that do not provide this service. I’m interested to see how this works.

Jake Cummins

Nye Leaving LinkedIn

Dan Nye is leaving LinkedIn according to the New York Times. He will be replaced by Reid Hoffman, a company co-founder. It appears the Google legacy is growing still, last week Linkedin hired Dipchand “Deep” Nishar, as its vice president of products. I am not sure what they put in the water in Silicon Valley, but there sure is a lot of talent.

Surf's Up Dude

Is video going to overload the Internet? The Economist is the latest to discuss this in their recent Dec 4, 2008 article on "Surviving the Exaflood". This seems to be the latest headline to pop up, ever since the Nemertes Research Report came out with their warning in November 2007. Nemertes did a great job researching the subject, relying on some very good research from some of the leading analysts on global Internet growth (*see work by Dr. Andrew Odlyzko, Minnesota Internet Traffic Studies (MINTS); Pew Research; Center for The Digital Future at USC; Cisco; and CAIDA (Cooperative Assocation for Internet Data Analysis). The 70 page report was quite extensive, and at times was a great sleep aid, as it took me two nights to read it, since I kept falling asleep.

The media has blown out of proportion what the true issue on Surviving the Exaflood. The issue is not in the core backbones of the Inernet filling up with video traffic. With over 30,000 organizations running their own AS (Autonomous System) numbers worldwide (see Renesys, Potaroo and CIDR Report) and over 200 wholesale carriers running their own long haul fiber networks in North America alone, the Internet is definitely not run by a handful of providers. This is a common misconception. Carriers will continue to increase capacity on the "backbone" to pass the Exaflood of traffic, as long as these carriers can afford to upgrade their equipment (see below). The issue is whether the last mile connection to the end user "eyeballs" will be able to scale to take it all in. This most likely will be an issue, especially for end users that are stuck on a regional last mile carrier that is not upgrading services to offer a multi-megabit connection. Globally, there will definitely be the haves and have nots, as it relates to adequate last mile pipe. In North America, those on high capacity cable networks, FIOS from Verizon, or other newer systems will be more likely to continue to surf the Exaflood. However, those subscribers stuck on an ISP or rural provider that does not have the budget to upgrade the last mile will be left behind. What does left behind actually mean? Probably similar to the way some content providers offer sites specific to mobile users vs high bandwidth users.

Carriers around the world are probably worrying how they are going to continue to pay to upgrade their backbone networks, as pricing for bandwidth has continued to plummet, the same way long distance voice has fallen. In order to keep up with the latest trends in 40Gig and 100Gigabit ports (the cutting edge in high capacity routinga and switching), some change will need to occur for backbone providers to be able to afford to install this equipment, if the cost of the bandwidth is next to nothing. So, in my opinion, there are two real threats:
1. Certain subscribers on outdated last milie connections will not be able to receive the high volume of traffic, due to their small pipes.
2. Unless some business shift occurs, many backbone providers will not be looking to adopt the latest equipment to properly route Exaflood capacity, due to the spiraling cost of wholesale Internet capacity.

However, let the tide rise and waves start rolling in. Here at our shop, the mantra is "surf's up".

Scott Charter

AboveNet's Launches jabNET Targeting Motion Pictures and TV Producers

AboveNet launched a service targeted at the Motion Picture and Television industries called jabNET. According to their press release jabNET is a production and post production community based network designed to shave days off of production.

The community feel allows for information to move as if they are in the same room, even if they are sitting in rooms a separate sides of the globe.

It appears Abovenet is using some form of QOS to make sure the media packets get preferential treatment.

What stands out to me is they are taking the guess work out of the networking side. Movie and TV producers typically don't want to be network engineers, so if jabNet is as easy as they claim, this could be a nice little angle for Above.net.

WBS Connect Appoints New CFO

WBS Connect Appoints New Chief Financial Officer
Data Networking Innovator Strengthens Executive Team with New CFO to Direct Financial Growth and Expansion

DENVER, Colo., December 11, 2008 – WBS Connect, a Colorado-based global technology services company today announced the appointment of Greg Sadler as its Chief Financial Officer. Effective December first, Mr. Sadler will be responsible for directing the company’s strategic financial direction.
With a diverse background in accounting, finance, mergers and acquisitions, and international business development, Sadler brings valued expertise to the WBS Connect executive team and will help manage the company’s continued expansion and leadership in the data communications industry.
“We are fortunate to welcome a seasoned financial officer whose knowledge of the telecommunications industry will further strengthen the WBS Connect executive team,” said Scott Charter, co-founder of WBS Connect. “Greg brings 19 years of experience in the communications industry and 10 years of public accounting experience with a Big 5 firm. As we continue to grow our network footprint and product portfolio, Greg’s direction will be invaluable.”
Greg has experience building, acquiring and financing several high-growth telecom companies around the world. Most recently, he was CFO for WiMax International, evaluating and pursuing wireless broadband acquisition opportunities in Europe and Asia. His resume also includes CFO positions at UIH Latin America, VeloCom and Ricochet Networks. He began his career with 10 years of experience at Arthur Andersen and 8 years with US West International.

“WBS Connect is a dynamic company with an impressive track record,” said Greg Sadler. “I am very excited to join the WBS team and be a part of the company’s next stage of development.”

"I am confident that with his wealth of insight in developing strong business strategies, Greg will provide the financial leadership required to take our business to the next level,” said Mike Hollander, co-founder. “We are extremely pleased to have Greg as part of the WBS Connect team.”

The addition of Sadler now gives WBS Connect two high level financial executives. Suzen Rodgers will assume the role of Chief Accounting Officer, where she will continue to have a significant impact on the organization by maintaining the day-to-day financial operations.


About WBS Connect
WBS Connect is a privately-held provider of global technology services. The company was founded in 2003 by managing partners Scott Charter and Mike Hollander. It leverages multi-gigabit commitments with IP transit carriers to offer high bandwidth Internet connections and data networking services worldwide. WBS Connect also offers data center colocation, expert managed network services, high definition video conferencing, and cloud computing services. They have a presence in over 300 carrier-neutral data centers across the world, and have access to over 70,000 network nodes. For more information visit the WBS Connect website:
www.wbsconnect.com.

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Network Hardware Resale adds Force 10 to Product Mix

Network Hardware Resale announced in a press release that they have expanded their service offering to offer Force 10. This is very exciting because Force 10 has a great product line and it will give the NHR customers an alternative the traditional Cisco devices they are used to buying.

Tiscali International Network to Offer Ethernet Extension

Tiscali International Network announced in a press release, they will now be offering an international ethernet extension. This is a local loop at the ethernet level. Personally, I think it is a great idea.

The speeds businesses are now requiring is quickly surpassing the traditional T1. In fact in many major metro's you will find that the price for a bonded 3 Mb T1 is about expensive as going with a 10 Mb ethernet circuit. Many places in Asia already run ethernet only, so now it is time for the rest of the world to catch up. Tiscali is positioning itself to chase up market. It is just a matter of time until all carriers offer a larger internet loop to reach the enterprise.

Dell to Cut Packaging Costs Rather than Lay Off

Dell says it will save $8.1M over the next four years just by changing it packaging. Beta News reports that instead of laying folks off, they have decided to change their shipping material. One might ask, why did we have to have a recession to save $8.1M?

eBay Headed to Utah

Ebay is headed to South Jordan Utah. The purchase of the land was announced today. According a number of news sources including the USA Today, Utah Channel 2 new channel KUTV along with Standard Net Live, eBay will build a $334 Million data center. For data center standards this really is about in the middle. The Google data centers are going to be a little more expensive, while others will be less.

Utah's geographic location was an obvious draw. There are no hurricanes, earthquakes or tsunamis. The worst thing that can happen from a data center stand point is they might get a little chilly running from their car to the man trap.

The biggest challenge will be to pull fiber into the new building. Jordan, UT has not been known as a tier 1 city for IP transit sales. But somehow I think they will figure out a way to get the connectivity there.

China Filtering Information on the Internet

I was reading a very interesting article in the New York Times today about the filtering of information on the internet in China. Around the time of the Olympics the Chinese government began blocking websites that violated various laws. These include everything from anti Chinese government sites to Child porn. Obviously some material is more cut and dry and some could have a little gray area. These laws are very broad so they are up for numerous interpretations. What ever the interpretation, it seems that if the government does not like it, then the information is probably going to be blocked.

Living in the United States this seems a stark contrast to the free speech laws we have here. The filtering of information is scary to some people. But I do have to stop and ask, are they doing what is best for their country? I can't answer that, I can say that they have the worlds strongest economy right now, which many other countries would like to duplicate. Is it necessary to duplicate everything? That remains to be seen.

No Need for a Trail Map with the new iPhone App

The new Snocator is an interactive map with over 70 ski areas in it. Should be very useful for those looking for ski conditions or a nice place to grab some food after the final lift. Check out the snocator on their site.

Cloud Computing from Cisco: Data Center 3.0

According to Cisco's blog, it seems the Cloud Computing market is getting fairly crowded. At this point it is almost one big land grab. I am not sure where their place in the market will be but as we all know they have the expertise and equipment to make it happen. Cisco as a service provider will be their next hurdle.

Google to Offer CDN

In the Google Public Policy blog Richard Whitt openly discussed their latest project, Google Global Cache. He danced with the topic of net neutrality and content caching. His take was that the content should travel naturally rather than by a least cost route. He explained that if the net is neutral the traffic should flow in the fastest path, rather than the least cost route.

Google has enough traffic that their CDN product was no doubt designed for their own traffic performance and it just so happened they might have found a new product too. It will be interesting to see how it plays since Akamai did just win a major victory over Limelight networks. Google is an amazing animal and my hat is off to them.

CRG West Any 2 Exchange Meeting- Follow

My partner Scott Charter was in Los Angeles last week for the Any 2 member meeting and here is a short recap.


Tom Ray, CRG West's CEO, and Carlyle Group Board Member opened up the Any2 Exchange Members Meeting at the Wilshire Annex in Los Angeles. The Any2 Peering Exchange currently has 159 members peering in California, with two more planning to turn up prior to the end of 2008. With a total of 9 properties scattered across California, Chicago, Miami, Boston, Reston, Wash DC, and New York City, CRG West is planning on continuing to invest in more infrastructure and services in its properties, as well as it Any2 Peering Exchange. Tom Ray went on to explain how CRG West used to consider itself a real estate business, yet, over the past eight years has come to see itself as being in the power industry, looking to attract customers requiring power and cooling, as well as enhanced services (such as the Any2 Exchange).

CRG West CTO, John Savageau, offered a glimpse to the 60+ attendees into some not so future plans for continued expansion of the Any2 Exchange. Two key priorities include: 1) linking up the Northeast Exchange (Boston and 32 Avenue of the Americas, NYC with the Reston, Virginia and 1275 K Street, Wash DC exchanges), and; 2) implementing an open interchange for approved cloud computing providers to offer their services to Any2 members. Taken together, these two initiatives reinforce Savageau's plan to reduce member operating expenses by using centralized facilities provided by CRG West.

A few different speakers from various companies gave some technical talks on various issues, ranging from IPv6 for backbones, Peering Strategies, Cloud Computing and High Definition Video Conferencing. WBS Connect captured the entire event in HD, which was broadcast to video conferencing attendees who could not be in attendance in Los Angeles.

While the video conferencing proved how easy it is to offer remote users a live glimpse of the conference, I was more excited about the upcoming Cloud Computing fabric to be offered to CRG West customers and Any2 members across the United States. This type of cloud fabric will begin to show up across the globe, not only in the 9 sites we are in but in all of their sites. As more end users recognize the benefits of reducing CAPEX and OPEX by leveraging centralized resources from carrier grade vendors (such as WBS Connect) we will see Cloud Computing really take off.



For more information about CRG West please go to their site. For more information about WBS Connect, please visit our site

OpenZine Offers a Different Take on Blogging

Ran across a company Openzine today which offered a fresh take on a blogging format. Their site walks you through how to set up a blog that is in a magazine format. The familiarity of the format somehow makes sense to me. Nice work Openzine.

M2Z Networks Making Some Noise.

M2Z Networks have been pushing very hard to get free wireless access to over 95% of the United States. According their site if the FCC passes a vote, it will open up internet access to over 100 million Americans, who right now don't have access to the internet. I believe this could open up quite a bit of opportunity.

I think it is fair to ask, who operates this network? How is it sustained? If this free network opens up, what affect will this have on the already struggling telecom sector? It seems to me that if we are seeing layoffs and job slashing now, how are we going to create new jobs to support this new network? I am sure the RBOC's would love to have government money to support a new profit center in each of their markets. But with the new Clearwire initiative, I am not sure the RBOC's will see any of this revenue. Should be interesting to see how it plays out.

Microsoft releases first iPhone Application

Microsoft announced it's first iPhone application, Seadragon Mobile. It allows users to have a deep zoom function. I think we will see more and more of the cross over. The Apple widgets have pulled many Windows users over to their products. Apparently Microsoft thinks two can play at that game. Look for more of this in the months to come.

Internet or Sex?

Browsing the New York Times technology section, read an article that actually did not surprise me. 46% of women and 31% of men said they would rather give up sex for 2 weeks instead of the internet. Also 65% of them said they could not live without the internet. In the major metropolitan areas, I would bet these numbers are low.

It is amazing how much things have changed in even the last 4 to 5 years. The internet is almost like air to some people.

Bell Canada Back at Square One

Bell Canada is having quite the time and appears now back at square one. Now that there is not going to be a buy out and there is a potential litigation, they are forced to look very closely at how to bolster their declining business.

This is a trend we will see more and more. The tricky part is everyone needs the internet, but the costs to access it are quickly falling.

Lets keep our fingers crossed for Bell Canada.


NYT

Free Internet Plan Faces Opposition

Top Democratic lawmakers asked the FCC to delay a vote that would allow free internet access to those who can't afford it or..... don't want to pay for it. If it passed it would set up wireless internet across the United States using WiFi. As a consumer, I think it is fantastic, as a carrier, I wonder who is going to pay for it and support it. We are reading every day about a CLEC or RBOC cutting jobs and we are about to give free internet service to people who.... don't want to pay for it. If we do offer free nationwide internet, we come up with some way to drive revenue back into the network.




Reuters

Video and Telepresence Grow Among Government Agencies

Nice article in TMCnet today touching on Telepresence. Gave us a nice little shout out. Please take a look.

CRG West Any 2 Exchange Meeting

Today at 1:00 pm PST CRG West will be holding their Any 2 Exchange meeting. John Savageau CTO of CRG West has put together a nice line up of presenters. I am not just saying this because we are one of them, it truly is a group that we are very pleased to be mentioned along side. Tom Ray, CEO of CRG West will open the conference, and will be followed by and all star cast of cutting edge technologies. 3Terawill be presenting their cloud offering, Hurricane Electric will be presenting their IPv6, Slide Inc. will be presenting on the peering fabric itself, Scott Charter, Managing Partner of WBS Connect will be presenting it's HD Video Conferencing and it will be wrapped up with the CEO of Enki Cloud Computing Dave Durkee to showcase their offering.

We will have a fill write up along with some video of the event later. Stay tuned.

Video Calling, the next VOIP?

I have seen and used other video calling platforms. Most are software based, Sightspeed, Skype, iChat, you know the drill. Vidtel is a hardware based video calling with software capabilities. When Scott Wharton, C.E.O. of Vidtel came to use with a new idea for video calling, I immediately had some reservations. He shipped us a couple phones and told us to activate them ourselves.

Surprisingly, their online portal was very user friendly and we were up and running in no time. The picture was in real time, with no lag. It was surprisingly clean with limited pixillation.

Another cool feature was the video messaging. If you want to leave someone a note, it does not have to be a sticky or a voicemail, it is a real video of you in their email inbox. Very slick.

It was the ultimate puppy dog and I fell right for it. Nice work Vidtel.

Check out their plans and prices at their site.

More Companies Go Lean and Mean

The tech sector seems to be running lean and mean these days. Sony announces 8000 jobs slashed. That might seem like a lot, but they do have 160,000 employees worldwide. Also, Level 3 Communications announced it was cutting 450 jobs from its work force.

Seems like companies are trying to do more with less. One has to hope they don't sacrifice service because if they cut the wrong person, the ball can bounce the other way too. The customers companies have are good as gold, the key for many companies is just not to go backwards. Overall, I hope to see these press releases about job cuts slow down and more positive messages come over the wire.

Cisco is Getting Ready for Video

Cisco believes we are about to see a whole lot more video traffic on the internet. They have a full court press right now, part of this press is the release of a new software package that will support their ASR9000 edge router. It is designed to offer traffic shaping so to maintain the media stream. It will identify video packets and give them priority.

Where is this traffic coming from? There are so many market drivers, we could fill up this page 4 and 5 times over. A few of note are Telepresence, Video Calling, and online media such as Netflix who just announced an instant library available on Tivo. The lines between that flat screen in your living room and your flat screen on your desk are burring greatly these days. I guess the question is, when will there be no line at all? Cisco says that time will be very soon.


CW Site

Will Cloud Computing Help Pick this Economy Up?

The new trend in the world economy is we need to do more with less. Cloud Computing enables virtually anyone with a good idea to be a serious contender. It is harder to borrow money for up front costs, no problem if you pay for only what you use. We no longer have to pay for unused colocation, servers, storage and bandwidth. These days, if you are set up with the right Cloud Computing partner, you can trim away all of this unused, over purchased space, power, bandwidth and storage. And, we have not even addressed the expertise to support these over purchased liabilities. The point here is that Cloud Computing will empower those with great ideas to reach the next level sooner than later. It is not to say, the hard work is no longer needed, but Cloud Computing clears the path way so the hard work can begin.

Add and Media Spending Down in 2009

When times get tough, what is the first to go?? That's right advertising and media spending. Some say spending will be down at least 6% in 2009. This means we will see a lot more blogs, tweets and the always trusty email blasts. The playing field will be a little more level in 2009 from an advertising perspective. The people who are the most creative and who work the hardest will get the furthest. Think of it like any commodity play, you want to buy low and sell high. Right now is the best time to grab as much market share as possible. But now is not the time to sit back and wait.

If you want to read a little more, check it out.


WSJ

Google Friend Connect

It was only a matter of time as to when Google would hop in the social networking game. They have launched Friend Connect in a beta. Friend Connect has a community feel like a Facebook, a rating system like Stumble Upon and an immediate comment similar to Twitter. Google has made it very easy for the user to add it to their site. Should be very interesting once the adoption picks up.


Friend Connect

Another CLEC cutting jobs

Tough way to start out a Monday if you are a Paetec employee, the Rochester NY based CLEC announced they will be cutting 222 jobs, according to Syracuse.com . This is roughly 5% of their work force. It sure will be nice to see this economy turn around.

Is Broadband Access the Key Component?

Is there a direct link between broadband access and prosperity? President Elect Barack Obama might say so. His site outlines his strategy's on everything from education to appointing the nations first Chief Technology Officer. In this section the common theme is that we will need to beef up our technology if we are going to compete. One point that caught my eye was, that he wants to build out a nationwide next generation broadband network.

At face value this seems fairly common sense and I thought the USA was doing pretty well in this are. Well BBC News points out that the United States of America is not in the top ten nations for quality broadband access according to their site. It seems Japan has set up their nations infrastructure to be able to support and sustain the growing internet demand. The key factor here is how much each consumer has access to. Most people in Japan have access to over a 10 Mb circuit, where as in the U.S.A. our DSL service typically runs up to 640 kbps. This might work for today, but what will it take to increase that speed. Well, I think we are about to find out.

It seems if the children of the next generation are going to compete they will need the bandwidth to do so. So the question now is, how do we do that. President Elect Barack Obama is going to put together a coalition to attack just this issue. This coalition will get to figure out how to get fiber to the home, every home that is. I have attached a little more on the coalition.


WashTech New Coalition

Giving the average consumer more bandwidth will allow access to more information. And if information is knowledge and knowledge is power, I for one will be pulling for this coalition.

A Marriage Between Twitter and Facebook???... Look Out!

How ironic is it that I am writing on Blogger about Twitter? Just ask Evan Williams, formerly of Blogger now C.E.O. of Twitter. To say this guy has his finger on the pulse of today is an under statement. I was reading a brief write up in the New York Times about a potential merger of Twitter and Facebook.

It interested me because I think both companies are tremendous. Each in their own right are blowing up, if you put them together, it would seem to be a match made in heaven. This is from a consumer's perspective.

Williams explained that the timing is not right and that Twitter has more to accomplish. I am not sure where they are headed, but I am going to sit back and enjoy the show.

Here is a link to the NY Times article. Take a look. Very interesting.












NYT Twitter Turned Down Facebook

WBS Connect Wonders What Else is Going Virtual?

As someone who 100% believes in cloud computing, I read an interesting article called Wall Street as the first business infrastructure as a service. The premise of the article is virtualization is going to stretch much further than the traditional software realm.


Wall Street As A Service

The beautiful thing about this new virtualized world we live in, is that somehow we will have to access this information. And to do this we will use the cloud. As technology advances we are able to do more and more inside the four walls of a data center. Cloud Computing offers higher CPU, faster through put, scalable bandwidth and the pricy expertise to support it. Virtualization is going to be everywhere, it's just a matter of time.

Level 3 Chooses Storey as President, COO

Level 3 Communications announced today that Jeff Storey will be the new COO reporting to Jim Crowe. The integration of the new conglomerate has been their biggest challenge, I hope Mr. Storey can build some cohesiveness between the different organizations inside Level 3.




Level 3 picks Storey as president, COO

Google Putting the Breaks on Spending?

It speaks volumes of the potential state of the economy when you read articles like the link below. Eric Schmidt C.E.O. of Google announced they were going cut back on spending. Right now this is a no brainer, the only reason this is noteworthy, we have never seen anything like this before from Google.

Currently, as a service provider, or any business really, there is so much more to keeping your lights on as opposed to 12 months ago. A company can perform their trade or duty to 100% satisfaction and it might not be enough to guaranty that at the end of the day the lights will stay on. There are so many other factors that go into this equation. Factors such as your consumer's ability to pay their rent or electric bill? Did the consumers over spend on their vehicle last quarter causing a domino effect? Business is not as simple as it used to be.... Last quarter.

The Google article from today is such a stark contrast to the Level 3 article from yesterday. I think it speaks volumes about the two C.E.O.'s and the message they are trying to send to their investors. Google opened today at $266.03 and Level 3 opened at $.79. It may not be a fair comparison but it is worth noting.

Since nobody had an accurate crystal ball I guess we will just sit back and watch this thing unfold.





RMN Google puts the breaks on spending

Level 3's Crowe Bullish on Economy

I was intently reading an article today about Jim Crowe of Level 3 Communications today. It was interesting to read his spin on the economy. It was vastly different from the doom and gloom that Qwest (cutting 1200 jobs) and ATT (cutting 12,000 jobs) illustrated. His view must be a little different up there in Broomfield.



RMN article on L3

Super NAP

For those of you who don't know, Switch Communications, www.switchnap.com, just opened the most power dense Data Center in the world in Las Vegas, NV. I spoke with Chris Donnelly, Chief Marketing Officer, who explained the buzz surrounding the new facility is contagous and he having a lot of fun at work these days. After speaking with him I felt very inspired.

This monster of a facility is 407,000 square feet with 30,000 tons of system plus system cooling. It is designed for 1500 watts per square foot density and will hold over 7000 cabinets. And I know for sure they will sell out. The facility sells itself, please take a look.

There is so much to this world class organization that we will go deeper in another post but for now, I hope this whets your appetite.

SuperNAP Tour