The Smart Network Prevents HD Voice

September 16th, 2009

At the HD Communications Summit in New York yesterday, a wide variety of conflicts were clarified, but the starkest of those conflicts is that between the business model of the cablecos and telcos and new technologies like HD Voice.

The technology

HD Voice samples a greater amount of spectrum, at least twice as much of it as a regular phone call does, to make calls easier to hear. Early adopters might be first responders, financial companies, medical institutions, and anyone else for whom a small misunderstanding could involve a significant risk.

But in the long term, the technology is likely to succeed or fail depending on whether or not consumers like it. The benefits, such as intimacy, clarity, and simply not having to repeat yourself during a call, will not be immediately obvious to anyone who buys the service because it only delivers clear benefits if the network and both phones are using HD Voice. Read the rest of this entry »

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The Professor Calls Out Internet Lies Again

September 15th, 2009

Professor Andrew Odlyzko may not be a household name, but he should be to anyone who cares about the internet. Odlyzko is an internet statistician who dives into the past two centuries’ worth of statistics, citing the rates of growth of traffic over British steam railroads, the early postal service, laws regarding lighthouses.

In 1998, he said many, including former FCC Commissioner Reed Hundt, were culpable in the telecom bubble. He called out the myth that the internet was doubling every 100 days, noting in section 3 of “Internet traffic growth: Sources and implications” that if the internet were really doubling every 100 days, as was widely reported, it would be growing over 10 times per year, and over 1,000 times every three years.

The telcos had an interest in perpetrating this myth. They were looking for handouts from the government. Other companies such as Inkhtomi also benefited from the myth. The equipment providers clearly benefited. “The growth rate in Internet traffic is the most important factor in determining demand for equipment,” Odlyzko wrote.

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