Legislation

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Where They Destroy Packets…

May 14, 2009 in Divers, Legislation, Uncategorized by Administrator | 1 comment

I never had a good memory for proverbs and quotes. However, this one (in bold below) by “Heinrich Heine” stuck in my mind when I heard it some 15 years ago while visiting north Germany (Wikipedia excerpt):

Among the thousands of books burned on Berlin’s Opernplatz in 1933, following the Nazi raid on the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, were works by Heinrich Heine. To commemorate the terrible event, one of the most famous lines of Heine’s 1821 play Almansor was engraved in the ground at the site: “Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen.” (”Where they burn books, they will ultimately also burn people.”) In the original text, Heine had been referring to the burning of the Quran during the Spanish Inquisition.

I’ve been trying to figure out a way to express the same idea but in relation to the Internet and the fact that it is being deep packet inspected and throttled and filtered and fire-walled. I’m not so sure I figured it out yet but I came up with this line:

“Where they destroy packets, they will ultimately also destroy people”

I like it. Any ideas on how to improve it?

Mobile Multimedia: A Complex Ecosystem

September 21, 2007 in Consumer devices, Industry, Legislation by Administrator | No comments

Skip Pizzi writes a very interesting piece on the mobile multimedia landscape. He argues that the recent collapse of two major efforts to provide mobile TV (BT-Movio and Modeo) shows the complexity of this new ecosystem.

This is quite different from the traditional world of wireless delivery, where there were really only two businesses involved: 1) broadcasters, who created, distributed and delivered content through the air to consumers, and 2) manufacturers, who built receivers that consumers simply bought, turned on and tuned to broadcast channels to receive content.

Today the chain includes content providers, their hosting services, distribution networks (the Internet backbone), last-mile connectivity (wireless service providers) and compatible devices.

He also points to the fact that telecom carriers have the control over the technologies and functionalities that are enabled on the cell phones. For example, I didn’t know that FM receivers are embedded in many cell phone platforms in the US market today. However, that functionality is simple not enabled!

I believe that technologies should serve our needs and provide a better quality of life (QoL !). An ecosystem that locks down functionality that is there and deployed must be, in fact, VERY complex!

Tags: mobile+multimedia, broadacsting+phones

Beyond Broadcast 2006

May 12, 2006 in Industry, Infrastructures, Legislation, public broadcasting by Administrator | 1 comment

So I’m sitting right there, waiting for the event to begin.

Beyond Broadcast 2006 is loaded with great, experienced speakers with all possible backgrounds: braodcasters, journalists, technologists and so on. The theme is important:

We will explore the thesis that traditional public media — public broadcasting, cable access television, etc — face a unique opportunity to embrace new participatory web-based media models — podcasting, video blogs, social software, etc — and create a stronger and more vital public service.

And if I’ m lucky, my MMB demo will work fine this afternoon! I’ll try to report later.

Technorati Tags: beyondbroadcast, broadcasting+2.0, public+media, public+broadcasting

Radio Realities

March 25, 2006 in Industry, Legislation by Administrator | No comments

In their submission delivered this week for the canadian “Review of the Commercial Radio Policy“, the Canadian Association of Broadcasters (CAB) has published an interesting summary of the “Radio 2.0″ landscape:

 2006_03_25_cab_realitites.jpg

This list shows very well that there are lots of new content sources (I would add “user generated media somewhere in the list”) and distribution mechanisms. This is really bad news to commercial radio broadcasters because it can only mean fragmentation.

What can save them?

I would argue that the solution lies in the separation of the application and the network. Roughly, I think that broadcasters will have to sell their application (radio) through other networks while they will also have to open their networks to other applications.

In a digital world, bits are bits… and the “radio” bits may not be the “killer app” for the “radio” pipe. Because in the future, their will be no such thing as ”radio” pipes. There will only be dumb pipes for “ones” and “zeros”. That’s all.

Technorati Tags : , , , , , ,

Net Neutrality in Broadcasting

March 23, 2006 in Industry, Infrastructures, Legislation by Administrator | 1 comment

Within some hours after its publication, Michael Geist already posted a first glance analysis of the final report of the canadian “Telecommunications Policy Review Panel”. To a certain extent, it looks like that Panel has recognized the need to protect network neutrality principles. To me, this sounds like good news.
 
Net neutrality is one of the important topics in telecommunications this year. To give you an idea, net neutrality guarantees that all IP packets get the same treatment whoever sent them, whatever they carry and whatever the path they travel. Without net neutrality, your ISP could “slow down” or even block a VOIP service that’s provided by a competitor. In the wireless world, net neutrality will allow you to make Skype calls with your cell phone over your data plan (and thus avoiding the usual premium fees for voice services). Net neutrality should consequently allow for a more competitive and innovative market.
 
With this in mind, I’ve been wondering if net neutrality principles could also somehow be defined for terrestrial broadcasting. Do current broadcast regulations guarantee content diversity and fair access to braodcast networks? Would they support the new “user generated media” trend?
 
First, let’s not forget that broadcasting IS telecommunications. Broadcasting is a particular form of telecommunications specialized in one-to-many messages. It is unidirectional but has a very high data transfer capacity (because we’ve allocated large spectrum chunks to it!). Digital broadcasting will be a component (if we ever get it) of the global communications infrastructure.
 
Considering these great properties, could we imagine a flexible, Internet-like broadcast context where content and applications would dynamically and fairly get their chance to “hold the mike” for some time?
 
To take an example, I could imagine a “Top 100 YouTube” off-air mobile video channel. In such a service, nobody would be in control… or actually everybody since popularity, derived form real Internet consumption statistics, would be the content selection criteria. So in the end, the people would decide, implicitly, what content they want to “promote” to the broadcast level. Because again, in an pre-WiMax era (?), terrestrial broadcasting is still an extremely powerful delivery network.
 
In other words, I realize that this would suggest a reversed broadcast system. Before, content got popular BECAUSE it aired on broadcast networks. Today, the actual popularity could be derived from the Internet and used as the principal criteria to decide how to populate the broadcast spectrum. This would probably allow for a more natural emergence of content.
 
Would this be a way to support network neutrality principles in braodcasting? Your comments please.
 
Will we consider concepts like these in the current canadian Review of the Commercial Radio Policy? I think I would not bet on this one!
 
 

Freedom to Connect Conference

January 26, 2006 in Industry, Legislation by Administrator | No comments

For the second time, David Isenberg (the very bright father of the “stupid network”) brings us this great conference.
 
F2C is where communications policy meets networking technology, network economics, networked applications, and network construction and operation. F2C is dedicated to the proposition that strong networks build strong democracies, and vice versa.
 

2006_01_26_F2C-logo246.gif

 
WATCH OUT!!! The logo is not up to date. The meeting is on April 3-4.
 

Convergence at CRTC

January 17, 2006 in Legislation by Administrator | No comments

I had missed that one. CRTC makes a first move to adapt its structure to the convergence reality:
Effective immediately, broadcasting and telecommunications policy and operations will largely be grouped under a converged structure and leadership. A new integrated Industry Analysis, Economics and Technology section will be created as a resource for both broadcasting and telecommunications.
 
In my opinion, broadcasting is a particular application of the more general field of “telecommunications”. This being said, broadcasting requires specific caracteristics that are not always available in telecommunications systems today. That’s precisely the case with wireless networks. Also, applications exploiting the broadcast paradigm have specific properties. Currently, the wireless telecommunications industry shows a great interest in broadcasting technologies such DVB-H and DAB/DMB.
 
Convergence is a slow and difficult process in industries, organisations and especially governments. This here is good news.

Review of commercial radio policy in Canada

January 17, 2006 in Legislation, public broadcasting by Administrator | No comments

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) will be holding a public hearing in May 2006. The notice underlines the fact that since the last policy review in 1998, we have seen many “dramatic” technological changes:
 
The seven years since the 1998 Policy came into effect have seen the advent of new digital technologies and methods of distribution that are having a profound effect on the way in which people, particularly young people, obtain and listen to music. This is presenting the radio industry with new opportunities, but also new challenges: in addition to the satellite radio services now available, file-sharing, podcasting, downloading, and audio streaming, all facilitated through the increasing ubiquity of the Internet, offer new and often more flexible alternatives to the traditional practices of purchasing recorded music and listening to radio broadcasting.
 
Radio has to be redifined. Even the term “radio” has no clear meaning within this new context. The former definition of radio is based on some specific networking technologies (AM, FM, …), value chains (advertising,…), formats (talk/music mix,…) and so on. A radio broadcaster today has three roles: operate the network, manage content and finaly sell advertizing time. In our new converging world, the radio ecosystem will be broader, richer and much more flexible. Everyone can be a braodcaster. Everyone can afford to be a braodcaster. To listeners, all this will bring more convenience and choice.
 
I have strong doubts that the new policy will address all the Broadcasting 2.0 challenges and opportunities but at least, CRTC seems to be willing to have look at them.